Category: Small business

3 Ways to Build Brand Authenticity

Brand authenticity is when your customers, and potential customers, believe that your business is being genuine about its products, services, actions, and promises and that every part is in alignment with who you claim to be. But why has being an “authentic brand” become the holy grail for a modern business?

The simple answer is, that customers are losing faith in brands. For decades, businesses have got away with “talking the talk” – in other words, just saying they believe in something, support a cause, or generally do something positive. Now, the power of the internet makes it hard for brands to hide anything from their customers, so talking just isn’t going to cut it! 

In general, people are more sceptical and devote a lot of time and energy to researching brands, products, and services online. If you are perceived as untrustworthy, they will simply find a different brand that they do trust. To be authentic you need to “walk the walk” as well. For instance, if you say your customers are at the heart of everything you do, you better make sure every question or concern is answered on your social media channels!

What makes a Brand Authentic?

 

There are three elements to Brand Authenticity:

Continuity

A brand is consistent with its beliefs, values, and goals in all that it does.

Credibility 

A brand is rooted in reality rather than aspirational marketing, in other words, they walk the walk!

Integrity

A brand that is honest, and motivated by its responsibility to its customers, and often the wider community and environment.

How to Increase Your Brand Authority 

 

Start with your customers

When planning a marketing strategy with Brand Authenticity at its heart, don’t start with “how do we sell this?”. Instead, identify who you are marketing to and what they want, and then speak to them about their needs and how you solve them. A customer-first approach is the best first step.

Be consistent

Whatever your values, story, and message are, you need to make sure that this is consistent across all of your marketing. This helps your audience to see you as reliable and perceive your message as honest.

Get Involved

 Finally, you need to speak to your customers. Listen to them and engage with them. Deliver great service, be transparent, and be approachable. Whatever your values are, whatever you are selling, by humanising your brand and engaging with customers you will go a long way to improving your brand authenticity.

Brand Authenticity helps you stand out from your competition. While your competitors suffer at the hands of spam filters and ad blockers, your customers will be your advocates, sharing your message with others. By building stronger connections with your customers, you can generate long term brand loyalty, and that is always the goal of good marketing. So put the effort in and your authentic brand will reap the benefits.

If you’re interested in talking to our team about how we could help you build brand authenticity, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us here for more information or call us on 01600 891525.

Is it Time for a New Website?

If you ask a car salesperson if it’s time for a new car, they are going to tell you “of course!” without even looking at what you are driving – this will probably be true if you ask the salesperson of a web design agency if it’s time for you to get a new website! But if you ask a designer, a developer, or a marketer at the same agency you will get different answers – so how do you know if it’s really the right time to invest in a new website or refresh your existing site? There are a few benchmarks you can check your website against to see if it’s ready for an update, or if it’s already in peak condition.

  1. Is your site user-friendly?

In 2006, having a user-friendly website meant having one that you could use on any browser. Ten years on it was about having a mobile responsive website that could be used on any device. Now accessibility is the benchmark we are measuring the internet against. If your website isn’t inclusive and meeting basic accessibility criteria, it is showing its age!

  1. Does it match your business branding and messaging?

If the main message of your business has evolved, or the industry you are working in is talking about things differently, then it’s time to at least address the content of your website. Your photos, imagery and branding should also be assessed to make sure they are showing your business in the best possible light.

  1. Do you dread updating your website?

Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Drupal, Shopify and all of their friends are constantly being updated, so if making basic changes to your website is costly, time-consuming or just plain clunky and awkward, it could be time to get an update.

  1. Is your website performing at its best?

Your next checkpoint involves digging into your statistics. If your traffic is less than it used to be, or your conversion rate has started to decline then something is wrong. These symptoms are not necessarily going to be cured by a new website, but they are not to be ignored. It’s time to put your detective hat on and start to investigate what’s going wrong and how you can solve it.

  1. What are your competitors up to?

While your detective hat is on, have a snoop on your competitors’ websites! Have they redesigned their site recently, or given their brand a facelift? If so, what changes have they implemented?  If not, what are they talking about and what types of content are they using? Of course, it’s not a substitute for real market research, but it’s better than none at all!

If you are still on the fence, there is a simple test – do you cringe at the thought of your customers going to your website, or do you beam with pride and encourage people to head there whenever you can? An honest answer to this question will tell you all you need to know.

Are you feeling inspired and thinking of injecting some fresh thinking into your website, or creating a new one from scratch? Get in touch with our team and find out how we can help. Contact us here. 

5 Ways to Step Up Your Marketing in 2023

Running a business, your time is valuable – and seriously in demand. You want to build a social media and digital presence, grow your brand and reach more people but there never seem to be enough hours in the day. But focusing on a few key steps can kick-start your marketing growth this year. 

  1. Know your audience

Who are your ideal customers? What are their drivers and why might they come to you? Put together example customer personas for your target groups, and share these across the business to ensure everyone has the right customer insight and that any proposed marketing initiative is tailored to your target audience. 

  1. Get your branding right

Establish a clear brand identity, including design, brand voice and succinct brand messaging. A strong brand is a key differentiating factor to make you stand out from the competition. And if it’s your business, don’t worry about showing a more personal side to your brand – it can have a good impact.

Brand all your communications and make sure your logo, company name, tone of voice and messaging are consistently applied, including on your website, social media and emails. Inconsistency will dilute customer recognition and loyalty, plus variation in company name could negatively affect Google searches for your business.

  1. Engage with social media

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn are all potential marketing avenues for your company. If you’ve never used any of these to promote your business, you’re missing out.

  • Don’t let fear of ‘doing it wrong’ stop you engaging – There are plenty of good free courses available to get you up to speed and comfortable with different social media channels.
  • Target your resources – Focus on the social media channels right for your audience.
  • Put a plan and guidelines in place – So everyone knows what to say and when.
  • Schedule in time for regular engagement – Post regularly and respond to enquiries promptly.
  • Bring in help – Consider enlisting the support of an external social media manager and marketer as a flexible and cost-effective way of maximising social media opportunities. 

  1. Create content

Whether you are posting on your website, putting articles out on social media or sending out e-newsletters, you need regular, valuable content.

  • Make sure your content is engaging for your audience.
  • Vary your content. For instance, add videos, third-party content from credible sources and event information into the mix.
  • Plan ahead with a content schedule and get content ready ahead of busy times, so there is no communication drop-off.
  • Repurpose content in different ways – on the website, in emails and social media posts.

  1. Go direct

Don’t forget the potential impact of direct marketing too. A well-targeted email marketing campaign can be an effective and inexpensive way to reach large numbers of existing and potential customers, to target specific groups using segmented customer lists and potentially build good customer relationships. 

Revitalise your marketing in 2023

 

And remember there’s support available to help you at every stage if needed. If you’re interested in talking to our team about how we could help you step up your marketing in 2023 we’d love to hear from you. Contact us here for more information or give us a call on 01600 891525.

5 Fun and Festive Marketing Ideas For Your Small Business

Competition is high during the festive period, no matter what industry you are working in. With so many different companies vying for the attention of your target audience it can feel impossible to stand out and be seen – especially if you have the typical tiny marketing budget of a small business!

Even if you don’t know exactly what to do, you know that doing nothing is not an option. You need to get involved to benefit from the extra traffic and spending that happens at this time of year. So here are five ideas for marketing your business in a creative, fun and festive way that should help you stand out from the crowd.

