Smarter Marketing Blog

Fortunately,There is No Cheating in a Content Marketing Strategy

black-hat-content-marketing-strategy

Those of us in the business world have definitely heard of it, and everybody, at some stage has been exposed to it. A content marketing strategy can include the use of video, social media, blogs, podcasts, email newsletters, white papers, SEO and landing pages, to mention a few.

The idea is that you provide informative posts for your audience so that they talk about you or share your content. As a result of this inbound attraction, (rather than outbound messaging), you become much more customer-centric than traditional methods and are favoured over competitors.

Easy right? Well no, because of the balancing act between a) being able to provide something useful for free, b) building trust and c) not overselling. And no one is saying that this is easy.

There are many prospective clients that we meet who want to ‘have’ a content marketing strategy in its narrowest form e.g. social media. Unfortunately, rarely will one form of content suit a marketing strategy and sometimes it might only be a mindset that needs to change. Look at it this way, if the real goal of marketing is to advance your business, surely all your marketing activity should be contributing to that goal.

Is Your Content Just Writing?

If content marketing is not facilitating the achievement of a business goal – then it is just writing. The only caveat is that it doesn’t become a constant irritant by way of a sales pitch. Fortunately with regard to selling, there is no cheating in a content marketing strategy because the very people you want to attract, will ignore a sales pitch. It might be argued that native advertising is content marketing, but that’s a discussion for another post.

Whatever way you look at it, a basic human trait is that we are constantly trading amongst ourselves. This may not be a financial transaction but basically, doesn’t everyone want to sell something to everyone else, even themselves? (e.g. personal branding).

So, if you decide that your business is going to develop a content marketing strategy, and you know it shouldn’t be used as a sales tool – that’s fine but bear in mind, it should, at least, market something.

If content marketing is not facili­tating the achievement of a business goal – then it is just writing.

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Well, if it’s not just writing – what is content marketing? We believe, it is creating and/or sharing relevant and useful content for a specific audience. The long term goal is that you instill a sense of value and grow trust amongst a community of people, with a view to building a mutually beneficial relationship.

Should a business write their own content?

We have written in previous blog posts about how business success is built on a foundation of strong relationships. We’ve also previously suggested that relationships can only be successful if there is a two-way exchange of relevant value (in whatever form), manifested in suitable communication.

Your content, therefore, needs to be professional and solve a problem that your audience cares about – or, at least, is somewhat entertaining. Each piece of content you supply should really make them feel good in that it rewards your audience for consuming it.

Of course, it is easy for a CEO to say ‘let’s have a content marketing strategy’ and the minions start a blog and set up a few social media accounts. However, without a well thought-out strategy this will only result in tears.

WARNING: Sometimes business owners should not be allowed to write their own content. Despite the arguments that they would know their clients the best – here are seven reasons why they should be convinced to leave it to the experts:

  1. They can write content but doing so for online purposes is a different challenge
  2. They can’t write – sometimes even people who are great conversationalists just can’t write
  3. They find it difficult to write about themselves and is usually faster when done by a third party
  4. They won’t always have the time – e.g. the cobbler’s kids, not having shoes
  5. They might not have the skills for social media distribution or SEO.
  6. They don’t understand the significance of original content
  7. They are afraid to trust a third party and waste money by micro-managing.

Your content needs to be profes­sional and solve a problem that your audience cares about – or, at least, is somewhat e­nterta­ining.

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In many respects, implementing a content marketing strategy can be likened to attending a networking event.

Bear with us here.

Think about it, both involve telling stories about how value can be exchanged, in an interesting way. Both require being in the right place at the right time and having good listening skills. And usually, a ‘once off’ meeting is rarely enough.

Tips and Timesavers.

Admittedly, content marketing has become a buzzword in marketing but, as alluded to above, it is not an easy task. Ideally, for it to work it should be part of a long-term business strategy. Here is a great chart from Curata that outlines approaches which may help you with your content strategy:

curata-content-marketing-strategy

  • Appoint or employ someone to create content from within the business
  • Encourage staff members, outside of the marketing department, to contribute content
  • Outsource externally to an expert agency
  • Obtain stories from ‘happy’ customers and build content communities
  • Some media companies license content that you can brand as your own
  • Curate content from experts and share with your own community (linked to the original source)

Conclusion.

