An interesting video for all businesses and marketing departments to watch, it was made to promote the book Socialnomics. The video is basically a slideshow of interesting facts about social media, (this is V2 updated in 2011).

Points to watch out for are – the number of years it took for a new thingamajig to gain 50 million users :

• Radio 38 Years
• TV 13 years
• Internet 4 years
• AND Facebook only took one year to gain 200 million users!

WATCH THIS VIDEO :-
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I found this interesting Slideshow from JWT all about a powerful emotion called FOMO – the fear of missing out.

Brands can make use of the existence of FOMO to fine-tune messaging, offers, contests and more to tap into fears of missing out. Altho there is no cure for the common FOMO, businesses, marketeers and brands can focus on easing it, escalating it, making light of it or even turning it into a positive.

Do you fear your business is missing out by not getting a better website and marketing online effectively? – If you think so – call me on +44 (0) 1543-415423

See the SLIDESHOW: Read more…

Make sure you’re barking up the right tree!

Aimed at business managers and entrepreneurs – this post is just to start you thinking about ways to improve your marketing efforts in 2009 and beyond.

New Economic Era – New Marketing Plan, The Customer Experience, Pain Points, Behavioural Data, Online-Shopping, Marketing in a Recession, Generation X, Y, Baby Boomers and Traditionalists. Predicting the Future.

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Objections and Hesitation – What to do when simply asking your clients for referrals doesn’t work. PLUS thank you gifts.

This blog is for any firm or individual that has clients and a client base, rather than customers. It follows on from our other blogs on Referral Marketing and from info on our main website. Referral Marketing is the best business development strategy there is for Service Providers…

Simple is best – it’s easier to ask with just one sentence, it’s clearly faster and efficient and less likely to be left out of a meeting than a long rehearsed speech on why you want referrals and how the system benefits the client, etc. However, you need to memorise a longer set of effective phrases when you come up against resistance to referral giving.

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Referrals From External Connections
This blog is for any person or firm that has clients rather than customers.

Referral Marketing is the best business development strategy there is for Service Providers…

…Accountants, Financial Advisers, Solicitors, Dentists, Designers, Architects, Plastic Surgeons, Builders, Vets, IT Services, Website Designers, Stylists, Trainers, Consultants, Printers, Landscape Gardeners, Brokers, etc.

Other service providers and professions other than your own have clients that may also need your services; your clients might also need their services. So it makes perfect sense to be proactive about it. Working more holistically and referring your clients to other carefully selected providers and professionals will compliment your own offering, bringing ‘added value services’ that your clients will appreciate and remember you for. In return the service providers and professionals are also more inclined to refer their clients to you, which is the main objective.
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(Further to the content on our main website about why a firm with clients would want to develop an effective Referral Marketing Strategy)

Those who get a lot of referred business are usually good at their job – AND clients know it.

Their clients KNOW, understand and appreciate the service and its benefits, believe they are given good value for money and they also TRUST and LIKE the person that deals with them or provides the service to the extent that they want to help them.

KNOW, TRUST & LIKE are the attributes that need to be improved in order to get lots of quality referrals. more…

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This blog is also for any firm or individual that has clients and a client base, rather than customers. It follows on from our other blogs on Referral Marketing and from info on our main website . Referral Marketing is the best business development strategy there is for Service Providers…

A COI is ideally a client who knows your firm and at least one person in it very well and trusts and respects what you do and is confident enough to recommend you often and without hesitation.

The reason they are like this is a combination of their character – “they are just naturally like that”, and their social status or power status at work. COIs need to be identified within your client-base and treated very well for obvious reasons. More…

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It all starts with your Mission –

• Why are you in business and where do you want to take it?
• What is mission critical?
• What barriers to success are in your way?
• What sets you apart from your competition?
• What do your customers really need/want?
• Have you researched it?
• What kind of service do they expect these days?

Endless things to consider.. all you know is turnover and profits must rise and stress levels must fall.

What’s needed are a new Mission Statement and an Action Plan to get passionate about. You need to research, innovate and develop your offering to attract more and better business, boost client/customer satisfaction and reputation.

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Getting leads from Colleagues, Internal Business Referrals,  Inter-departmental Referring or Cross-selling, whatever you call it – either way you’re maximising the value of your clients. Here’s some simple tips – but be aware of the common problems.

This post is for any firm or individual that has clients,  rather than customers. It follows on from our other blogs on Referral Marketing and from info on our main website. Referral Marketing is the best business development strategy there is for Service Providers…

Some firms are good at inter-departmental referring others are not; either way your strategy for dealing with this should be included in your overall Marketing Plan.

Human nature needs to be used to your advantage rather than disadvantage.

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LOOK!

The key to successful copy-writing -  for blogs, press releases, marketing literature, web pages, sales letters, tele-sales scripts, leaflets, posters, brochures, adverts, book titles, articles, white papers, etc.

……is having a High-Impact HEADLINE or TITLE

Draw people’s attention to reading the body text using a strong attention grabbing headline.

Grab them from the start. It’s about the HEADLINE TEST; if the title makes people read further – you have succeeded.

The headline should make sense, get ATTENTION and ATTRACT enough INTEREST for the reader to have the DESIRE to ACT by reading more.

If not, your copy headline is not strong enough.

To labour the point here’s a video of Dan Kennedy…