Countdown to Christmas

Two of the things synonymous with Christmas are Advent Calendars and ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’, and both give you the opportunity for a ‘countdown’ campaign. Maybe you can offer 24 days of deals, or 12 free training videos, or maybe even a prize draw every day for customers who purchase.

A countdown campaign is a great way to engage your audience and remind them of who you are every day of their shopping calendar.

Help a Good Cause

This time of year is not just about consumerism, it’s about gift-giving and hospitality, so highlight the values that your company stands for by partnering with a charity or supporting a relevant organisation during the holiday season. Not only will it help you get on the Nice List, but it will also give your customers a great reason to do business with you. 

Whatever you decide to support, remember to do it with sensitivity. The current cost-of-living crisis will make the Christmas season especially difficult for a lot of people. Your audience may even be the recipients of the help you are giving. Focus more on the importance of helping than how wonderful you are for doing it!

Make Christmas Greener

Did you know that at Christmas in the UK 114,000 tonnes of plastic packaging goes to landfill?  Consumers are becoming more aware of the problem of wasteful holiday packaging and are paying more attention to the environmental impact of the holiday season. That makes it a great opportunity to highlight your business’s green credentials, and promote what you are doing to reduce your environmental footprint over 2023.

Get Interactive

The Christmas period is definitely a time when we feel like we’re being yelled at by every shop we’ve ever bought from, so instead of shouting about your latest deals, give your audience the opportunity to get involved and take action.

Interactive content could include polls and surveys, quizzes, calculators and games. Anything that stops the scroll and gets visitors involved with your content is a winning campaign.

Don’t Stop on December 25th

When you’ve worked so hard to gain momentum over December, don’t stop! Make sure that your campaigns carry through the weird pause between Christmas and New Year when we all forget what day it is and struggle to eat anything that isn’t candy cane shaped. Give all the people who engaged with you the opportunity to take action again with more interactive content, chances to give back and countdown to New Year and beyond.

And remember there’s support available to help you at every stage if needed. If you’re interested in talking to our team about how we could help you up your marketing game during the festive season we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at here for more information or give us a call on 01600 891525.

How to Conduct a Killer End of Year Marketing Audit

How often do you review your marketing?  Ideally you should be looking at your statistics regularly throughout the year, but certainly before you embark on plans for the next 12 months. 

You need to look at what worked this year.  And what did not. 

In marketing, we call this an audit – a systematic review and assessment of what has happened up to this point in the year.

  1. Where are you now?

The first place to start is by looking at where you are at right now.  Get all of the data you can together for your website, your email marketing, your budget and it’s ROI, your social media, your sales and whatever other data you’ve been measuring throughout the year.

  1. Look back to look forward

Step two is to reviewing the marketing plan that you made at the start of the year and seeing where you are relative to what you wanted to achieve.  For each objective and goal that you set yourself, look at the measurements and find the relevant numbers you’ve gathered up in step one to see how you did.  For example, if you wanted to increase the number of subscribers to your newsletter by 25%, go dig out your numbers for January and for now and do the maths. 

The reason we do this before we make our next plan is not just to pat ourselves on the back for the goals we reached, but to help us in setting our goals for the year to come.  Where did we surpass our goals – were the numbers too conservative?  Where did we miss the mark – did we not focus on this area enough or was something else responsible? 

  1. An honest appraisal

Step three requires setting your ego aside, and having an honest look at how your competitors have done in the year. 

How active have they been on email and social media?  If you don’t already follow them on social media, or subscribe to their emails, now is the time to do that! 

How has their website been updated during the year?  Where are they coming up in the search results compared to you – has this improved? 

As well as your own statistics, this information can help you to see where your company’s marketing was lacking and offer inspiration on where to focus attention for the year to come.

  1. Delve deep

Finally, step four is to review all the information you’ve collated.  Dig deep and ask questions on everything you have gathered, like:

  • Why is this number different to last year? 
  • How can we improve on this statistic? 
  • What time of year needs more attention? 
  • Who could we ask for help with this next year?

The answers to these questions will form the basis of your marketing plan for the year to come and create actions that you need to take in order to see improvements and reach your new goals.

If you think your business would benefit from some marketing support this festive season we’d love to hear from you! You can contact us here or pick up the phone and call us on 01600 891525.

 

How do you include Halloween in your marketing plan?

It’s October, the summer is over but it’s a little early for festive cheer, so what better way to fill the gap in your marketing plan than with a Halloween themed campaign? It sounds good, but for many small business owners it can seem a bit uncomfortable – how on earth could they link their business with Halloween? And why should they bother?

Simply because you can. Marketing for small businesses can get stale quickly with repetitive, predictable campaigns. By keeping your marketing flexible, and reacting to the season you can keep things fresh, and keep your customers engaged all year round. With that in mind, here are our top tips for a scarily good Halloween marketing campaign.

  1. Keep it simple

If you are a small business, focusing on B2B clients, don’t spend time trying to work out how to make all of your service offerings sound spooky! As you would with any campaign, keep the plan focused.  For instance, if you are an accountant, you could just plan around ‘making tax less scary’; or if you build websites you could offer one ‘horribly good’ deal for the week.

The same goes for B2C like hospitality and retail businesses. If you are a restaurant owner, you could have a spooky-themed menu for one week, or some Halloween themed cocktails; or in a retail store you could choose one small group of products to promote using your Halloween theme…which brings us nicely to…

  1. Choose a theme

No, Halloween is not a theme – it’s too broad!  If you choose a more specific theme, like scary movies, or Frankenstein’s monster, or even pumpkins – it will help all of the planning go a lot quicker and help you create a more coherent campaign. Step one is what you are promoting, step two is how you’ll promote it.

  1. Don’t just decorate your campaign

Don’t limit the Halloween theme to your campaign-related graphics and print work or it will feel completely out of step with your brand. If you have a physical location that customers come to, like a shop or restaurant, then get to work on the Halloween décor. If you are online only, you can get creative with your social media graphics, website banners, or even a temporary themed logo or profile picture. By spreading the theme subtly across all of your marketing, you will make it feel less jarring and more part of the bigger plan.

  1. Plan where and when to reach people

The next step is to plan out your campaign and include all of your marketing channels (e.g. social, email, video, website, direct mail, POS etc.) then plan the frequency of contact on each. Don’t go overboard with lots of extra posts or emails as you’ll frighten more people away than you’ll attract.

  1. Get creative

Just because Halloween isn’t an event that you automatically associate with your business, doesn’t mean you can’t have some fun with it! Halloween is a fun time of year when you can get away with things being a little messy, so embrace it and test out some fun new ways to market your products.

If you’d like to speak to one of our team about how we could help you create a spooktacular Halloween marketing campaign, you can get in touch here. Alternatively, pick up the phone and call us on 01600 891525 – we’d love to hear from you!

 

7 different ways to advertise your small business

Advertising your small business is stressful – with so many choices and, usually, so little budget how do you choose which channels to use and where to spend your money?  It is important to find the answers, as knowing how to promote your small business in the best possible way sets you on the path to growing your market and expanding your reach.  Reaching the right audience, in the right way, at the right time is the key to successful marketing, and it is different for every business, but there are some general things that can help.

Here are 4 free and 3 paid ways to advertise your small business in a crowded market.

Free Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

 

Social Media Marketing

LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok – the list of social media platforms goes on, with Wikipedia estimating that there are over 130 different ones to choose from now! The key to using social media to advertise your small business is choosing the platform that your customers are using most, and then updating your page regularly.  The only cost to a successful social media marketing campaign is your time investment. 