The objective of using well-written and relevant content in your marketing activity is to build trust, credibility, and engagement. The trouble is, that these may also be objectives of  your competitors.

So here are some thoughts to remember – develop concrete content objectives (thought leadership/information/driving traffic etc.), do research on your competitors (audiences/keywords etc.), ensure that your content plan fits in with your overall marketing objectives and always track your progress (engagement rather than ‘likes’).

Sometimes the challenge is simply to adjust your mindset.

“Thank you for reading our blog post today” – Aidan & Jim.

 Would you like us to notify you, by email when we publish new content? If so, just let us know by clicking here. Of course, we can always meet face-to-face, just leave your details here and we might grab a coffee, cheers. Jim – O’C&K

 

Why Getting to Know Your Audience is The Secret Ingredient to Effective Marketing.

audience-ingredients-peas in a pod

Change is inevitable but effective marketing is the same as it was 100 years ago. Of course tools, trends and attitudes might have altered but what has not changed, is the need for a business to know its audience. Why? Because, if you don’t – how can you communicate with them?

We can discuss aspirations, online campaigns, social media, lead generation tools or even outsourcing all we want. But none of them matters unless your communication is focused on an audience that may buy from you. You need to know where they work, where they communicate, where they play, what they like/dislike – ultimately you need to know who they are.

A lot of businesses skip this ‘getting to know you’ stage and end up using a scatter-gun approach to communication. Because let’s face it – it is easier. But, just like life in general – easier does not necessarily mean better.

Also, if you’re just spraying a message and praying that it hits your audience, you’re not getting the best return on your activity. Instead, if you put effort into forums, research, listening to feedback, monitoring online conversations etc. you can then build a relevant message.

If you’re spraying and praying – you’re paying for ineffective marketing.

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It’s not just you – your audience has changed also.

Ah yes – back in the good old days we could all sit back and let word-of-mouth do its thing. Customers would come through the door based on a window display, press ads and lack of competition. Now the competition is everywhere and the ads have gone online – so has the window display. When, not so long ago knowing your audience was a competitive advantage, now it is the norm for survival.

We’re talking here about reacting to audience changes with your branding, going digital, being social and being smarter about your budget spend. It used to be that business owners (and some marketing professionals) used to wonder over the value of a website.

Look at where we are now – your audience ‘googles’ when it wants to search for something, on their smartphone. If your business does not show up when they do – you’re not even in the decision game.

Ok, let’s assume you have a web presence which provides information on you and your business. At this stage, everybody knows that the concept of ‘build it and they will come’ is a myth. This is because of SEO and social media. This post will not address the details of effective SEO but suffice to say, it is pointless having a website unless it is optimised for search engines and promoted on social media channels

Search engines rule the world and social media feeds them.

Search engines nowadays base their results on one thing – relevance. Quite rightly, they want to provide the best result for the searcher – their customer. Accordingly, the only way it can determine whether your business deserves to be made visible or not is by ‘crawling’ your website and social media activity for audience relevancy.

As such, therefore, social media channels themselves are secondary websites for brands. They also provide a direct means of customer engagement. The ultimate goal should be for your social media audience to do your marketing for you. So, just as you will have an SEO strategy in place for your website, you need to optimise your social media activity also.

These two activities have become the window display of yore. That is not to say that billboards, direct mail, radio, TV, press and promotional brochures etc. are not applicable. They absolutely are, and should be considered as part of a campaign mix, but only as based on your target audience.

Websites and social media can provide the best return on investment of any form of modern marketing.

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How do you get a relevant audience online?

Whether it’s social media followers or blog subscribers, people will only be attracted to you if they see a value for their time spent engaging with you. Only these people will relish a true relationship. As a result, you needn’t be wasting your valuable time with others and ignoring an audience that might convert into clients. When building an audience it is important to find a common ground between their wants and your convictions.

For example, this O’C&K blog is generally written for three audiences – business owners, marketing managers and club / charity administrators. We focus it on providing readers with marketing tips and timesavers that might help them grow their organisation. This is aligned with our own business objectives of helping organisations be smarter about their marketing through outsourcing.

7 tips on growing your audience online.

