Get your Marketing Ready for Coming Out of Lockdown

by admin | Jun 19, 2020 | Challenge, Uncategorized

As businesses slowly continue to open, it is especially important you are Marketing correctly to keep your customers updated with what is going on within your business.

It is important your business puts in the rules and restrictions necessary for your business – this will vary for each business. It is important to inform your customers of these restrictions so that your staff and your customers feel safe and will they continue to purchase your service.

Things your customers need to be aware of:

• How you are changing your business to make sure everyone is safe
• Limiting the number of customers in your premises/face to face meetings
• Creating one-way systems and distance between customers
• Your business working hours
• Offering no contact alternatives – paying contactless rather than cash.

As everyone is in the same boat, it is important to be as open & honest to your customers as this will make them understand more your reasons for restrictions.

5 Ways to Get Your Business Building for the Future

Here are our top 5 ways to market your business for the future:

1. Social Media

Make sure you are using all your social media platforms to communicate with your customers such as promotions, offers, new ways of working etc. You may have reduced working hours, therefore letting your customers know when you are open is key as they may be a regular customer and think you are open as normal when you maybe be working flexibly.

It is important to crank up your social media activity if you have been a little quiet over the past few months to ensure you are seen and clients start seeing your posts again. You need to think about the types of content to use as it has all changed – less sales, more support. Our top tips are:

• Ask Questions
• Behind the Scenes Photos
• Thank you messages for Staff and Customers
• Sharing your News Content – Blogs. Webinar etc
• Like, Comment and Share – it is vital you engage with others!

2. Contact Details – Building Those Databases

Make sure all contact details/databases are updated as many of us have been working from home and contact details like telephone numbers may have changed therefore they need to be changed back to make sure your customers can get in touch with you.

There are many mays to inform your customers from social media to emails, and on your website. It is important you are communicating, and you cannot do this is if you don’t have the data you need.

Take a few minutes today to assess your data needs and ask yourself:

If social media was unavailable, could you reach clients & potential clients?

If you connect online, do you have a mechanism to build the data off-line in line with GDPR?

How effectively do you use your CRM system, and can you automate some of the processes?

What plans do you have to build your audience?

3. Email Marketing

Now is the time to start making your email marketing campaigns regular and consistent. A monthly newsletter to Clients showcasing what you can offer keeps you in the front and center of clients. Ensure you are linking back to your website. Our top tips:

• Think of the subject line – how can you make clients open the email?
• Are you telling a story – make it sound human!
• Interesting graphics and images
• Make sure there are clear calls to action
• Have a plan!

4. Marketing Materials

Take a few minutes to look at your leaflets and brochures – are they promoting your business in the right way and if not, what do you need going forward.

Emails are brilliant and necessary, but we are helping clients to take the next step in producing printed articles and news pieces that can be sent through the post. Being visible is what will help your business start out from the crowd.

Could you create a suite of marketing materials to cover the range of services you offer? Even better, could you create a piece of lumpy mail – look out for our next article on the power of lumpy mail?

5. Google My Business

We still cannot understand how businesses are not utilising Google My Business – it is FREE. If you have a profile then make sure you add weekly posts promoting your services and offers. Great way to enhance your shop window, get found on the Google Map and share your news. The stats are brilliant and will show you keywords, actions, and much more – well worth 10-15 minutes of effort each week – if it is used properly!

We are working through everything we have mentioned above for our business and already starting to see the rewards. We are happy to help & support businesses to get the most out of their marketing activity – please get in touch if we can help you on 0115 8376 260 or email info@creationzmarketing.co.uk

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Placement Experience at Creationz Marketing

by admin | May 27, 2020 | Challenge, Uncategorized

Jasmin Saimbi joined Creationz Marketing in September 2019 as part of a placement scheme through Nottingham Trent University. She is going to talk about her experience partaking in an Internship for the first time.

About Jasmin:

I study Business Management and Marketing and Nottingham Trent University which is a 4-year course and requires a placement year after 2^nd year. I was very unsure in what area of career I wanted to go down therefore I changed my course which required a placement, to gain some experience, and for it to hopefully give me an idea of what I enjoy. When applying for a placement, I left it quite broad to Management/Marketing roles.

I have only previously had experience in retail, therefore I decided I needed to start somewhere. I carried out a lot of research and came across Creationz Marketing. This company really stood out to me as it is an independent business, and I thought instead of going for a big company I would be able to get more involved in a smaller company. I also wanted to support a local business and see how things work when starting up a business.

The placement

During my placement, I was provided with a fantastic opportunity to experience working first hand with a variety of different types of clients who all operate in different sectors ranging from Professional Services, Education, Manufacturing, Trades, Charities, Hobbies & Interests, new business start-ups, and businesses looking to grow.

This placement has also required a lot of communication, from Networking to meeting up with clients, and answering phone calls, these have all have built my confidence more and more on a daily basis. I have had a number of calls and meetings with clients regarding enquires, this has been a key learning experience for me as I have had to deal with a number of different scenarios and I know how to take control of the situation.

A big skill I have picked up is how to use new/different software. This is especially important as in this role I am using different software regularly in order to carry out tasks outside of the usual packages.

A major key learning experience for me is dealing with the Coronavirus. Unlike most businesses that may have shut or employees have been furloughed, we are still business as usual as our services are all online. This has taught me how to make the most out of working from home and not getting distracted, I have had to take on a lot of responsibility on my own with only online communication with my manager.