Email Marketing

If you have a list of customer (or potential customer) email addresses, using them wisely is a great way to market your small business.  Send out helpful articles, sales messages, and rewards to those who sign up and you will create a faithful following that will convert as well as your social media audience, or even better! 

Website Marketing

Don’t overlook your website.  If you are doing all this work to drive people to your website, you need to make sure it converts them into leads.  Make the most of your data and analytics to ensure that it is working as hard as you are.  Search Engine Optimisation is another great way to make your website do more for your business.  By optimising your website to be found in the search engines you can increase the number of visitors, and with no direct costs, your only investment is time and energy.

Content marketing

Another fantastic way to market your business is by creating valuable content.  This could be blog posts, videos, and even podcasts.  It is a great way to express your brand’s personality and help you to find new customers.  It can also support your social media and SEO work, so it’s a great option to use in combination with the other free marketing ideas we’ve suggested above.

Paid Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

 

Paid Advertising on Search Engines

 

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) marketing is a really effective way to market your business as it allows you to send your message to a highly targeted audience and set a tight budget.  Google Ads and Bing Ads are the most common, and each gives you a chance to test multiple adverts and campaigns to see which performs best for your goals.

Social Media Advertising

 

Instead of relying on organic growth in your social media profiles and pages, you can create very visual social media adverts and display them to a highly targeted audience.  As well as giving you the opportunity to reach a wide number of people for a small budget, the advertising options on these channels give you access to a huge range of in-depth data which can help you to make future advertising decisions.

Remarketing Campaigns

 

If you already have a bank of customer data or have run successful paid campaigns in the past, then remarketing is a great option. Remarketing is usually a cheaper option than other paid marketing options, and has a higher conversion rate.

Whatever your budget, whatever time you have to invest, there is a marketing solution for your small business. Take your time, make a plan and good luck!

If you’d like to speak to one of our team about how we could help you attract new customers with catchy and clever advertising tactics, you can get in touch here. Alternatively, pick up the phone and call us on 01600 891525 – we’d love to hear from you!

Six Sizzling Summertime Marketing Ideas to Grow your Business

Hospitality and retail businesses love the summer – when the weather is good people go out and spend money. Even when it’s not good, they make the most of days off and bank holidays and, hopefully, these industries reap the benefits.  For B2B and service-based businesses, it can be a less exciting time!  When people take holidays and spend fewer collective hours at work it can be a slow time for small B2B businesses.

So what can we do to encourage people to come in from the sunshine and give their time and money to your business, whatever industry you are in?

  1. Welcome the Summer

Instead of trying to pretend people aren’t going on holiday, embrace the fact they are travelling!  People are excited to go to different places again after too long stuck at home in lockdown, so get excited with them.  Find fun ways to encourage them to engage with you – like photo competitions. Imagine getting them to take photos of your product or logo in new places.  Not only will it help to get your customers excited, but it will also help you to create your content for the whole summer months.

  1. Get Retro and Go Offline

If people are spending less time online because of the summer sun, then find them in other places.  Send them something fun through the post, a little gift, a thank you card, a gift voucher – something to make them smile.  Get creative with print advertising and get your business seen in the ‘real world’ where your customers will be.

  1. Make it a Big Event

Have you heard?  We can meet face-to-face now!  It’s been so long that it can be easy to think that any old event will do, but try to think outside the box.  ‘Drinks and nibbles with slides’ is not going to cut it – get people excited and give them a fun reason to come and see you in person again.

  1. Add Some Summer Value

The cost of living crisis is hitting us all and your customers might well be looking to reign in their spending so a discount or offer may be a welcome way to encourage them to make that purchase. But whilst your customers will be looking for the best deals to save pennies, being the cheapest won’t necessarily win you the customer. Consider how you can add value beyond ‘summer sales’ and posters with thermometers on them! 

  1. Make the Most of Your Customers

It’s easier to sell to someone you’ve already sold to, so treat your current customers like royalty with exclusive offers, downloads, content, giveaways or events that spoil them.  Show them you haven’t forgotten them just because the sun is shining and target them with a loyalty campaign.

  1. Make the Most of Referrals

Testimonials and case studies are tried and tested ways of creating trust in potential customers, but they can take a lot of effort to generate.  Word-of-mouth recommendations have a much shorter ROI and can be accomplished with a single campaign.  Encourage your current customers to recommend you to their peers in exchange for a small reward.

If you think your business would benefit from some marketing support this summer we’d love to hear from you! You can email info@limegreenmarketing.co.uk or pick up the phone and call us on 01600 891525.

Why Print Marketing Still Deserves a Place in the Digital World

We live in a digital age, with almost everyone owning a mobile phone or tablet computer.  Since your customers now harness the power of a personal computer in their back pocket, it’s no wonder that digital marketing is very much at the forefront of any company’s marketing strategy. But what about print marketing? In a digital world, do we still need business cards, leaflets and posters and ads in magazines? Print may have taken a hit, but it’s not finished yet!  Print still holds a powerful position in marketing and business, and that won’t change anytime soon, so where should your print marketing be focused in a digital world?

Printed publications have had to change their own strategy as more people choose to consume information from online sources instead of newspapers and magazines. This drop in printed sales is what ultimately led to some media companies, including ESPN, ceasing all print versions of their magazines, and becoming exclusively online.  Then the tables turned again and print magazine subscriptions became popular once more during the global pandemic,  As millions of people across the globe moved to work remotely, having a physical copy of a magazine gave them a much-needed break from staring at a screen.

There is no doubt that digital media is convenient, but it does have disadvantages over print: studies have shown that printed material can help us retain information better. With print, we are not only reading, but it taps into our other senses: touch and even smell. Engaging with the other senses can help to form a connection and leave a lasting impression. For instance, emails can easily be forgotten, especially if a person’s inbox already has a large unread number.  Physical mail is statistically more likely to be read and this applies to all printed promotional materials.

Companies that continue to use print marketing tend to have more trustworthy reputations. Small Biz Trends conducted a survey that revealed that 85% of consumers were more inclined to choose a company that still used some form of print in their marketing; while International News Media Association revealed that 82% of Internet users trusted printed ads over their digital counterparts. Although digital marketing can be brilliant at reaching a vast number of consumers, it does not hold the same level as trust – it is easier to scam via digital.

Viewing digital ads on phones or tablets can often lead them to be ‘scrolled over’ and potential customers can be lost.  Even when watching videos on platforms like YouTube, most choose to skip the ads.  Continuing to have print as part of your marketing strategy will help you to reach audiences that may not be tech-savvy or who may be too tech-savvy and will have blocked your ads or emails!

Rather than saying that one form of marketing is better than the other, print and digital make ideal partners. For instance, printing a QR code in a magazine or a leaflet that can lead to promotion, perfectly blends the printed and digital world. Digital marketing can reach a wide audience both quickly and cost-effectively; print Is still showing itself to be relevant and not quite extinct.

If you’re interested in talking to our team about how we could help you ramp up your print marketing efforts we’d love to hear from you. Contact us here for more information or give us a call on 01600 891525.

How to Spring Clean Your Website

Do you carry out a ‘spring clean’ ritual in your home?  Taking the time to clear out our items that have not been used, worn or even seen the light of day in months?  The same principle can be applied to your website, and the best bit is – it is usually much quicker and easier than de-cluttering your home!  Here are some easy steps you can take to Spring Clean your website:

CHECK IT IS UP-TO-DATE

Step one is to make sure that all of the information on your website is up-to date.  That includes contact details, members of staff, and that all products and services advertised have not been discontinued. Try to avoid adding dates, if they are not needed e.g., “Popular Activities in 2019”- even in your blog, as this can make your content look outdated even if it is still relevant.

