Not sure about Social Media?
Still not sure about Social Media, you had better make your mind up because it isn't waiting for you.
What a week!
Martin has had a good week, check it out in pictures...
Its not every week that Fred Dineage, the Fred Dineage of How and Meridian Tonite, describes you as one of the best speakers he has ever heard and a hell of a speaker; have a bit of a chat with a Lord and the only Minister never to join the party of government and get blown away at a seminar held by the business master - Brad Sugars - it has all happened to me this week and its onlyThursday, Stamati you will have to go some tomorrow to top all of that.
Oh and The Sussex Enterprise "Really Useful Business Show" was fantastic, generated a whole load of leads, awareness and meetings.
Summertime and the living is easy....
Martin talking about the seasonal nature of businesses and the effect that the recession is having on the seasonal performance of Effective Marketing.
A customer sat us down about 18 months ago and went through the entire calendar and explained "the excuses" that prevent sales people performing.
January is a washout because of the Christmas hangover; everyone is slow to get going or off skiing in February; half term in March; Easter in April; May typically has a half term and two Bank Holidays; everyones looking forward to Summer in June; it's summer holidays in July and August; everyones slow to get going in September; October has a half term holiday; November people are winding down for Christmas and Decmber is Christmas - typically two weeks holiday for everyone with parties and hangovers throughout
Add to the school holidays the nuances of annual budgets and reviews and the impact of the recession and it starts to feel like that there is no longer a good time to be doing business.
If you think about it it's hard to think of a buisness that doesn't have a seasonal aspect. Society seems to have fogotten that schools were largely implemented to provide childcare and that the summer holidays were originally about getting children out of schools to help with the harvest, more work getting done not less.
At Effective Marketing we are pretty lucky - we have three lean months; December, July and August and the worst of it is behind us. It's not as if there isn't good work that can be done in these months, marketing strategies, rebrands, website designs and implementations, it's just that the good stuff doesn't really work unless there are people around to engage with, and this summer it feels like people have been on the missing list. With the reccession its hard not to feel a little bit of despair, that it may have finally sought us out.
If this all seems a little bit negative and not at all like Effective Marketing don't worry we have some suggestions.
Firstly, it isn't summer anymore, so hit it hard and make hay between now and Christmas. There are no Bank Holidays and only one half term so get yourselves ahead.
Secondly, adjust to the seasons. Retailers are expert at this. I was in Tesco's on Christmas Eve last year to witness the Christmas merchandise being carted away to make way for Easter stock - literally.
Thirdly, know your business. If you understand the seasonal aspect to your business you don't have to panic every time it slows down and you can plan for it by reducing your outlay and taking a well earned holiday.
Please enjoy the indian summer that is promised and remember that it really is work time.
Once you go Mac
I honestly thought that I had exorcised all evil from my life; drink, drugs, caffeine, nicotine, salt, sugar, carbohydrates, toxins, - the whole lot, gone. I would have argued that my life was pure, that there was nothing left to give up.
Then I took a leap of faith and realised that you really can, if you have the motivation, the courage, if you are willing enough, if you are committed enough, if you have the support of family and friends that really love you, and you are in touch with specialists who have the knowledge, skills and energy, you can actually give up Microsoft.
Now it is probably wrong of me to wonder if the launch of Vista is accountable for the worldwide economic downturn but what I can tell you is this - I love my Mac, and once you go Mac you don’t go back.
No bad time to do good business.
Well another eight months has passed and here is our third post, at The Effective Marketing Company we are nothing if not regular.
In the last eight months we have all felt the full effect of the credit crunch which we are now calling the recession.
To be honest at The Effective Marketing Company we are not really that fussed about all that "current economic environment" stuff any more. We have decided there is no bad time to do good business and that is what we are focused on and incredibly busy with. Our view is that there has not been a better time in the last 15 years to grow a business based on delivering value. All of the resources that were in short supply in the boom including time, money, staff and opportunity are now in plentiful supply and those businesses with the energy, commitment, vision, imagination and drive to evolve will thrive in what is a much more dynamic market.
If you are looking to make the most of the opportunities offered by the current economic conditions get in touch with The Effective Marketing Company and we will be more than happy to come and get excited about that with you.
You will see beloew a picture of a very happy John Chambers, the reason John is so happy is that he managed to secure the notes from our recession busting When the Going Gets Tough The Tough Get Marketing workshop that we ran with Worthing Chamber. John paid £5 for those notes and was fully expecting to be paid £10 for the idea of selling them. We only hope he was as happy when he got home and read the notes and realised exactly what he had paid for. At some point in the distant future we may be incredibly famous and the notes might actually be worth a lot of money, realistically though they are likely to remain big sheets of paper with words on them with no material value whatsoever. Thanks for the £5 John.
The trouble with blogging …
Of course there is no trouble with blogging other than the fact that it is a very public commitment and when you dont keep it up it’s a public embarressment. Then people very graciously post comments, and then you can’t delete it and before you know where you are 8 months have passed and there has been no action, and everyone can see there has been no action.
The problem is only made worse if the only post you ever submitted was a negative comment about what you do, of course marketing isnt a waste of time, energy and money provided that you follow through and commit to what you are doing. Marketing fails because business owners dont invest enough in getting it right in the first place and pull it before it has a chance to deliver results, which is how I was feeling about our website back in October. The website now is the corner stone of our marketing and does everything we wanted including generating leads and sales, which explains to a small degree why we havent updated the blog.
In the future we will steer clear of irony or trying to trigger a clever debate and use the blog to keep you updated with whats keeping us busy, what we are learning that may be useful in your marketing campaigns and things that make us laugh. The new comitment is to update the blog every two weeks. If you are reading this in October 2010 and nothing has changed please email me on mart@effectivemarketingcompany.co.uk and remind me that I am not woth of a place in the blogosphere.
In the meantime you may not have seen our marketing videos or our video testimonials, we hope you enjoy those.
Marketing is an enormous waste of time, energy and money. Discuss.
It has taken an enormous amount of time and energy to produce this website - almost 11 months.
It has been a distraction, it has caused a log jam behind which all of our marketing initiatives have been held up. It has been embarrassing, we have told people about it, we have been telling people that it will be launched in the next two weeks for about 9 months.
And now it is live, it has everything we wanted, it gives us statistics that tell us about every visitor, where they come from, how long they stay, what they were looking for and how they found us, the speed of their internet connection, everything.
So, who has come. We have had 77 visits from 34 unique visitors, they spend an average of 8 minutes and 33 seconds and view 5.35 pages, 35.6% of our traffic is direct (in fairness thats most probably us), 59.74% come from the search engines and 5.19% have been referred, we have had a visit from Swindon, 10 visits from Edinburgh, 27 visits from Brighton, 18 from Lancing, 18 from London, 1 from Sutton, 1 from Poplar, and 1 from Horley. We have done everything right, lots of useful free content, nice clear design and layouts and calls to action one every page, and the result….. 1 email from a company of Embroiders from Eastbourne wondering if we would want to sell their stuff.
Honestly, I am wondering if its worth it.
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