Based on the saying “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear”, here are some suggestions based on our own experience of building an audience:

  1. Share ideas that are educational, engaging or entertaining
  2. Speak the language of your intended audience
  3. Be consistent and credible
  4. Personalise and humanise the message
  5. Paint a vivid picture with your story
  6. Put it in context and make it relevant
  7. Make it easy for them to find you

Conclusion.

Growing your audience means doing the basics, well. Clearly understand who your service / product is for and know exactly where they hang out. Listen to what they say, think about your service, think about your competitors and even your industry, in general. Find out who influences them and when they become a client – treat them like kings and queens.

“We hope you have enjoyed our marketing tips and timesavers blog” – Aidan & Jim.

 Would you like us to notify you, by email when we publish new content? If so, just let us know by clicking here. Of course, we can always meet face-to-face, just leave your details here and we might grab a coffee, cheers.   Jim – O’C&K

What Is It About Content Marketing That Makes It So Effective For Building Influence?

building influence

Building influence in your industry sector amplifies your marketing efforts. Having influence can impact the attitude of people to your brand and potentially change their purchasing behaviour.

One of the most effective ways of building influence is through the use of content marketing. We believe that it is one of the most powerful tools that any business should have in their arsenal.

It can achieve many things if done right. It can position your business as an industry leader and provide sales leads, but interestingly it can also be used for building influence.

In the current ever-changing and connected marketplace, providing useful content that makes your business a go-to resource is an effective way of providing a positive customer engagement.

Providing value is the way for building influence.

Through positive engagement, businesses can build relationships and subsequent influence.  At a practical level, having influence will help a) people to buy into the brand, b) to differentiate themselves from competitors and c) to get the team to buy into a founders vision. How do you build this influence? – by providing people with some type of benefit. The recipients have to appreciate the benefit / value provided or they won’t be influenced.

Think about the people who have influenced you in the past. It may have been your parents, a teacher, a sports coach, a work colleague or even a friend. Whoever it was – you probably valued them greatly. Doing so makes them an influence in your life.

Therefore, our point is that content marketing can be a powerful tool to help build influence by providing benefits to your target market. If you can solve a problem or just answer a question, without asking for anything in return, they are more likely to favour you if deciding to purchase a service you supply.

Let’s face it – people are really only interested in what your business can do for them. So they will be interested in your brand if it engages them by making their life easier somehow. It’s not about you – it’s about them.

Let’s face it – people are really only interested in what your business can do for them.
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People are hungry for relevant and reliable information.

Admittedly, nobody is going to put up their hand and say “influence me” but they do want the availability of good information so that they can make quick decisions. This can be for personal or business reasons.

The problem is that there is a tsunami of information being made available online and offline every day. As a result, it is becoming extremely hard for many people to sort the relevant and reliable information from the time wasters. Good content marketing can help them with this dilemma.

We will look at content marketing in a little more detail. Customers want information to help them take the ‘next step’ in a decision process and businesses want it to help build their customer base. Let us say you have decided to assist both parties by providing information. Before you start doing so we would recommend you have a look at our four general principals which you need to commit to:

  • Decide to use content marketing as a strategy (see below)
  • Consider how you will develop content that will be relevant to your audience
  • Agree on a consistent style and delivery schedule
  • How will you facilitate your team in providing good, quick and real content

We have found that if you create content based on your own experience, recipients can empathise more and will view it as being more valuable to them. For instance, the driver of the content of this post arose from a client meeting from last week.

They have decided to pay more attention to their online presence and to commence building thought leadership in their industry. Accordingly, we have embarked on a plan of activity to achieve that objective. In doing so, we thought we might share our thought process with you.

Effective content marketers build a plan of activity.

I guess the hardest part of starting off is putting together a content marketing plan. Here are 7 elements we recommend that you consider:

  • Curate a list of your current content – website, blogs, social media, brochures, newsletters.
  • Determine where your target audience is – what are they listening to / talking about (e.g. google analytics).
  • Align your communication for consistency – tone, keywords, interest, educational, engaging, of value.
  • Choose appropriate channels and tools – social media, video, audio, images, presentations, software (e.g. Hootsuite to help with time management).
  • Plan around specific events – industry events, public events, seasonality, PR/advertising  campaigns etc.
  • Place your plan in an actual calendar – one, three, six or twelve months, whatever suits.
  • If you don’t have the time, get help* – you will be planning, creating, editing, curating, distributing, measuring etc.