FIX BROKEN LINKS

Working links are vital to a website; they allow people to navigate it and find what they are looking for. Step two in your Spring Clean is to ensure that all links on your website are still relevant and not broken.  There are few things more off-putting to a potential client than clicking a link to find the 404 error message appear on their screen!

As well as reducing your credibility, broken and outdated links can also harm your SEO and online visibility. Checking for broken links can be handled easily with free broken link checkers available online.

CHECK MOBILE VIEWS

It is likely that a high volume of page traffic is via mobile devices, like a phone or a tablet, so make sure that your website is viewed easily on them.  You can look yourself, ask others to check the mobile version of your site, or even use Google’s Mobile-friendly Test.

AUDIT YOUR CONTENT

Are you sure that the content of your website is good quality?  Look at your pages and evaluate their performance: how many page views; average time spent on page etc.  High-quality content brings in the most traffic, and anything that is low-quality can be disposed of.  Do not dismiss average quality content as this can provide the opportunity for improvement.

INVESTIGATE YOUR ANALYTICS

Web analytics allows you to understand how well your website performs.  If you have a version installed, then look into abnormalities – like unusual bounce rates,  or keywords that compete with other pages. Are you getting more hits from your desktop website than your mobile? Is your content engaging enough? It is best to keep on top of your analytics regularly, rather than checking once a year, but a Spring Clean is a good time to dig deeper!

RE-DESIGN

Just like a house, websites can benefit from a regular face-lift.  If you feel that your site is starting to look a bit stale in comparison to the competition, then invest in creating a whole new look.  Change colour schemes, the layout or refresh the images; have a look at current trends in websites design and see what can stand the test of time.

If you’d like to speak to one of our team about how we could help give your website a spring clean, you can get in touch here. Alternatively, pick up the phone and call us on 01600 891525 – we’d love to hear from you!

Six Reasons Why Webinars Should be Part of Your Marketing Strategy

Webinars are not a new phenomenon; WebEx™ video-conferencing has been around since 1995!  However, there is no doubt that with the COVID pandemic putting a halt to physical gatherings, the webinar has seen a resurgence in the last two years.

A webinar has all the features of the traditional seminar, keynote, or panel session, but with the added ability to reach people wherever they are across the globe.  Webinars are ideal for teaching, carrying out demonstrations, raising awareness, and making connections; meaning they are a very effective marketing tool.  Here are six reasons why webinars should be part of your marketing strategy.

1. VERSATILE

Webinars can be held in a variety of formats.  They can be used for educational purposes, such as employee training; for demonstrations of the products or services that your company provides to generate sales; for interviews, panel discussions, or audience Q&A sessions.

After the main event, the recorded content of your webinar can also be repurposed in the future for blog posts, tweets, explainer videos, and much more.  Any questions from your audience can lead to new ideas and help you to produce highly relevant new content for your website and marketing campaigns.  There are very few other marketing mediums which are as versatile as the webinar.

  1. COST-EFFECTIVE

Webinars are very budget friendly.  Teaching, training or giving demonstrations in a live format involves researching and hiring venues; travelling for both staff and clients; providing catering and accommodation; and plenty more time and resources for all of the preparations involved.  Webinars in comparison require a lot less time, resources, and planning than physical seminars and conferences making them a great choice for small businesses.

  1. WIDE REACHING

Webinars allow you to reach out to an audience that can span the globe, and connect with those that may have been difficult to reach in the past.  Webinars can be streamed live or they can be recorded for people in different time zones to view at their own leisure at a time that suits them. 

  1. HIGH ENGAGEMENT

Webinars present the perfect opportunity to allow your audience to engage with you and your business using features like chat boxes, live polls, social lounges, and Q&A sessions.  A well led webinar can provide a great platform for clients and potential customers to ask questions and voice their opinions.

  1. LEAD GENERATION

Usually people sign up in advance for a webinar in order to receive the information to join the event by email. This is a great lead generator for any business, especially when studies show that between 20-40% of webinar attendees later become leads. Just make sure when collecting that data that your attendees know how you’ll be using their information.

  1. INCREASE YOUR CREDIBILITY

Finally, hosting webinars can increase your credibility with your customer base and, in turn, help you to build trust with them.  This is especially true if your webinar involves guest speakers.  

Hosting regular webinars can raise your company’s profile; and by developing a series of webinars, you can encourage people to ‘tune in’ to find out what happens next, showing off your brand and helping others to learn more about you.

If you’re interested in talking to our team about how we could help you plan and execute a successful webinar, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us here for more information or call us on 01600 891525.

How to Construct Effective Customer Journey Maps

We create sitemaps to help us plot user navigation across our websites. Similarly, a customer journey map plans out the anticipated journey a customer will have with your business. While this is somewhat analogous to your sales funnel, it has a more practical feel to it. Funnel phases such as awareness and consideration are about where your lead is at; the customer journey map will tell us what they are doing, and more importantly, what we as a business are doing.

Journey Map Components

Broadly speaking, there are three layers to a customer journey map:

1. Customer actions

2. Front of House

3. Back of House

While some maps get very granular and specific, these three layers define the actions and interactions for your customer.

Customer actions usually align with the interest phase in our sales funnel. It can be something as simple as a social media follow, website visit, or something more traditional sales-based like filling out a form or requesting a quote.

To do this, our company needs some front-of-house assets (FOH). In the above example, these would be things such as our social media accounts and website. They can also be traditional collateral materials such as brochures or flyers; it’s that first point of active contact (rather than passive awareness) that a customer has with your brand or company.

Behind those front-of-house assets (BOH), we have back-of-house systems. These are how we manage our customers and their interactions with them. For example, that form they filled out on our website might generate a new record in Salesforce or other customer data storage platform. This allows us to cross-reference every later action our customer takes so that we have a complete narrative for them. The more we know about our customer’s interactions with us, the better placed we are to provide the product or service they want, now and in the future.

Practical Customer Journey Map

Let’s take a practical example such as a theatre to tie this all together.

Initially, a customer subscribes to a newsletter on the theatre’s website. They then start to receive the newsletter, and they click trackable links. When they buy tickets, this information gets logged against their profile. Any post-show survey responses record what they like about the theatre, their favourite types of shows etc. These all help the theatre understand its customer preferences.

For this example, our three layers contain:

1. Customer actions: Join the mailing list, open newsletter, click links, purchase tickets, complete survey

2. FOH Assets: Website, survey tool

3. BOH Assets: Mailing tool, sales database

In the most basic sense, the customer journey map, with customer actions at the top, interact with the FOH, which adds to the BOH. But there can be more complexity built-in over time.

For example, after two years, if we see that our patron comes only to watch farcical comedy plays, this BOH information can start to influence the FOH. If the theatre has a big summer comedy on, this is a customer they can target with an increased likelihood of making a sale. A newsletter, or special mailout about this play, can be sent to those who the BOH shows might be more interested than the general mailing list.

Customer Journey Map Evolution

While this has been quite a simple example, it does demonstrate one of the more important reasons to create a customer journey map.

Continual adaptation makes a customer journey map essential for any business. At a functional level, it helps you organise all your assets to work together to serve your customer and your business. Over time, it allows you to map interactions between the different levels that ultimately will drive sales and improve customer satisfaction.

