Marketing consultant, trainer, speaker & author

April 15, 2019April 16, 2019

Website Press Room

If media coverage is part of your promotional mix, add a Press Room web page to your website. This is a professional touch and will help journalists. Therefore, it will help you to get more media / press coverage.

Be media friendly

Include ‘Press room’ within your navigation bar, as this demonstrates that you are media friendly. It should contain useful, relevant material for editors and journalists, written in a factual way (i.e. no sales pitches).

‘Press Room’ can appear in your principle website navigation bar, or it can be an off-shoot of ‘About’.

Here are the section headings for a Press Room website page:

Enterprise name

A brief (two or three paragraph) overview, including when the enterprise started trading; principle activities; markets served; points of differentiation.

Spokesperson(s) profile

Brief background – topics of expertise – contact details.

Press releases

A chronological list of press releases (most recent at the top). Include title of release + release date. Hyperlink to a separate page, containing the full text of the release.

Photographs

Display a selection of low resolution images for websites and describe how to request hi-resolution images for print.

Media contact

If someone else besides the Spokesperson (i.e a PR consultancy / PR Officer) liaises with the media, include their contact details.

Today, there is an overlap between PR and digital marketing as backlinks from media websites can help your search engine rankings.

I ran a PR consultancy for nine years – so Press Relations is a subject close to my heart. I have taken startups and ‘invisible brands’ and created massive awareness for them. I show my clients how they can achieve extensive PR coverage. You can ask about PR via The Marketing Compass community or contact me directly, here.

April 1, 2019

MailChimp Audiences

MailChimp now thinks in terms of ‘Audiences’, not ‘Lists’.

If you have several lists, they are now referred to as ‘Audiences.’ To find your lists, under the ‘Audience’ navigation bar item, you will see a new page that shows information about the list with the most contacts. You can find all of your other lists (now audiences) in the dropdown.

If you would like to see all the audiences in your account, select ‘View audiences’ in the (same) dropdown menu (it is at the end).

Campaigns and Reports are now viewed within the context of an audience at a time:

If you have more than one audience in Mailchimp, your Campaigns and Reports pages will show information based on the audience you’ve selected. This means that you will see an overview of your email marketing to those contacts. If you need to view campaigns across all audiences at once, just choose “All audiences” from the dropdown.

If possible, keep all of your subscribers in one audience (list).

This item first appeared in my newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

March 26, 2019March 26, 2019

Website link building: 10 ideas

Google sees inbound links – AKA backlinks – to your website as votes of confidence. In general, the more inbound links you have, the better as long as they are of good quality.

An inbound link = a hyperlink which is pointing at your website.

Website link building should form part of your ongoing SEO strategy.

1. Gradually build inbound links to your website. Google doesn’t like sudden spikes.

2. Work manually i.e. don’t use bots / software programs / suspicious services from people you don’t know.

3. Include keywords within the anchor text*, where appropriate.

4. The links should come from relevant websites.

5. The links should come from sites with high authority i.e. credible websites.

6. Don’t use paid links.

7. Don’t use email spam to request links.

8. Don’t use link farms.

9. Do keep a meticulous record of your in-bound links.

10. Do check from time to time that the links still work.

*Anchor text: The text within a hyperlink,
i.e: www.nigeltemple.com or Digital marketing consultant

SEO Course – click here

March 22, 2019

Show the product or service being used

I know that you know what your product or service does. I know that you know how great it is. The challenge is that potential customers are not telepathic. They can’t see what you are seeing.

On this basis, show someone actually using the product or experiencing the service. Videos and pictures are a great way of doing this.

Stories describing how the item or service is used in real life are helpful.

Don’t make the customer work hard to figure it out.

Show them how it works.

This idea is taken from my newsletter which you can subscribe to here.

March 5, 2019March 13, 2019

Is your marketing working for you?

Imagine telephoning someone that you don’t know.

“Hello,” you say to them, “I was wondering whether you would like any (insert your product / service here)?”

What sort of reception do you think that you would receive?

In the markets that I have studied, only about 5% of the people in that market are looking for a new supplier or to change brand. That equates to 1 person in 20.

The challenge is that if you call them or knock on their door, they probably won’t reveal that they are in the market for the products or services that you are selling, as most people are somewhat coy (and they don’t like cold callers).

This is where marketing comes in. Effective marketing creates brand awareness, which is worth its weight in gold. Brand awareness goes a long way to explaining the groceries in your kitchen, the clothes that you are wearing and the products that you use in your personal and professional life.

Marketing can bring customers to you who are interested in what you do. It usually takes several messages / visits to your website until they feel comfortable with your name. If you are lucky, they may give you a go. If they enjoy the experience, they may buy again. Sometimes, they love you so much that they become customers for life.

This is why big companies tend to invest so much in marketing. They want to keep their name out there, bind current customers to their chest with hoops of steel and find new customers.

In order to do this, they need a marketing strategy, promotional campaigns and effective selling processes.

The questions to ask yourself are:
* Is our marketing working?
* Do sufficient people know about us?
* Can customers easily find us?
* Are we attracting sufficient sales enquiries / first time buyers?