* If you do decide to get external help, look for evidence of, i) previous work samples, ii) who influences them, iii) SEO / SEM knowledge and iv) how much they expect to be paid.

Putting together a content marketing plan is not easy. Here are 7 elements to consider:
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Tips and Timesavers.

I think we can agree that no matter how fantastic your product or service is – if nobody knows about them, your business will not survive. Marketing is an essential part of business growth and using a content strategy is a relatively cheap way of gaining a foothold in your chosen market. Quite often these markets are dominated by large companies so not having to compete on budget, levels the playing field somewhat.

There are many ways of over complicating content marketing, but the concept is relatively straight forward.

Create and curate good and reliable content, promote it in the right places and thereby offer value to your audience.

As alluded to above, undertaking a content marketing strategy has to be a conscious decision by you / your management team. Let’s look at five steps you might take to build your strategy into one that will get you noticed:

  • Firstly, ask yourself why do it in the first place? Consider your overall goal – is it to provide a specific solution to customers, to reinforce a brand positioning, to generate sales leads, activate a sponsorship etc.
  • Secondly, determine (with your colleagues / external survey) what type of content your audience wants to receive – how to videos, tips via a blog, infographics, ebooks etc.
  • The third step is to decide where the content will feature i.e. paid, owned or earned media. Your allocated budget will determine to which extent these channels are used for distribution. Either way there should be a mix of these elements.
  • The penultimate step is to decide who will run your content marketing efforts. As mentioned above, if you don’t have the resources (i.e. a dedicated person / team) get help. Agreeing responsibilities, up-front, will help determine your capacity to create and distribute your content.
  • The final step is to consider how you will measure success. There are many tracking tools out there that can provide you with mountains of data. Choose the one that provides real insights into how you’re doing and how you can improve.
Why are businesses making content marketing an integral part of their marketing strategy?
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Conclusion.

So why are more businesses making content marketing an integral part of their marketing strategy? We touched on it earlier in this post. We believe that it is because if you want to build influence with your audience, you need to be providing as much value as possible.

This is why content that offers a distinct benefit that makes your customer’s life easier, will earn you the right to influence them. However, your content must be relevant if it is to provide value. How can it do that?

It should answer a question that is being asked by your audience. At least it should be content that tells the reader how to solve a problem. Perhaps you could give your audience information that may be hard to get elsewhere. Or alternatively, you might provide content that makes your audience think about a topic differently.

Whatever style you decide upon, if you want to persuade someone to take a particular action, you must find a way to benefit them. If you provide relevant value, you will grow your influence.

There is one final question that is on most content providers minds when the publish – Does Google Penalise Duplicate Content? Here is a very good read on duplicate content by Connex Digital Marketing

 Content marketing is a way of making your brand useful to an end-user beyond what your product or service offers. ….O’C&K

“We hope you have enjoyed our marketing tips and timesavers blog” – Aidan & Jim.

 Would you like us to notify you, by email, when we publish new content? If so, just let us know by clicking here. Of course, we can always meet face-to-face, just leave your details here and we might grab a coffee, cheers.   Jim – O’C&K

CSR (corporate social responsibility), is not only for large companies.

CSR - hands

CSR is for SMEs also but, it is not sponsorship or philanthropy.

First of all, let us outline what our understanding of what Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), is. We believe that it applies to any company’s activity where they assess and take responsibility for their effect on the environment and their social impact.  It is not a regulatory function and therefore is an entirely voluntary route that a company, big or small, may choose to follow.

Yes, we are all aware of examples of companies that describe marketing activity as CSR, in an attempt to enhance brand reputation with the media, the public and their stakeholders. That being said, many large companies do devote real time and money towards environmental programmes and social initiatives that benefit staff, customers and the communities in which they operate. Here is a list of good examples and winners from the 2014 Chambers Ireland Corporate Social Responsibility Awards.

CSR activity is usually associated with large companies, but it shouldn’t be – it is the motivation for undertaking the CSR activity that counts – O’C&K.