If you’re interested in talking to our team about how we could help you construct an effective customer journey map, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us here for more information or call us on 01600 891525.

 

 

 

 

Top Graphic Design Tips for Small Businesses

Design is probably not a priority for your business, but it should be. In fact, graphic design should be vital. It is what can make your business stand out from all the others. Without design there would be no logo for your company; your website would look boring; the packaging for your product will be overlooked. All in all, design is rather important.

For small businesses, design can present some challenges that may not be a problem for larger companies – for instance, budget size. Steve Jobs reportedly spent $100,000 for the Apple logo; this is a luxury that not every business has. However smaller bank balances do not mean that you cannot compete with the big boys.

Here are a few tips that you can take away to make sure that you get the most out of your graphic designs:

THE OBJECTIVE

Do not go into any design project without knowing exactly what you want to achieve. A clear objective is key to a successful design. What is it you are aiming for: raising brand awareness? Increase website traffic? Increase profits? Who is your target audience?  If you know what you are trying to achieve, you will be able to assess if the finished product has met your goals.

THE DESIGN

Now that you have your objectives, you can work on the design.  Here are some tips for ensuring it is a success.

Design trends – look at current trends and watch how this can change to keep your brand up to date. For example, popular trends this year include muted colours and clever typography.

Colours – try to keep the number of different ones used to a minimum; and if you have brand colours, make sure that you use them.

Colours can have meanings, e.g., green tends to be associated with health, growth and nature, so depending on your message, you could find a colour to match the theme of your design.

Fonts – like colours, do not use too many different fonts. By sticking with a couple, making sure they are the same as your brand usually uses, and ensuring that they are easy to read, your design is more likely to be successful.

Keep it simple – this does not mean plain. As the saying goes: less is more. Stick with clean lines and try not to add any unnecessary words or images; remember that every element must have a purpose in great design.

White space – do not think of this as empty space, use it to your advantage. Pick an image for the background; a colour or pattern; or even incorporate white space into your logo. By ensuring there is plenty of space around your message, you will make it easier to read.

BE INSPIRED

Looking at the designs of larger businesses can be beneficial.  Companies like Apple, Nike, McDonalds, have millions to spend on their design work and keeping up with the latest trends, so take a look at what they are doing and see if it inspires your work.

USE TOOLS

Hiring a Graphic Designer would be ideal, however, some budgets may not be able to stretch to that, so take a look at the online tools that are available to help you do it yourself. From photos to software, there are plenty of resources that can help small businesses produce high-quality designs and graphics.

Alternatively, if you’re looking for something bespoke and original, get in touch with our team and discuss your requirements. Contact us here or pick up the phone and talk to us on 01600 891525.

Your Website is Your Shop Window

Can you remember a time when you were drawn into a shop by a clever window display? Or perhaps put off from entering somewhere new by a confusing store front?  This power of first impressions applies to the online world as much as it does to the high street, and it doesn’t just concern ecommerce stores.  Service businesses should be equally aware of the impression that their website gives to potential clients, in particular your home page which is where the majority of visitors will likely enter your site.

You wouldn’t expect customers to visit a dated shop, and you wouldn’t invite clients into an unkempt office.  So if you present your potential customers with a tired, difficult to navigate  website, don’t be surprised if they don’t stick around.

Anyone who is undecided about your business can be drawn in or put off by your website, gleaning all that they feel they should know from a simple glance.  So does your website communicate your brand values, current offers, or popular services? If you are unsure, let’s dive into how to create the ‘shop window’ experience for your website.

Think about your customers

Firstly, before you get carried away with any big changes, make sure your website appeals to your target market.  Just as the window display of a baby clothing store is made to make new parents go ‘aww!’ so your website should draw in your target audience. Think of it as your business values meeting the values of the customers you want to attract.

Move with the times

For ecommerce stores, ensure that your home page reflects the current events and seasons, whether it’s a Valentine’s Day banner, or a badge supporting an awareness month.  Just as you would change a physical shop window display to keep up with the seasons, make sure your website stays relevant.

While you may not have a Valentine’s Day special for your service based businesses, keep up with the changing times, and make sure the first image your visitors see isn’t a dated award nomination!

Update your website regularly

That doesn’t mean that you have to wait for a special occasion like Christmas to change things on your website.  Instead you should make sure to refresh your offers, banners, products and news articles regularly.

As well as enticing new customers to explore further, repeat customers will learn that visiting your website frequently will be of value.  If the home page looks the same every time they stop by, there is little chance of them becoming regular visitors.

Updating your imagery and text regularly will not only encourage visitors to come back again, it will also assist your SEO efforts as search engines prioritise fresh content.

Stand out from the crowd

Finally, don’t look like everyone else.  Imagine your website as a store front on a packed high street – how will you make it stand out from the shops around you?

It may seem like a lot of effort, but the more work you put into your website ‘shop window’ on a regular basis, the greater rewards you will reap.

Are you feeling inspired and thinking of injecting some fresh thinking into your website? Get in touch with our team and find out how we can help. Email info@limegreenmarketing.co.uk or call us on 01600 891525.

 

Unlocking The Mystery of Social Media Marketing

Why are there so many social media platforms? How do you know which is the right one for your business? Should you pay to boost your content? 

 

Social media can seem mysterious to the business person who wants to use it for promoting their business. But much of what they do can be demystified with the three A’s, attention, audience and assessment.

Social media networks, like the news networks before them, are focussed on attention. Specifically, getting long bouts of attention from users. We hear a lot about how social media is ruining attention spans with short blips of content, but users can spend hours a week, if not a day, scrolling through the endless stream of content.

With your business posts you are looking to interrupt this stream with something that grabs the attention. This doesn’t have to be something outlandish or shocking, it can simply be something that stands out for your audience. 

Depending on the social media network the audience may be seeing things about their friends and family circle, the celebrities they follow, their interests. Then there’s your post, what can you do to make yourself seem different to these other posts? How can you annex some attention?

A core part of attention is interest, when you’re establishing your social media presence you want to do so where your interested audience is.

 

This can vary by industry and social media platform so it always requires some research before you start but a key indicator is to do some competitor analysis. Where are businesses like yours set up on social media? What does their follower audience look like?

This will give you an idea of what is working but it also gives you a basis from which to ask, does this audience exist somewhere else where my competitor doesn’t have a presence? Can you be first to contact an audience via a different channel? This certainly gives you an opportunity to find new customers and clients. 

Once you’ve thought about how to grab attention and who to aim it at, you should engage in continual assessment of your posts.

Look at what gets engagement and what doesn’t. When you pay to boost posts, how do the results compare with your expectations? Were the results bad, or your expectations high?

You will never stop assessing your posts, measuring them, understanding what performs and what doesn’t. 

 

The idea that there is some concrete formula that will see you right for social posts, that will bring business flooding in every time, is a fallacy. The networks themselves change modelling and algorithms on a frequent enough basis that any formula would be short term, but what they cannot change is what an audience is looking for on social media. 

Define your audience, talk to them in a way that differs from the rest of the content they’re encountering and keep assessing what you do to ensure you maximise your potential, that you explore new ideas and give your audience a reason and opportunities to connect, engage and do business with you.

If you’d like a hand solving the mystery of social media marketing, then get in touch and we’ll work it out together.

A Step By Step Guide to Outsourcing to a Marketing Agency

Like hiring staff, outsourcing is never an easy decision for a business owner to make – there are lots of things to weigh up and consider.  So when you do finally decide to take the plunge and outsource to a marketing agency, it’s worth making sure you are doing everything you can to make the partnership a success.

