Kinetic Marketing and Design - Grimsby Graphic Design, Advertising and Marketing

VAT, we all have to pay it and if you are a business (whether you are VAT registered or not) you have to pay VAT from your suppliers if they are VAT registered. One area that many business owners may not be aware of is that some parts of their marketing does not attract VAT.

These are certain print items that you will be using to promote your business and sometimes print companies send incorrect invoices and charge VAT on zero-rated items which is a cost you could do without incurring.

What is and what isn’t VATable can seem a bit complicated and not always logical –so I thought I would create this handy list (this isn’t an exhaustive list however, so if in doubt contact HMRC!)

So here goes.

If you make and keep one New Year’s Resolution for your business it should be to make 2012 the year you really get stuck into social media. I have waxed lyrical in previous blogs about the benefits to small businesses - it is low cost although does require the time resource. Unfortunately time is a scarce commodity for most small business owners and directors, so despite its potential I know it can be a struggle to find the time to fit it in.

So I thought I would put together some tips and strategies to help you fit social media into your day. I cannot add an extra couple of hours to your day, but I may give you a couple of ideas that can help.

In December 2010 I wrote a blog called ‘2011 Marketing New Year’s Resolutions’ - not sure where that year has gone, but here we are again first day back in work in 2012 and looking to make changes to the way we run our lives and our businesses. Looking back at last year’s blog, the resolutions still stand, so please check it out, but I have added some more.

In challenging times, when so many things in the wider economic environment seem out of our control, the one thing you do have control over is your marketing.

As someone involved in marketing no one can ever accuse me of being shy of using the odd buzzword and it can be very difficult to avoid certain terms and words that are just so commonly used. Think of how many companies profess to offer ‘bespoke solutions’ or ‘quality that counts’. I call these ‘weasel words’. Words that are not untrue, but are either so overused that people stop listening to them, or are bland and generic.

Well it seems this phenomenon is spreading to how we present ourselves online, specifically with our LinkedIn profile. This week, LinkedIn released its list of 10 most overused professional buzzwords .

Having worked with SME businesses for the last 4 years, one of the most satisfying aspects is the immediate and tangible impact the marketing decisions can have on their business.

One of the frustrating aspects, however, is the fact that often good ideas can lose momentum and opportunities be missed because there is no ‘marketing infrastructure’ in place. Or to put it bluntly, with marketing an add-on to someone’s role (often the business owner) they often lack the time and know how to fully implement and capitalise on the marketing that they could be doing.

With Halloween fast approaching and all sense deserting us as we decide that severed fingers and dodgy fancy dress outfits are appropriate purchases, it got me thinking about what is the most scary social media platform.

The answer definitely has to be Twitter. It is one of the most talked about yet least understood social media platforms I come across when talking to businesses. And, because of that, it can seems to be an alien place full of its own language and connected to crazy things such as the disgrace of football players or the incitement of civil unrest. For many it feels like a dangerous place and not one that is appropriate for them, especially in the B2B market.

So I thought it best to address these fears with tips about how to use Twitter for your business and, like all good ghost stories, with the lights on it is never so spine tingling as first appears.

One of the biggest impacts social media has had on how businesses market themselves is not about low cost routes to market or the ability to ‘engage’ (I hate that word) with your audience, I believe it is the shift is emphasis from pushing out controlled sales messages to sharing knowledge and expertise.

But for many business owners this does not sit comfortably.

I have had conversations with business owners who do not want to publish case studies in case there competitors see them (not that most of us don’t have a very good idea of who our competitors are working with anyway). I also come across the argument about the giving away of knowledge for free, especially for service companies where their knowledge is usually attached with a fee or charge.

So what is the happy medium? What are the arguments for being more open with the sharing of your knowledge be it through blogs, forums or free guides or white papers?

Networking is one of the main ways we build contacts and gain new business. It is not an easy option and takes time and dedication, but the pay offs can be well worth it. Wherever you are based there are oodles of networking opportunities from ad hoc events to more committed referral groups such as BNI.

Your business card is a key tool in these situations, but just having a business card (and believe me there are many people who turn up and don’t have any with them) is not necessarily making the most of this opportunity.

So after rule number #1 – HAVE ENOUGH CARDS TO GIVE OUT – what else can you do with your humble business card to make the right impression?

So what is your greatest fear? Flying. Spiders. Heights. Accidently calling your boss ‘dad’ ... well what about public speaking?

If the mere mention of speaking in front of a crowd has brought you out in a cold sweat, then you are not alone. In fact, a number of surveys put ‘fear of public speaking’ (or Glossophobia) as a top ten fear and for many it is the number one, above dying!

Even if not a full blown phobia then it is estimated that 75% of us suffer from anxiety at the thought of speaking in front of a group or audience. Now as someone who has to regularly present and make pitches as part of my job, presenting comes relatively easily (although it wasn’t always the case). But every week I see evidence of just how stressful it can be for people who aren’t used to it.

If you are like me you will have noticed the increasing momentum and prevalence of those funny black and white squares. They are popping up on business cards, ads, posters and banners and last week even a featured on radio 4’s You and Yours (so they must becoming mainstream).

QR (or Quick Response) codes originated in Japan and were used in manufacturing to tag parts so that they could be machine read. In effect they are like bar codes, but unlike the traditional bar codes we all know, they can hold far more data. By using a smart phone you ‘take a picture’ of the code (using a QR reader which is easily downloaded) and the information embedded in the code is revealed.