Usually, large companies can run high-profile CSR programmes because they are probably better resourced to do so, in terms of people and funds. We would be of the opinion that size shouldn’t matter as to whether a company invests in CSR or not. The real considerations should be the why and how it can do so.

Whatever size it is, a company has an impact on its local community, be it through employment, purchasing power, sustainability or just social. Accordingly, a company can decide to integrate local concerns into its business activities in order to ‘play its part’ in addressing societal needs. Some might consider this to be a ‘good deed’ strategy, but in fact it is a sound business strategy of being relevant to customers. At the end of the day, it might well become a competitive advantage.

CSR is not sponsorship or philanthropy.

As referred to on many previous posts on this blog, sponsorship is a joint marketing activity between a rights holder and a sponsor (usually a company). There is a mutually beneficial ‘value exchange’ for the benefit of a defined audience. It is a planned business transaction with all that that entails – goals, audience engagement, objectives, communications, milestones, measurement, reviews etc.

A business will use sponsorship as a marketing tool and will expect a return on the investment. It is not a ‘tool’ for looking after the needs of a local community, contrary to popular beliefs.

On the other side of the coin, there is a popular belief held by companies, which is that CSR is associated with philanthropy. We acknowledge that the precise meaning of philanthropy could be argued ad infinitum, but in our opinion, it is definitely not corporate giving or corporate citizenship.

In its simplest form, we take it to mean, the desire to increase the well-being of others, expressed by a donation of funds to a cause. No return of monetary value is expected, by the philanthropist. Without appearing pedantic about the description, we believe that under no circumstance can CSR be seen as philanthropic activity.

By confusing a CSR strategy with philanthropy, businesses automatically presume they will gain an enhanced brand reputation and increased trust from customers and employees. However, it may be a waste of time or it might even backfire on the brand because these benefits are not automatic. It is the perceived ‘fit’ and impact of a partnership with an NGO that earns these benefits.

Other benefits might include, improved risk management, increased staff motivation or even the provision of new business opportunities. But our point here is, if you are going to implement a CSR strategy as part of your business, make sure you understand what it is not.

What could NGOs bring to the corporate table?

Sometimes non-governmental organisations (NGOs) get caught up on fundraising for their cause and neglect fundraising for their own financial sustainability. Because of this, they don’t do the homework in order to find a commercial partner. As a result, they often don’t appreciate what value they can bring to a company.

Also, because companies (especially SMEs) will not have the time to think about and plan for CSR activity, they don’t see an NGO as a potential business partner. For example, here are some elements that NGOs might take for granted, and that companies don’t consider.

  • NGOs have an existing stakeholder group (potential audience for a company)
  • NGOs communicate in human language using stories (the audience believes in them)
  • NGOs can provide an element of ‘trust’ (in doing the right thing by society)
  • NGOs can bring new experiences and ideas (that relate to a company’s business)
  • NGO’s beliefs can intersect with a business (and may resonate with a particular audience)
  • NGOs can provide the vehicle for a company to impact positively on society
“Charities must do their homework before they get a seat at the corporate table”.
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SMEs might use CSR differently than larger companies.

The majority of SME founders also manage the business, on a day to day basis. Because of this hands-on approach, they can be more in touch with the needs of their immediate community. So it is probably fair to say that they might have a different commitment to impacting on society, than that of a larger company.

Often this manifests itself by donations to local sports clubs, art societies or charitable groups. In fact they might not even call it CSR, but they do because they can react quicker due to their size and flexibility. Often, therefore, they can appear to be more ‘responsible’ than larger companies. SMEs might even argue that CSR is a license to operate a business in a local community.

Also, from an SME point of view – CSR can be much more of a personal experience. Being a smaller entity, relationships are key to an SME’s success, both internally and externally. It’s the usual ‘everybody knows everybody in town’, story. Obviously, the majority of employees are going to be local and they bring a further network of relationships to the table.

In such scenarios, you can imagine that the SME owner / manager has more opportunities to be more in touch with societal needs than his/her larger counterparts. It is also in their own interest that the local economy is vibrant and projects such as infrastructure improvements are undertaken.