STEP 1. Decide what you will be outsourcing

As well as defining your budget you need to decide what marketing you can (and should) keep inhouse.  It’s important to be realistic about your resources and your talents.  If you aren’t sure what you can handle, then you should be honest about this when you start to engage with agencies.

STEP 2. Choose your stakeholders

The easiest way to get the best out of your relationship with an agency is to make it clear who will interact with them and who will be required to approve budgets, outputs and anything else.  Clearly defined roles are key to success so nail it down before you do anything else.

STEP 3. Choose the best agency for YOUR business

Just because an agency is the biggest in your city, or has won the most awards, does not mean that they are the right agency for your business.  When you are hiring staff you have criteria that an interviewee must meet, so set similar pointers before you interview an agency.  Engage with a few companies and choose one that you feel a connection with, that you trust with your brand, and that offers the services that you need.

STEP 4. Set Expectations

If you’ve told your agency that you want to increase your social media presence and then you end the contract with them because your sales are the same…you are at fault.  You need to set expectations for what you would like to see done, and what results you would like to see from that work (these may not marry up, but a good agency will advise you on strategy…we’ll get to that in Step 5!).

STEP 5: Make the contract strategy driven instead of task driven

Tasks checked off a to do list is not going to generate business.  If your agency knows why they are doing something, what the goals are, then it will be much more effective.  A good agency will help you create a strategy and plan the actions to achieve it rather than taking a list of actions with no reason.

STEP 6: Keep on top of the results

Reviewing the results of marketing efforts is crucial to the success of any team – inhouse or outsourced.  An agency will be able to report on everything in detail that they were involved in to show what worked, and what didn’t so your next marketing decisions can be evidence based.

Finally – Have respect for the agency

The team members within a good marketing agency live and breathe their profession, so if they advise you that your ideas for a campaign will not bring good results, don’t dismiss them before hearing their reasons.  Respect that you have brought in experts who know more than you and listen to their suggestions.

After all to quote Steve Jobs…

Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people.

If you’re interested in talking to our team about how we could help you step up your marketing in the second half of 2021 we’d love to hear from you. Contact us here for more information or give us a call on 01600 891525.

 

Thinking Out of The Box With Creative Marketing

How can a smaller company hope to compete in their industry when they are at such a big disadvantage when it comes to marketing?

Larger companies have big budgets and a greater number of staff dedicated to all aspects of the marketing process: From advertising, to customer service, and even production. For smaller companies, they don’t have the same luxuries – budgets are vastly smaller and usually a lot of the work must be done by a handful of people, or even fewer!  In order to grab the public’s attention – and hold onto it – smaller businesses must be more creative in their approach and offer a unique selling point in the hope that they can beat the big guys at their game.

So, what can you do?

 

SOCIAL MEDIA

 

Social media can be a great platform for exposure whatever size you may be; it is relatively inexpensive and can reach a vast number of potential customers quickly. With different platforms to choose from, you can use them all for different purposes.

LinkedIn has 756 million members, is specifically a business and professional network and is uniquely suited for B2B lead generation. It enables you to easily target, connect and engage with your target audience. If your business offers a solution to your customer’s needs, LinkedIn is the best environment for attracting their attention.

Twitter is brilliant for interacting with other people and can be used for customer service; this is a method that has already been adopted by many companies.

Instagram specialises in photographs – this can be ideal for showing off the visual aspects of your business: different products; the views from your B&B or glamping pod. Social media can also allow other forms of interaction – invite them to post photos of themselves with your product; have a hashtag and offer a reward. You could even run competitions.

 

VIDEO

 

Not everyone wants to read an article about a product; maybe the individual does not get the same feeling or experience from written words that they require to make a purchase.

Millions of videos are viewed daily on the internet, and this can be a great avenue to expose your products and business.

Consider uploading a video of your product, like a demonstration or being used by a model, to your website or a social channel like YouTube.  Or you could make a virtual tour of your restaurant, holiday let, office or workshop.  The visual effect of your product could be more enticing to your potential customers, and you can help increase trust by being part of the video yourself. 

Allowing your customer to see the face of the business can bring about a more personal touch, and a lasting impression – you could even go viral!

 

CHANGE WITH THE SEASONS

 

Consider taking a seasonal approach.

Throughout the year, there are various holidays and events, that you could use to inspire you. Food and drink-based companies can capitalise on holiday days like Valentine’s Day – bakeries offering sweet treats; restaurants selling special offers for couples. Change menus to suit the summer weather; BBQ offers; sell cocktails or mocktails.

Adapt your products to seasonal change: Sell hot drinks and baked goods in the winter; cooling drinks and ice cream in the summer; anything with pumpkin spice in the autumn!  Run vibrant swimwear campaigns during the summer holidays or winter campaigns that position hats and scarves as great gifts. A Christmas Countdown, with Black Friday incentives – whatever your business, seasonal promotions can boost your creativity and your sales.

Just because you don’t have a big budget, doesn’t mean you can’t be creative with what you have.  Work out what matters most to your customers and support them in that, and never underestimate the power of the personal touch.

If you’re interested in talking to our team about how we could help you induce some creativity into your marketing we’d love to hear from you. Contact us here or give us a call on 01600 891525.

The Value of Clear and Consistent Marketing

Have you ever wondered why the Coca-Cola logo has remained largely unchanged since 1887?

 

Consistency is vital to the success of marketing, and there are few better examples than the world’s number one soft drink brand.  So what is it about a consistent approach to marketing that delivers so much value for your business?

Whatever size your business is, your brand is one of your most important assets because it is the personification of your business.  It gives your organisation a look, a feel and a tone of voice that, in turn, create an impression in the mind of your target market.  By using the same design and imagery wherever a customer is likely to come across your business, you ensure that they recognise your company every time they see you.

Brand recognition is perhaps the most obvious and important value that comes from consistency in your marketing. 

 

By seeing the same look over and over again, the visual elements of your marketing become ingrained in the minds of consumers, and they are more likely to remember your brand and recognise it when they come across it on different channels.

This recognition through the use of consistent marketing helps to make you more visible to your customers and can help to create customer loyalty.  It also helps to build credibility and a trustworthy reputation.  If customers have the same experience every time they come in contact with your brand, they are more likely to trust your business and invest in it.

Maintaining a uniform visual aesthetic is not the only important aspect of marketing consistency, voice and tone are just as valuable in creating trust and generating sales.

“Many factors contribute to a brand’s success, but perhaps one of the most valuable is content consistency. From social media and blogging to responding to customer reviews and replying to emails, your content needs to maintain a consistent voice, tone and style.” Forbes

In other words, a company must be consistent across the brand experience. 

 

To continue with the example we used at the start of this article, you never open a bottle of Coca-Cola and wonder what it will taste like this time – brand consistency ensures that it is always the same, no matter what country you are in. 

Or if you were told that a restaurant had ‘wholesome values’ and then were snapped at by a waitress wearing something more appropriate for a nightclub than a family restaurant, the entire illusion of the brand would crumble for you.  If instead someone dressed appropriately, approached you with politeness and courtesy, your confidence in the brand would grow.  Marketing consistency has to continue through every aspect of a business to be effective.

It takes effort, but it’s worth it. 

Clear and consistent marketing will help your business to communicate with the people you need to reach across all the media that you use.  

 

All aspects of your marketing will start working together so that your business becomes visible and recognisable, driving customers to respond positively to your brand.