If you are not happy with your answers, email me via nigel@nigeltemple.com or call me on: 01628 773128

February 21, 2019

Marketing is like a river

Marketing is a journey, not a destination. You may have ticked many boxes, including segmenting your customers, positioning your brand, creating visual brand identity, implementing a CRM system, updating your website, publishing regular blogs, sending out newsletters, talking to journalists, attending / organising events and so on.

The challenge is that things keep changing. In addition, marketing is more like a flowing river, than a building on the river bank. It is important to keep learning, adapting and moving as technology, the economy and customers change.

If you think of marketing as fixed, you will be left behind. Not that long ago, for example, marketing communications was largely print-based. This included brochures, leaflets, flyers and printed press releases. Print has not gone away, however websites have, for many enterprises, taken the place of brochures. It could be said that print has morphed into pixels.

Many business owners and sales professionals used to rely on the phone. Today, buyers hide behind voicemail and caller recognition systems. If they don’t know you, you probably won’t get through. And that is before we take GDPR into account.

Online search has made it easy to find goods and services and compare availability and pricing.

A rigid approach to marketing means lack of agility. Feedback and continuous improvement are a smart strategy.

February 20, 2019February 20, 2019

Solving software problems

As a marketer, do you find yourself increasingly working with software? This may include your CRM (Customer Relationship Management system); CMS (the Content Management System for your website); email marketing systems such as MailChimp; and marketing software tools.

Do you enjoy working with software? If from time-to-time you feel like throwing your computer out of the window (the French have a word for this: defenestration), here are some ideas for you:

* For the important software that you will be using regularly, invest in professional training.

* When you get stuck, take a break, even if it is only for 10 minutes. It is surprising how different approaches can come to mind, when you are not focused on the problem.

* Find someone who is good with software who can help you.

* YouTube can be very helpful, if someone has posted a solution to your problem.

* Many software platforms offer online chat support for paying customers. I have found these to be very helpful; they can usually email you a transcript of the discussion.

* Learn some HTML via W3Schools.

* Spend a higher proportion of your time learning, as opposed to fixing problems (which never seem to end, do they?)

* If all else fails, find a good window fitter.

Click here to see Nigel’s marketing training services.

February 19, 2019April 4, 2019

How to write a Description tag

Within The Marketing Compass 2019 SEO Course (which NavigatorPlus members can access for free within the Resource Centre), we discuss Description tags. They provide a concise description of a web page, within a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). If a description tag is not there, the SERP result may show random wording, drawn from the web page.

On the one hand, since 2009, Description tags have not counted as Google ranking factors. However, because of the way in which they can make your search engine listing look better, they are important and well worth paying attention to. To put it another way, well-written Description tags will help you to get more visitors to your website.

Here is a screenshot of a Google search result. Notice that the Title tag (MailChimp training – Learn how to…) reads like a headline and that I have included a phone number. The Description tag text begins: ‘The training can be….’ These two elements in combination have always struck me as looking like an advert.

You can have up to 300 characters including spaces within a Description tag.

Write about the benefits that are to be found within the web page. For example, as opposed to writing: ‘Here is our widgets page. It lists all of the widgets that we sell.’

You could write this: ‘Find the right widget for your requirements. You can specify your widgets by size, material, colour and price. We’re the leading widget supplier and we are here to help. Our vast warehouse ensures that we’re always in stock. Order online or apply for an account. Questions? Call: 01234 56789.’

(292 characters including spaces between words; it is quite a lot of text, isn’t it?)

Use the words ‘you’ and ‘your’ within your Description tags, as this will feel more personal for the reader.

It is better to write in an upbeat, positive way.

Use short sentences and short words.

Where you are marketing a product or service, include a call to action.

If you are a WordPress user, Yoast is helpful.

You will find more detail and ideas within the SEO course – click here.

Nigel offers Google SEO training.

PS This article first appeared in my marketing tips email which you can subscribe to here.

February 18, 2019

Do you like making decisions?

Are you good at making decisions? Do you tend to make the right decisions, in your personal and professional lives? Do you like making choices?

I have been thinking about this subject, following a series of conversations with The Marketing Compass member and decision making speaker David Knowles-Leak.

We all have to make decisions, every day of our lives. Most decisions are minor in nature (which shirt shall I wear?) whilst some decisions are of crucial importance (shall I propose?)

When I am selling, I sometimes wonder why it can take so long for people to get back to me. I have come to the conclusion that many people like to reflect on a decision, before they take it (or avoid doing so). Or perhaps they are inundated with more pressing matters?

When it comes to marketing, there a host of decisions that need to be made. For example, are we product or customer centric? How much time and money should be devoted to marketing? Will everything be done in-house or will some of it be outsourced? How important is digital marketing? Will we use a push or a pull marketing strategy?

Personally, I tend to make decisions quickly. For example, when I am buying something, I know what I want. When I find it, why not cut to the chase and buy?

I make a lot of decisions and I always talk through the big ones (and many of the smaller ones as well) with my wife, Joanna. We often do this when we go out for a walk, which helps me to think clearly.

As far as I am aware, decision making is not taught as a separate subject in schools. Bearing in mind how important it is, perhaps it should be?