Of course, it is also a factor that SMEs will have less funds to make available. However, in their own small way can play a positive role in the community e.g. allowing staff to volunteer, offering a premises for meetings, providing transport solutions etc.

In addition, as larger companies undertake a programme of CSR they might well insist that suppliers adhere to sustainability standards and measurements. In this way, reputational pressure on a larger company might well translate into pressure on a SME (supplier), whether they like it or not.

“CSR could be seen as a license to operate your business in a local community”.
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Tips and Timesavers.

Last year, O’C&K had the pleasure of contributing towards a publication written by Sandra Velthuis on behalf of The Wheel. The publication is called ‘financing your future – a guide to building a sustainable income for community and voluntary organisations’. In the preface, Deirdre Garvey, CEO refers to the funding challenge that organisations are experiencing, nowadays.

We received a copy last week and I am going to summarise a 10 step framework for action suggested therein, which is excellent. It is part of ‘doing the homework’ mentioned above and is the professional way that companies would expect an NGO to go about raising support.

  • Have an active board and articulate the organisation’s purpose clearly
  • Analyse your current resource profile in detail (income, expenditure, assets etc.)
  • Calculate how much you need, what you need it for and plan to make savings where possible
  • Generate as many options for income growth and diversification as possible
  • Assess all options, decide on a shortlist and undertake in-depth research on them
  • Develop an action plan and monitor progress, adapting where necessary.

As we say on our own website, here, there is a growing realisation by the corporate and the social sectors that they need to engage with each other more, in order to ensure a positive impact on society.

We believe that this changing landscape of social responsibility will transform the relationships between social and business partners into the future. Businesses need to be a little more like NGOs and NGOs need to be a little more like businesses.

“We hope you have enjoyed our marketing tips and timesavers blog” – Aidan & Jim.

Would you like to be notified by email when we publish new content? If so, just let us know by clicking here.

Of course, we can always meet face-to-face, just leave your details here and we can grab a coffeet, cheers.   Jim – O’C&K

 

Business Marketing – building relationships with effective communication.

christmas business marketing

“We want to create value for you by sharing marketing tips and timesavers” – O’C&K.

7 ideas for SME’s marketing online this Christmas.

Whenever the owners of small or medium sized businesses ask us about business marketing, we respond by separating the two words. We suggest that, business is about building two things; trust and relevance and marketing is about building one; a relationship. The tool needed to build all of these, is communication.

You can talk about any type of ‘new’ or ‘old’ marketing you want to, influencer marketing, engaging marketing, broadcast marketing, transactional marketing – it doesn’t matter. People connect with people and communication is how that happens, in whatever way that works for both.

Wanting a relationship is human, it is only the type of relationship that differs. As a result, organisations (of any size) must seek out ways, online and offline, which build relationships. Use any method you want to, social media, traditional advertising, growth hacking – just make sure that you are creating an environment for a person to have a positive engagement with you / your brand.

If you think about it, in this digitally enhanced and fragmented world of customers – building a relationship that can’t be copied or stolen, may be the only differentiator, in business. How do you build such a relationship? – By using consistent and effective communication.

Business marketing is about communicating a relevant story.

Let’s be fair, some organisations are embracing the notion of consistency in their communication. Almost every day we read about the tsunami of organisations entering into the content marketing and / or storytelling space. The trouble is that sometimes, this is not done in a consistent and effective manner, because they are storytelling from a traditional advertising mind set.

To me, this is a waste of time. Personally, I don’t want any of my timelines interrupted by a tweet, a Facebook or Google+ post, advising me about a great product! No, for me social media is -s-o-c-i-a-l…. I don’t want to discuss my holidays with my bank manager (even if she, ahem, paid for it). Educate me or entertain me – that’s it.

If you want to share a story that includes your brand, make it a compelling and authentic one that I might be interested in. Also, tell me the story where and when I want it. I might want to check out a service of yours on my mobile but I may read about your story in a blog, on my tablet. And if it’s that useful yes, I’ll share it with my friends on my social media networks. Lastly, please make it different to all the other ‘stories’ because my time is precious.

Be smarter about your business marketing because time is precious for everyone. Your time is spent concentrating on growing your business and marketing has to play its role. To do so, however, your marketing must respond to people’s needs and desires. You have to acknowledge this if you are to earn people’s attention.