Learn more about How LimeGreen Marketing can help you to be clear and consistent in your marketing here and if you’re interested in talking to our team contact us here or give us a call on 01600 891525.

 

The 3 Core Elements of a Successful Brand Strategy

Your brand is more than your logo or your name; it should be the whole experience that your customers and potential customers receive when they come in contact with your business.  Your brand strategy is the definition of what your organisation stands for – its values, the promises you make to your customers, and the personality that you deliver your work with.  Yes, it includes your colours, fonts and logo, but it also has something more than these aesthetic elements, it has your tone of voice, attitude and identity. 

A successful brand strategy is the key to you being able to communicate more effectively with your customers and potential customers.  It should direct all of your interactions with them, and shape how you are perceived in the marketplace.  You should carry out a brand strategy as the very first stage in setting up your business – before you even come up with a company name as it can inform all of the decisions you make from day one.  So what are the core elements of a successful brand strategy?

  1. Your Target Customer

It is the crux of all marketing and sales techniques – it’s easier to hit a target if you know where it is!  In order to build a brand strategy, you need to know who it is supposed to appeal to.  You should know what your customer needs, and how you solve that problem. 

There are many ways of defining your target customer.  Some businesses like to focus on an area of interest, or a geographic location, whereas others define one or more very detailed customer avatars.  If you are already trading, look back at your customers to date and use what you know about them to help inform your strategy going forward.

  1. Your Competition

Who are your customers considering alongside you?  Who are you being measured against? Once you know this you can look at how your competitors are positioning themselves in the marketplace and make decisions on where you measure against them.  Will you stand out or blend in?  What sets you apart?  Remember, you don’t need to focus only on your local market, look at your national competitors to see how they are positioning themselves.

  1. You

The final element is the biggest of all – who are you?  In order to create a successful brand strategy, you need some self-awareness regarding your business and its products or services.  This should include the absolute basic information about what your business does and how it does it, as well as more ‘intangible’ information, for instance, the emotional benefits that your business provides.

Brand Strategies tend to include your brand story, and positioning statements that will inform how your staff speak to your customers and how you interact with people on social media and other public forums.  All of these things are developed through a combination of knowing and understanding your target customer, your competition, and your business.  So start with the basics and it will grow from there.

If you’re interested in talking to our team about how we could help you create a winning brand strategy we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at info@limegreenmarketing.co.uk or give us a call on 01600 891525.

 

How to Spring Clean Your Business Ready for Post Lockdown

When lockdown lifts it will not be as simple as throwing open the doors and buying in fresh biscuits!  Things won’t go back to normal on day one, and you are bound to have a lot on your plate, so why not use this time at the end of lockdown to give your business a ‘Spring Clean’?

If you Spring Clean your home you clear out the clutter, freshen things up and get ready for a brighter and warmer time to come, so why not apply the same principles to your business?  Here are our top tips for getting your business organised, and making some easy improvements before things get busy again.

  1. Clean up your inbox

With everything else going on in your business it’s easy to let emails pile up. If you are flagging more than you are actioning, now is the time to clear the decks, get everything filed away and tidy your ‘to do’ list before the phones start ringing again.  We understand that filing emails is not a pleasant prospect, and it is far from a fun task, but it will feel like a weight has lifted when you get it finished.  While you are at it you might try tidying your folders and computer files so you can start back knowing where everything is, and having up to date back-ups of everything important.

  1. Hunt down your strategy

If your business plan, marketing strategy or 5 year plan has been hiding on the top shelf over the last 12 months now is the time to look it out.  Revisit your goals, actions and overall direction and see what still applies and what needs to change.  Now is a great time to refresh that vision and start to get excited about the year to come. 

  1. Dust down your finances

Even the most well-organised of businesses can end up with a box of receipts lying on a desk gathering dust. If you are making plans and budgets, you need the most up to date information to hand, so now is a great time to review your accounts, sort your expenses and save yourself from any nightmares in the coming months. 

  1. Freshen up Your website

If you haven’t looked at your website in a while, you are not alone.  As your business grows, or pivots or changes, your website should move with it.  Don’t let an out of date website damage your brand.  If you aren’t able to do the changes yourself, you can at least make a to do list to pass to your developer and marketing team.

There are probably plenty more areas you will be able to think of to freshen up your business that you’ve been avoiding during lockdown.  Spring cleaning and decluttering can make you feel lighter, more organised and less stressed, so why not give it a go?

And remember there’s support available to help you if needed. If you’re interested in talking to our team about how we could help you spring clean your brand image or revive the digital side of your business we’d love to hear from you. Contact us here for more information or give us a call on 01600 891525.

Fighting Lockdown Fatigue – How to Keep your Marketing Going

Marketing has been going digital for decades, but now as the rest of the business world is racing to catch up, the huge increase in screen-time means we’re all fighting Lockdown fatigue.  We’re growing tired of webinars, video calls, and endless ‘how to improve working from home’ blogs.  So how do we keep our marketing going when the same audiences who were excited about our innovative ways to attract and entertain them online, are now fed up with anything digital?

Social Media

Instead of continuing to share useful articles on your feed and hoping for people to respond, start engaging with them first.  Get into the comment sections of relevant posts and share your article there.  Add value, give back, don’t keep shouting and hoping you’ll be heard above the noise.

Also, use this time to encourage your employees to grow their social media presence, especially on LinkedIn and Twitter.  Offer training on how to be confident and helpful online; show them how to add valuable insight, and to do it when their network wants to hear from them, not before.

Emails

Emails are still converting as well as they have ever done, but the secret to standing out in a crowd right now is to get creative.  Segregate your audience and send them targeted messages.  The most effective emails right now are highly personalised, and create memorable experiences for your audience, so take the time and do it properly to see a difference.

Go offline

Royal Mail recently did some research with MarketReach, which has shown that physical mail is having more impact on customers than ever before.  Since we are more likely to be home when our mail arrives, we choose when to look at it and if we want to respond to it, rather than throwing it in a pile at the end of a long day.  The research shows that the biggest rise in engagement has been in the 18-34 age group.

The best part of this research?  Mail is an increasingly effective method of driving people online, with a 70% increase year-on-year of traffic driven by physical mail.  Send your customers thank you cards, care packs, physical vouchers – anything that could bring them a smile when they go to the letter box. 

Whatever method you choose to use to reenergise your fatigued marketing, the most important thing is to do something.  Now is not the time to slow down.  It might feel pointless, especially if your business has been forced to stop trading, but now is the time to plan for the future.  When lockdown finally lifts and you are able to reopen, a new marketing strategy will be the last thing on your list!  Market now, reap the benefits later.

And remember there’s support available to help you if needed. If you’re interested in talking to our team about how we could help you keep your marketing going during lockdown we’d love to hear from you. Contact us here for more information or give us a call on 01600 891525.

2020, What a Rollercoaster of a Year! But We Enjoyed the Ride and Have Plenty to Look Forward To

What a rollercoaster year 2020 has been! Normal working practices have been turned on their heads as we’ve had to navigate lockdowns, working from home, travel restrictions and what seems like a different tier for every month. With events cancelled and face-to-face networking banned we’ve all moved online, finding refuge in Zoom, Google Meet, WhatsApp and Teams. We’ve cursed poor internet connections and interruptions from children and animals while craving the company of our friends and family. 

At LimeGreen we’ve been fortunate when so many haven’t. As a virtual agency we’re ideally set up for remote working and so have been able to seamlessly support our clients, helping ensure their brand profiles and marketing messages continue to reach and engage with their audiences.