It hasn’t been until the spread of smart phones into the population, however, that QR codes as a marketing tool has really started to take off – after you need people to be able to read them!

We may be technically out of recession but for many businesses, times are still tight and with squeezes in both consumer and public sector, it is often the B2B businesses that are stuck in the middle, beings squeezed from both sides.

So what can businesses to business organisations do to make the most of their marketing in these testing times?

In a financial climate where every penny of marketing spend counts, I am always surprised at how many small businesses fail to utilise one of their cheapest forms of advertising – editorial coverage or PR, especially in local media.

Now I am not a PR expert and have always deferred to specialist PR agencies and consultants when working on national brands and large businesses. They have the contacts and knowledge about what is newsworthy and what the editors are looking for.

But getting your business in your local paper, local business pages, e-publication or trade magazine is something that is worth spending some time and effort on and doesn’t necessarily need PR specialists. And, if done correctly, this is effort that can pay off exponentially as you build relationships with editors, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Let's start at the beginning and debunk a few myths ...

Recession, credit crunch, economic downturn - call it what you will there are few small businesses that have not been affected in some way or another.

In tight times the need to cut costs can often result in reduced marketing spend, especially in light of cash flow concerns but when times are tough it is even more important to keep promoting your business.

Now you may be thinking ‘well of course she would say that, marketing is what she sells’ but if you consider what is actually happening in a recession, you see why it is so important to keep up the momentum of your promotions.

1. 1)  Your customers (people or businesses) have less money to spend
2. 2)  They are looking to make more careful purchasing decisions
3. 3)  You will need to demonstrate how your product or service provides real value and is a better choice than your competitors.
4. 4)  You need to stay ‘front of mind’ so that when customers are looking to purchase, they come to your business.

Sounds like a job for marketing.

So if we accept that marketing is something all businesses need to do to survive, then what can be done when cash is in short supply?

I came across a great phrase which I am going to share - ‘pimping your content’. This is a phrase coined by John Watson, CMO of ShipServ and 2010 B2B Marketer of the Year. He talks about the intelligent re-using of content.

Create some content that supports your proposition. That demonstrates and substantiates what you want to be known for, what you are experts in and what the benefits your clients are left with. Once created, make sure this is intelligently recycled across all media and contact points of your campaigns.

So if you have written a blog or white paper, make sure you post it on social media sites. Email it to your client and prospect base. Add onto your website. You may even be able to get media coverage.

Most businesses do a number of things – multiple products, services and markets. So you want to make sure you are talking about as much of this as possible in your marketing communications so as many people as possible know as much about you as possible ... right?

Well there is a problem with this. In terms of advertising we are taught to have a ‘single minded proposition’ to be specific about what the campaign should achieve and the specific message it is communicating.

This ‘clash’ of principles is one of the most common I come across, especially for SME businesses. They want their marketing budget to stretch as far as possible so they try and make every activity have as broad appeal as possible. The result, all too often is bland, confusion and lacking impact.

Blog is word we have all heard but many people don’t really know what it actually involves. When creating a website for a client I will often recommend a blog but are often faced with either a blank or disdainful face. Often I will be asked ‘What actually is a blog’ and it is then that you realise that this word BLOG can actually be quite alien and off putting even though the concept has been around for many years.

But if we forgot the word blog and used a different more comfortable word such as ‘opinion’ or ‘diary’ maybe a blog wouldn’t seem so scary. Anyway if you still need convincing here are some thoughts on why your business should be blogging –

Most businesses, whatever their size are realising just how important a company blog is. It provides a hub for your other social media activity, allows you to establish yourself as an expert and provide some added value resources to your customers and prospects.

Yet a common complaint I get is that it isn’t suitable for them. We’re too small. We’re only a small business. We’re too specialist. People think they have nothing to write about or that no one will be interested in what they have to say. Some of this is good old British modesty. But if we were honest with ourselves, we shouldn’t be in business if we don’t have some insights, opinions or knowledge about the sector or industry we work in.

So to give everyone who finds themselves with one of the above excuses tripping off their lips, here are 10 ideas to get you started ... no more excuses.

How Vodafone's social media campaign turned into a media disaster.

The big brands have long recognised social media as a fantastic way of building quick and personal relationships with their customers. Relationships that traditional media just cannot make.

For Vodafone this Christmas, one such PR stunt went horribly wrong!

In a clever pre-Christmas social media campaign to make Vodafone seem like a fun, generous and warm company – it was giving away free handsets to lucky Twitter users who used the hash tag #mademesmile to tell the company what things gave them a warm, fuzzy feeling . Launched on 11^th December the company invited people to “use Twitter to share something that made you smile today”.

Sounds great. What could possibly go wrong?

I know we haven’t had Christmas yet, but as I was thinking about what New Year Marketing Resolutions I can think of and my first one, “Start Planning Early” prompted me to not wait until January to send this out but strike whilst the iron is hot!

Resolution #1 – Start Planning Early

It is a fact of life (and marketing) that things always take longer than you think. Yes, in this world of email, digital print and social media it is possible to turn some marketing communications very quickly, but there are still things that deserve, and need, to be taken a bit more time over.