penelope logo

Guest Post: Top Five Things to Add to your Marketing Mix

Small Business

Guest Post: Top Five Things to Add to your Marketing Mix

Hannah Roberts, Marketing Manager for virtual phone system Penelope, gives her marketing tips for 2014 to help get your business noticed.

facebook1)      Facebook Advertising

Facebook, especially for B2B, often gets a bad press but don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Used cleverly it’s great for raising visibility and getting your brand out there. The key to success here is granular targeting. Facebook’s Power Editor holds the key to this; set up campaigns based on interest, age, gender, location. Segmenting your audience this way enables you to test messaging, learn who responds to what and more importantly, bin what’s eating at your budget with no return. However tempting, don’t boost your posts. You are unlikely to see ROI.

Relatively new to Facebook is the ‘Custom Audiences’ tool which enables businesses to connect with existing and prospective customers using their email address. Tailor your adverts to tie in with your email messaging; some companies have seen sign up rates increase by up to 43% and cost per leads fall by 30%. It is certainly worth investigating as a way to sell, up-sell, cross-sell and push out customer offers.

2)      Retargeting

Many businesses are unsure about the use of retargeting as a form of online advertising and whether it is successful at attracting clients. Bizrate Insights have found that in reality, only 15% of online consumers dislike retargeting adverts meaning that most consumers feel neutral or positive about them, while a further 25% said they like to be reminded of what they have been looking at.

The internet and all of its distractions means that consumers jump from page to page and can easily forget something which they may have wanted to look into further.  With the use of retargeting, which works by leaving a cookie on the last webpage the user looked at, businesses can remind potential customers of their product, tell them something new and/or offer them a tailored deal. Again here, be careful to tailor your adverts very carefully and, while the majority still use Google for this, be aware that there are other options out there (we have used Ampex) so look for the most cost effective for you.

youtube3)      Embrace video

With ‘YouTube’ hits through the roof and more and more brands using video as an integral part of their marketing mix, video marketing has well and truly entered the mainstream and is a great way to get your brand noticed in an increasingly crowded marketplace. While this has historically been a relatively expensive practice, there’s now plenty of accessible technology making it easier than ever to produce good quality material. It’s the perfect medium for client testimonials, product overviews, footage from events and more, so use your imagination and get filming. It will really bring your brand to life, giving it real personality and colour.

 4)      Get your site mobile ready

Responsive web design is a must for 2014. As we all move effortlessly now from one device to another to receive and send information, ensuring your website design adjusts gracefully to fit on desktop, tablet, and smartphone browsers is crucial. We have all felt that frustration when viewing a site on a smartphone that is difficult, or worse, impossible to navigate. If designing a responsive site (where the content is presented differently according to the screen size)is out of your reach for this year, there are a few easy wins. Make your navigation as bold as you can, ensure there is enough spacing around links, laying out content clearly, and of course, reducing the amount of copy on your site (a must anyway) will help to cheat your way to a mobile ready site. It’s worth pointing out that Google are already ranking in favour of mobile optimised sites so it’s important for your SEO.

 5)      Big data

 This concept has been floating around for a couple of years, but still most SMEs don’t fully grasp what it is and why it’s important. Firstly, big data isn’t just the preserve of the big boys. Every business has a wealth of data, be it customer records, sales trends, website analytics. The key is what you do with it. At the extreme end, Amazon is using its sales history data to predict what customers will buy next. Sound impressive? Yes, but not out of your reach. The difficulty comes in analysing the data. Start small: look at your web visitors and social reach. Who is engaging with your brand and when? When it comes to external stats, Google Trends offer up insights into search, keyword and trends data.

penelope logoFurther information:

Launched in 2013, Penelope is the newest creation from call handling experts, Moneypenny. A virtual phone system for small businesses, Penelope does all a traditional phone system can do and more. Together, Penelope and Moneypenny handle in excess of eight million calls a year for more than 6,000 UK businesses.

Media contacts:

Deborah Barton and Hannah Roberts
0333 20 21 020 / [email protected] / [email protected]