It’s not been without its challenges but, when we look back on the year, we realise that despite Covid chaos, we’ve helped our clients stay agile and adapt quickly. In fact, together with our clients, we think we’ve achieved some great things.

Pinnacle

Pinnacle helps law firms implement and optimise their critical business applications. At a time when their services have never been in more demand and they’ve been busier than ever, lockdown provided some real challenges. Global annual partner networking events were cancelled, IT implementations had to go live remotely, and their clients had to move swiftly to remote working – not a natural environment for a lawyer. Pinnacle rose to this challenge, for example, partnering with Briefing magazine to create Tiger Teams.  

A Tiger Team is a group of people, each an expert in their field, who come together to solve difficult problems and identify others before they happen. The concept was made famous by NASA when their teams worked as one to bring Apollo 13 safely back to earth after a module malfunctioned during the mission. Briefing and Pinnacle took this to heart, creating a series of webinars and discussions addressing the biggest challenges law firms have faced during 2020. Pinnacle then extended this with their in-house Tiger Teams creating agile new products to improve law firms’ workflows and business development.

We’ve made use of Loom videos to create short demo videos for LinkedIn and Twitter. We’ve created virtual booths, animated PowerPoints and videos for online conferences. And we’ve created a password-protected resource centre so Pinnacle’s clients can remote-access firm-wide vital resources to support their application implementations. 

Orchard House Partners

Orchard House Partners is a specialist leadership and team coaching practice that uses natural spaces, wildwood ecosystems and horses to accelerate leadership development. We designed, wrote and launched their stunning new website at the beginning of the year. And when lockdown kicked in soon afterwards, we worked with them to make sure their brand profile continued to grow online, despite them not being able to hold courses in person. 

During lockdown, the Orchard House team ran online conversations with leaders from across the globe. Their latest programme, Leadership Labs, is an exciting and enlightening series of virtual, small-group experiments that help shared learning, rapid experimentations and fresh insights.

Talk Education

TalkEducation launched this Autumn. This brilliant new concept aims to demystify the British public school system and provide parents from around the globe with the tools they need to find the perfect school for their child. We were delighted to work with the Talk Education team to develop their brand identity and launch strategy. And we’ve been thrilled to see the impact they’ve already created in the marketplace.

Kate Humble

Courses at Humble by Nature, Kate Humble’s working farm in Monmouthshire, may have been put on hold during lockdown but nobody told the animals! Kate was kept busy and her latest series for Channel 5, Escape to the Farm, was filmed at Kate’s farm during the summer. You can find out all about the series on the websites we created for Kate, Humble by Nature and Kate Humble.

Firepits UK

Lockdown and summer sunshine (remember that?) meant we all wanted to make the most of our gardens for outdoor entertaining. Firepits UK was ready, with their range of Firepits and outdoor ovens. In February, we were delighted to project manage their rebrand, and write and launch their sparkling new website. We also helped get them going on email marketing and social media. 

European Principal Group

Relevant to our turbulent times, European Principal Group (EPG) is a group of principals who each lead their own independent consultancy advising on geopolitical, government and public policy issues across the wider Europe area. Their insight, analysis and advice helps chief officers understand the complex political, legislative and economic issues that matter to their business. Our work for EPG is a perfect example of the power of Zoom as we worked with eight Principals across six countries and two time zones to create their brand and deliver what we’re proud to say is one of our favourite websites this year.

We also:

  • Recorded a series of branded Zoom conversations examining Moot Hill’s approach to dispute resolution
  • Designed, wrote and launched an AIM compliant website for Braveheart Investment Group
  • Carried out social media training for the Exate Dental Group three practices
  • Refreshed Optimum Vision Clinic’s website in advance of their practice refurbishment
  • Created a showcase video for Veterinary Research Management to use at virtual conferences
  • Helped SEBDA improve their digital presence
  • Built online table reservation for the Hen and Chicken, Bristol

Looking forward to 2021, January’s going to be just as busy! We have several websites due to go live, an exciting webinar series to launch and a couple of marketing campaigns ready to go.

None of the above would have been possible without the amazing team that supports LimeGreen Marketing.  Sarah R, Sarah L, Graham, Richard, Gareth, Ashley, Sam, Pete, Sophie, Lisa, Ben, Julia and Jo –  to all of you, thank you.   

Which just leaves me to say we wish you a very merry and peaceful Christmas and let’s hope 2021 brings not only vaccinations but the chance to meet in person again soon.

If you think your business would benefit from some marketing support in the new year we’d love to hear from you! You can contact us here or pick up the phone and call us on 01600 891525.

 

4 Small Business Marketing Tips During the Pandemic

Now is an uncertain time with lots of unknowns and small businesses all over the world are scared and worried. 2020 has brought about many changes that are impacting the way businesses communicate and this period of uncertainty is weighing heavily on the minds of customers.

Many businesses have been forced to close as a result of the crisis, many others have lost a significant portion of their customer base and many have been reduced to a 100% remote workforce.

This is the bad news.

 

But let’s talk about the good news.

 

It’s not all doom and gloom, and there is light at the end of the tunnel. The Coronavirus pandemic could present a unique opportunity to reinvent how you market your small business. There are steps you can take to set your business up for success in the long run. The crisis can be turned into an opportunity with the following small business marketing tips:

 

  1. Reach Out to your existing customers

Do your current customers know you are still open for business? Have they been informed of any changes to how you operate? Reach out to them by email, social media, phone or letter. Let them know you are still there for them and happy to offer assistance when they need it. Remember that due to the pandemic, competition is low, so cease this marketing opportunity to get in front of your target audience. Communicate how you can help your customers navigate tough times.

 

  1. Optimise your brand’s online presence

Businesses that rely on offline operations face huge challenges as a result of the crisis. People are still fearful of venturing into public and non-essential stores, so now is the time to shift your focus from a brick-and-mortar storefront to an online presence. Online is more essential than ever when it comes to building your brand and businesses that actively utilise the online space for marketing and customer relations have realised the importance of optimising their online presence. If you want your business to survive and thrive in a post-Covid-19 world, you must adapt and leverage the opportunities brought about by the changing digital world.

 

A few tips for optimising your brand’s online presence:

 

Create compelling content that clearly defines what you do and why you’re different

Make sure your brand looks and sounds clear and consistent

Be active online – post regularly to your website and social media, and regularly engage with your followers on social media

 

  1. Redefine your brand purpose

Why does your business exist beyond making money? Your brand purpose has always been a big deal, but during the pandemic it’s even more important to know exactly what your business stands for. A brand purpose means you always have something to work towards and affects everything from making key business decisions to bringing on board the right team members. Your brand purpose is your ‘why.’ In his book ‘Start with Why’ Simon Sinek says we can define our brand purpose by asking ourselves these 3 questions:

 

Why does our brand exist?

Why would someone choose us?

Why do we do what we do and how do we do it?

 

Consider what makes your business different. There may be many businesses offering the same services or products as you, what makes your brand different is your brand purpose.

 

  1. Send out personal Christmas cards 

Quality business partnerships have a personal element to them. Adopt an old-school personal touch to let your customers know you value them and are looking forward to welcoming them back by sending out beautifully branded Christmas cards. A Christmas card reminds your customers that your business still exists and is an indirect way of getting on their radar without looking salesy or pushy. It’s also a great way to get noticed by clients you haven’t heard from in a while.

 

If you need any help developing a marketing strategy and brand message at this difficult time, get in touch and we’ll work it out together.