So you’ve launched your brand spanking new website and it's received fantastic feedback. But does a website have a 'shelf life' and if so, when should you start thinking about developing a new one?Let’s be SMART about itIn principle, the success of a website can be measured against its intended purpose. Was it developed to attract new customers? Is it an eCommerce site that needs to deliver a specific ROI? Maybe it adds credibility to your business or service? Or perhaps it's purely...

You’ve been on the food market circuit for a while and perhaps even have a couple of local retailers stocking your products, but how do you grow your stockists and reach new retailers potentially hundreds of miles away? The time might be right for you to start talking to food and drink wholesale distributors.Working with food and drink wholesale distributors can be an effective way to reach a wide network of retailers and can significantly aid your business growth. However, there are several...

So, you've been cooking up a storm in the kitchen and your friends and family are raving about your culinary skills and now you’re ready to see if there’s a place for you and your scrumptious new product on the food market.However, bringing a new product to market can be particularly tricky in the food and drink industry. With so many choices out there already, you need to make sure you get it right first time. Where do you start with launching your new product? Find your USPHow does y...

Wondering how much you should spend on marketing your business? In short, there’s no definitive answer. It’s often recommended that you spend 10% of your turnover on marketing if you're planning for growth. Here’s what that would look like for businesses with a...Turnover of £120,000 = £12,000 marketing budget Turnover of £500,000 = £50,000 marketing budget Turnover of £3,000,000 = £300,000 marketing budgetIn reality, the 10% figure is far from gospel. If you search the...

New privacy regulations are coming in next year and many companies are unprepared. The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) will come into force on May 25th 2018. Although it might seem a long way off, the new regulations are much more involved than current UK Data Protection Act rules, so there’s lots for businesses to do in preparation. Although it's unlikely, those who don't comply could be hit with huge fines – up to 20 million euros or 4% of turnover, whichever is higher. Who is...

In the previous blogs to this series we’ve shown what PR is and how it can help your business. Now we’ll show how PR works as part of an integrated marketing strategy. What is an integrated marketing strategy? It’s how all the different marketing activity you are doing (or planning) fits together, so that each activity supports the others and shares the same messages. The often-quoted ‘rule of seven’ says that potential customers need to hear or see your marketing messages seven t...

We saw in our first blog of this series that PR (Public Relations) is about reputation, and that many companies and organisations employ PR companies to build, protect and maintain their reputation. Why does my business need a PR Strategy? Having a PR strategy means that you are thinking about what you want customers and other groups (such as suppliers and the media) to believe about the products and services you supply, and about your business in general. Whichever sector you operate in yo...

PR (Public Relations) is about your reputation, and how you are (and want to be) perceived. What is PR? Many companies, organisations and individuals in the public eye employ PR companies to build, protect and maintain their reputation, as it is their most valuable asset. A ‘public’ is anyone who ever has or ever will form an opinion about a company, organisation, or individual, and could include customers, potential customers, suppliers, staff, the general public, and of course the me...

Every time we work with our clients to create a marketing strategy and plan we use the same five steps. Here’s what our process looks like... 1. Learning about your business Before we start work on a marketing strategy for our clients, first we spend time getting a deep understanding of their business and their goals for the future. We’ll have a face-to-face meeting where we'll aim to find out:The history of their business. Who their customers are. What products or services the...

In our experience, businesses that come to us without a marketing strategy often have one thing in common – they’re spending money on marketing but not seeing a return on their investment. This frequently happens when an opportunity for marketing presents itself, perhaps the chance to run radio ads or advertise in a local magazine, and the business decides to invest. Yet when this is done outside of a marketing strategy, the activity often doesn't have the desired impact. For example, if you...

A marketing strategy is a document that details how you’ll achieve your business goals using marketing.  Marketing can be highly effective at growing businesses, but for best results you need to approach it strategically. Jumping in and creating adverts on social media channels can be counter intuitive if you don't know what you want to achieve with them. Creating a strategy means you can be sure all your activity is working towards your overall goals. What's in a marketing strategy? Below...

The benefit of modern technology is that it’s now easier than ever to track the performance of your marketing activity and therefore its return on investment (ROI). That means you should be able to see the impact of online marketing activity on things like website traffic, leads/enquiries and sales. If you don’t measure the performance of your marketing spend, there’s a good chance your marketing activity isn’t delivering value for your business. Where to start With a virtually never ...

The start of a new year provides an excellent opportunity to understand more about your company’s marketing activity. These questions should provide a good basis for finding out how you are performing, how your marketing activity could be optimised this year and what your marketing team need from you. What is the marketing strategy and how is it tied to business goals?What are the aims of the marketing strategy? How does the strategy support our business plan? What are we doing diff...

Planning your marketing strategy for 2015? Here's four trends to keep in mind... 1. Content marketing is here to stay According to a recent survey, 30% of businesses think content marketing will be the most important marketing tactic they will use in 2015. Plus, more than half of B2B marketers are planning to increase their content marketing spend this year. With more competition for views, content will need to be high quality and closely aligned to the needs of your target audience. Many...