The fact that you can’t force anybody to listen to your story anymore, means that you have to ensure that you are part of their story. You’ll read many blogs, articles and books on the need for data management, new technology, automation, targeting, optimisation and measurement. But without being authentic when marketing your business, people won’t care and you’ll end up being a busy fool.

Building blocks for smarter business marketing.

Even before embarking on your storytelling journey, there are some building blocks that should be in place, especially if you are a small business with a small marketing budget.

  • Identify your USP. Choose one thing that differentiates you from competitors and build around that.
  • Be clear about your audience. Don’t waste time on an audience that will never buy your offerings.
  • Use the right channels. A channel should get new customers, and/or build relationships / reputation.
  • Start off with a clear business model. Ensure correct pricing – from a customer’s point of view.
  • Enjoy yourself. Do things you enjoy and that fit with your company’s values.

Tips and Timesavers.

We mentioned above about a business building relationships. Last week one of our Facebook friends, contacted us for activity ideas, to sell products online between now and Christmas. We do apologise for mentioning the ‘C’ word so early in November. However, as we can’t all afford the big TV campaigns, some of the ideas below may help to level the online playing field for SMEs, in the coming weeks.

  1. Maximise social: If you’re planning some offline activity such as a flyer (QR codes), a trade show, a Christmas market stall – broaden your activity impact using social media. Have early-bird discounts, talk about the advantages of shopping early and online. Use each channel / audience in a different way and invite them to get involved (by sharing). If you have a range of products think of using Pinterest.
  2. Site optimisation: track search activity and re align landing pages and search terms. Have you access to FAQs or a sizing chart (fashion). Use large thumbnail images, quick view buttons and testimonials. Make sure the check-out process is simple.
  3. Create an experience: Set up an advent calendar. Each day have an offer on a particular product, have a discount, a 24 hour competition, a quote, a picture – anything that raises awareness or drives people to your site. (O2 have done this in Ireland in the past offering music downloads). Use Instagram to give people gift ideas.
  4. Get emotional: Email is still a personal channel. Use an online ‘pull strategy’ to encourage people to send their gift ‘wish list’ to you. Get them to write a story about why they would want to give one of your products to someone they love. Maybe the best story would get a free gift etc. Their email would give you permission to mail your catalogue to them, for inspiration.
  5. Be generous: Create Christmas themed gift cards. Offer free discount cards – people tend to spend more than the card offer. Promote a BOGOF offer which would help people to solve their gift buying problems by getting two for one! How about free posting?
  6. Be helpful: Delivery countdown. Remind your online followers that there are only ‘x’ amount of days left to ensure pre-Christmas delivery. Let them know if a particular product is almost out of stock.
  7. Be human: Set up a scheduled tweet. Don’t go overboard on this but there is nothing wrong with a little Christmas cheer – schedule a ‘greeting tweet’ for Christmas Eve or Day.

Hopefully, some of these might ‘spark’ an idea of your own.  We want to ensure that you have a turkey stuffin’, wine sippin’, santa hat wearin’, cracker pullin’ bit of fun, this Christmas season.

Outsourcing your content management.

To finish, I’d like to return to the notion of organisations entering into the content marketing and / or storytelling space, in an ineffective manner. Sometimes the task of ‘storytelling’ is delegated to the overworked marketing team (or development person) that are trying to get their heads around data management, new technology and customer’s increased expectations.

The obvious answer is to outsource. However there is a caveat here also. Traditional agencies may lack digital knowledge and digital agencies may lack strategic know how. There is a new breed of content and editorial agencies but the trouble is that they may well lack brand knowledge. Perhaps we will eventually get an integrated model that can understand both the editorial mind set and the brand management side but in the meantime, make sure you all agree the deliverables up front.

“Here’s the plug folks – at O’C&K we combine our own experience and that of our ‘contacts community’ to deliver brand management, engagement strategy and storytelling into a seamless experience for your brand. Let us know if we can help”.

  If you have any other tips or timesavers please leave a reply below. If you’d like to receive similar content, just subscribe by clicking through the pink button, on this page.  Of course, if you want to get in touch, leave your details and perhaps we might meet for a chat, cheers.   Jim – O’C&K