|
With the huge data now available marketers are becoming number crunchers. But if you are looking to hire a CMO or Marketing Director for your startup I suggest you consider the following...
Marketing is the intertwined with the product... Typically a CMO's top priority or initiative is "company re-branding". This has a high priority in today's marketing world. This means looking at the website, branding, colours, touchstone and more. I would also be looking at the target audience to see where they are and what they like, then I would design the offer, positioning and product around them. I would suggest...
0 Comments
Marketing – It’s Not All About you!
...It’s also not all about driving lots of visitors to your website. It’s not even all about getting lots of leads. So what is it about? I think that marketing is about identifying your target audience. Find out who your customers are, or if you don’t have any, who they are most likely to be. Identify what they like and how they go about making purchases like the one you want them to make with you.. No matter what size your business and who your target audience is the most successful marketing strategy is to stand out and be different. That can mean all sorts of things but in an essence don’t be new and improved, be remarkable....
Be Remarkable Remarkable – the key part of that word is “remark” – you want to be so significant that people talk about you to others. Do you remember the last really great product you came across? Was it good enough to tell your friends about? This sharing is the key to success with social media. It’s easier now than ever for people to share your outstanding business with their friends and colleagues. Your business must have social media sharing icons on its web pages. Your blog must stand out and offer something remarkable. If you Tweet make it relevant and worth re-Tweeting. Become the subject of conversation. All this is easier said than done. If you are a widget manufacturer just like many others how do you stand out and be remarkable? The same is true of restaurants, hotels, shops, garages, plumbers, builders, architects, engineers, designers and almost anyone that needs to attract new clients and business. The Answer So many articles now have great content but then end with no real solution. Well I don’t want to do that here. No matter where you are and what your business is you can stand out and be remarkable. And I will prove it to you. CR4L offer “Results Marketing” – that means we get you results or you don’t pay (by the way that’s what makes CR4L remarkable) and we guarantee we can make your business remarkable too. If we can’t make your business remarkable you don’t pay. Challenge CR4L to make your business stand out in 2014 by clicking the link. Word of Mouth Marketing – demonstrably effective
There is a growing amount of data that indicates why word-of-mouth marketing is so appealing. US trade body Womma (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) has conducted research showing that 72 per cent of consumer credit reviews from family or friends have either a great deal or a ‘fair amount’ of influence when deciding whether to use a product or service, while 81 per cent of consumers are influenced by their friends’ social media posts. According to Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising and Brand Messages report, published in September 2013, ‘recommendations from people I know’ are the most trusted form of brand advertising, with a score of 84 per cent. And as digital communications have penetrated our world, this figure has grown, having been just 78 per cent in 2007. It is also far more popular than the alternatives. The same report scores branded websites at 69 per cent, TV adverts at 62 per cent and emails – even those that consumers have consented to receive – at 56 per cent. How Can Your Business Use This To It’s Advantage? Word of mouth advertising has been around for a long time. We all love to be recommended to companies and products. When we are, as we have seen above, it makes a big difference to our purchases. But how can we use this in our businesses to full effect? Personally I think that social media has given every business, no matter how big or small, a great opportunity to engage with their customers and prospects. Now we can use positive feedback and reviews as well as other social evidence to full effect online. Not only that but as we have seen with the example of Plusnet we can use incentives to get our existing customers to bring in their friends. And customers that are recommended by a friend to Plusnet have a 50% lower churn rate. Is It Time You Leveraged This Powerful Technique? At CR4L Results Marketing we are implementing schemes like the Plusnet one for our clients. The numbers speak for themselves and we suggest you try a similar plan; especially if you sell to the public. For more information see http://www.cr4l.com Home Local SEO – Restaurant Marketing in 2013
I used to be in the restaurant business and in 2009 I wrote an eBook on restaurant marketing. It was an overview with on and offline advice and systems: Now it’s time to get an update… Independent businesses in general can play a smart game of marketing against big brands. No more so than independent restaurants. SEO for big business is expensive, time consuming, difficult to track results and can take a long time to have an effect. Most SEO companies will tell clients that they have to work for 6 months before any discernible results will appear. For a small business this is not a viable option. However there are ways to get fantastic results with little investment or time. AND you will see the effects in a lot less time. In 2010 Microsoft did a study that showed smartphone users are much more likely to convert from searches. This year a Nielsen study shows that 64% of Smartphone searches for restaurants converted inside of one hour. That is an amazing statistic. In the 80’s we had no mobile phones. Now there are 4 billion smartphones in the world and current estimates say that by 2016 there will be 8 billion smartphones in use globally. If we have a question we ask our smartphone. Everything from a pub quiz conundrum to where to stay or eat. How do you get your restaurant to the top of the list in your area? Well one thing to consider is that restaurant chains mostly market the brand and not so much the locations. So be sure and make your restaurant known as the place to eat in your town and your street. People looking for Italian restaurants may get Jamie’s as top of the list. However if they search for Italian Restaurants in Bristol (or BS1) you have a great chance to beat Jamie’s to the top (if you are in Bristol). Step 1… Be sure and get a full listing with the following sites:
These reviews and citations don’t even need to have a link to your site in them (although that helps). A diner reviewing your restaurant would not include a link normally anyway. Google is very smart and can read citations and review counts. The more reviews the more chance of showing up on top. Remember that this is all for local searches so be sure and have your address, with post code, on every page of your website, clearly visible. Add a map (Google for example). Make it really easy to find your business. Be street specific in some of the text. “bijou Italian restaurant in Park Street, Bristol…” Now the icing on the cake… Since 2009 social media has changed dramatically. The latest 2 major changes are video on Instagram and Bing Search on Facebook. Both can work to your advantage. Bing on Facebook means that people don’t have to leave Facebook to look for your business. So be sure to have a good Facebook page for your restaurant. Share recipes and tips for cooking. Let people know about menu changes and updates and keep people engaged. If you can afford PPC then very specific search terms with Bing will be low cost and high converters. Adwords.Google.com has some search term tools to help. Be sure and include your location as much as you can (area, town or postcode). Next you add video to get to page 1… Why Video?
So how do you go about it? What medium do you use (I am assuming you don’t have the time to do them all) Vine, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube ???
Create and use a business YouTube account. Post longer videos here, perhaps a few minutes on how to cook recipes or other useful restaurant or cooking related facts. Try to brand these as much as possible. Include your physical address. Use Instagram and Facebook to engage people. Short clips of the perfect Cappuccino being made. What spaghetti Alfredo really should look like. Be imaginative, be fun and be engaging. Have a personality and let that come through in the videos. Then engage with your clients and encourage them to post video of their experience in your restaurant. Some businesses go as far as having branded social media booths but this is more for events and bigger restaurants. But you can do a lot to get your branding in photos and video. If you have a themed restaurant you can create a background for video or photos. Like the old Wild West photo places that still exist in tourist resorts (i.e. Troccadero Piccadilly) A final note… Have you ever noticed that more and more people go out for meals and spend half their time on their smartphones? Conversation sometimes takes place between diners via their phones. It is easy for some of us old-timers to get annoyed about this. However don’t get mad get engaged. Get your Instagram/ Facebook/Website QR code printed on your napkins. Have it stuck to the salt or the table or on the menu. Let people see it as they sit there and the chances are they will have a look. Then they may engage with you online and if you are lucky post a video of their lovely meal. Page 1 Google here you come. |
How to Shoot Great Looking Video Clips for Nothing
Free Self Marketing tips
If you want to know more about self marketing then fill in the form below. Archives
March 2014
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