The placement has not only helped me decide what direction I want my career to go in after I graduate, but it has also helped enhance my CV. I have had the opportunity to have a year’s experience in marketing which future employers will see value to and therefore put me at an advantage over other candidates. I feel I have benefited the most as I have had experience from a small company, therefore I have experienced everything first hand, being able to be part of decision making and involved within meetings which I would not have the opportunity if I was working for a large firm.

Creationz Marketing Internship for 2020 is open now – send your CV to info@creationzmarketing.co.uk – Internship commences 1st September 2020.

5 Ways to Enhance your Marketing During Lockdown

by admin | Apr 29, 2020 | Challenge, Uncategorized

It is definitely a worrying time for all businesses especially smaller/independent businesses, as everything has come to a complete standstill, and marketing might not seem high on your priority list right now.

Over the past few weeks, we have been working with lots of clients in different industries helping them adapt around the circumstances and to create a two-tiered approach that focuses on the here and now but also plans for the future. As we write this, businesses are starting to head back to work (where possible).

There are a number of marketing activities you can do to help you stand out during lockdown and won’t necessarily break the bank. The best piece of advice we can give you is to not stop marketing. Use this time to audit, enhance, and refresh your marketing strategy during following the 3 R’s:

Review – check how you are currently doing and draft ideas on how you can improve during these times.

Refresh – keep up with trends – what can you do differently

Reset – deliver a different message

We thought we would share our top 5 tips to enhance your marketing during lockdown:

1. Google My Business.

Google My Business (GMB) is the perfect tool to keep your customers updated especially during these uncertain times. Your customers will have lots of questions like your opening times, your contact details if these have changed due to working from home, instead of having to contact you they are able to keep up to date on there.

Google My Business allows you to add posts promoting your latest information and offers which stay visible for a week. You can showcase a different service each week giving people a glimpse of what you do. You can also access insights to tell you how many views, searches, and activity your business has had direct from GMB

So review your listing, update details and make sure you are adding a post each week to promote a different service/product and links to a different page of your website.  This should not take you more than 10 minutes per week and is an easy job to schedule on a Monday morning – (it is in our diaries as a weekly task!)

2. Create Your Audience.

Use this period of lockdown to build your email marketing list and write your content ready to kickstart your marketing as soon as the coronavirus is over. Once written, you can then drip feed content for your audience to look forward to.

Building an audience on social media is great but you don’t own it. What would you do if Facebook or LinkedIn suddenly shuts down tomorrow? Would you still have a method of reaching your customers?

Make a plan to build your audience online but then have a method of getting them off and into your email marketing flows. Word of warning here – do not just automatically add people you connect with online to your email lists – it is NOT the done thing, is against GDPR, and will not give a good impression of your business.

Once you have your email list, plan out your content. Remember to give your audience top tips, help, and support during lockdown – reduce the sales pitches – this way they will remember the good things you have done. Adjust/adapt your services to the circumstances, this will make people want to engage with you more.

How can you build your list today in the right way?

3. Review and refresh your website.

Now is the perfect time to give your website a refresh as we have more time on our hands, make sure you add in any new services you are offering so your audience are aware of this and build your resources.

Top things to check:

• Page Content
• SEO – when was it last updated?
• Refresh images
• Calls to Action – could you add more / less
• Add in newsletter options
• Blogs – could you write more
• Links to associations,
• Add case-studies and Testimonials
• Check Internal Links

Improve your website’s SEO this will help people find your business. As Google changes their search engines so often it is important that your website frequently changes to keep up with trends. Do you know your numbers – review your analytical data to see how your website is really performing.

At the moment your competitors will be reviewing their websites to make an impact and certainly something you should make a priority. Our top tip for a website is little and often rather than wholesale changes in one go and then nothing for a number of months.

This week we have helped a client review their stats and whilst traffic has remained the same, the bounce rate is down, time spent on the site has gone from 1minute to 10 minutes and people are viewing more pages. What is did show was that a page they really wanted to rank well for was not being found – with a few simple tweaks this situation will be improved.

Could you set yourself a target to review 1 page of your website each day?

4. Social Media.

Take time to review your social media constantly. You will most likely need to change the messages you are sending out so that it is relevant to the circumstances. Think:

• Is the message correct?
• Are we on the right platform?
• Can you improve our Bio / Company Details?
• Can we change our graphics – timeline, etc to add a call to action?

It is important to make sure you change your graphics regularly and keeping your bio up to date –this could be changing the link to your latest blog or different pages of your website – not just your homepage.

Post regularly as everyone is now online and you need to get in front of your target audience – focus on conversations to get people more engaged.

Incorporate videos!! As we have little/no human contact seeing a face makes it feel more personal and your audience will more likely stop and watch it. It feels scary but well worth the effort.

Review your analytics on social media, check your numbers have they decreased ask yourself why and map out ideas on how you can change this. Constantly review and refine – don’t just do social as you have always done – make a change.

5. Create Content.

Keep your audience with you and keep them happy. Make sure you are frequently adding new content to your website. Consider writing those blogs you have put on your to-do list but never got around to.

Consider guest blogging, this will connect you with other businesses which can also share their knowledge on your website and vice versa to get your business name out. Who could you connect with?

You now have time to write those whitepapers, articles, press releases, guides & checklists whether this is for lockdown for your audience to learn something whilst they are at home or for after lockdown so that you are getting ready for when we are out.

When things do go back to the “new normal”, you may not have the time to write content so what can you add to the bank now to take the pressure off?

Make the time count for your business, using the ideas above, what could you put into place quickly and easily?  Help and support is only a phone call way – 0115 8376 260 and happy to help support businesses during this period.