by Marketing Dan | 27 Apr 2015 | Marketing Tips
What is a SWOT Analysis A SWOT analysis (SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) is a vary useful tool for understanding and decision-making for all sorts of situations in business and organisations. A SWOT analysis is an excellent tool to get you started on your marketing plan. There are a few ways to carry out your SWOT analysis and a quick search on the web will provide you with any number of pre made forms to guide you. However a simple way for the small business is to take an A4 piece of paper, draw one horizontal and one vertical line to divide it into 4 sections and put a heading on each section Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. Now under each heading enter the appropriate information in a list. It is important when doing SWOT analysis to make sure you are not viewing your business with rose tinted glasses it should be a warts and all exercise. Whilst it is an exercise you can carry out yourself SWOT analysis is an excellent tools for groups or brainstorming sessions. Under Strengths you will list such things as any competitive advantage you may have, Experience in your workforce, Accreditation’s, Location, any unique selling points, Pricing advantages, Excellence in Processing, excellence in service and any other criteria you see as a strength in your business. Under Weaknesses you list the criteria that you consider to be the weaknesses in your company, often the criteria in Weaknesses can be the same criteria as I listed in Strengths, but you are lacking in these. For instance your workforce may be...
by Marketing Dan | 17 Apr 2015 | Marketing Tips
Google Mobile Search Results Google has announced that from the 21st April people searching from a mobile device (think tablet, smartphone or blackberry) will receive search engine results that place a higher priority on websites that are mobile friendly. Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices. You can view the full announcement, responses to the announcement and find out more at the Google webmaster central blog here. What this means for websites that are not responsive or mobile friendly is that they will appear below websites that are responsive or mobile friendly. Why should this concern you is that some 65% of searches on Google and other search engines are made from mobile devices. Having a website that is not mobile friendly means you will not appear in these searches until the sites that are mobile friendly or responsive have been listed. This in turn means you will be missing out on a great deal of potential customers or clients. So how can you find out if your website will be found on the new Google Mobile Search results page? Well you can go to the Google Webmasters blog address shown above, where then click on the link to take you to the check page, enter your information and wait for them to tell you the answer. A much simpler method is to do...
by Marketing Dan | 9 Apr 2015 | Marketing Tips
What is the best way to advertise in todays market then?? This question often comes from people who are unsure of who to believe in todays fast changing marketing market. Should we do on-line or offline is the usual refrain. I say why not do both, but not using traditional marketing in the way we have always done it. Marketing is not the same as was just 10 years ago, the average consumer is now much more knowledgeable about products or services they are thinking of buying, they can actively research products and services and as such they can be much more demanding. Consumers can buy from around the world, using the internet so your competition is not just locally based anymore, personally I think this will eventually lead to a completely different way of retail from that which we have now, but that is not really today’s topic. It is likely you will be doing some form of traditional marketing even if it is only simple forms of traditional marketing such as your business cards, promotional clothing, signwriting on your car or building. Some forms of traditional marketing are dead and if you are still spending money on them then you are probably wasting it, Yellow Pages telephone directories fall into this category, I have personally dissuaded over 60 clients to pull their advertising from the Yellow pages and not one of them has seen a reduction in sales. The money you used to spend in directory or newspaper adverts should really be directed towards on line sales generation in todays climate. Consumers are becoming more active in...
by Marketing Dan | 3 Apr 2015 | Marketing Tips
4 Ps Marketing 4 Ps marketing is a traditional marketing methodology that states there are 4 P’s of marketing, Product, Price, Place and Promotion, these were first identified in 1960 by a chap by the name of E Jerome McCarthy and have been in use ever since. Personally I believe you should consider 8 Ps when looking at your marketing mix Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Planning, Packaging, Position and People. Product You should look at your product as though you were an outsider. You have spent many months or even years developing your product and now you are ready to sell it. However you need to ask the critical questions, i.e. Is your current product or service, or mix of products and services, appropriate and suitable for the market and the customers of today? Are there competing products or services out there, if so what is the competitive advantage of your offering, if any. You must look at your product from the point of view of your prospective buyers, it doesn’t matter how good you think things are, if nobody wants to buy what you are offering you are wasting your time and money. Price There are many different pricing models to consider and whichever model you decide to go ahead with when you launch something you should always examine the prices of the products and services you are selling to make sure they are applicable in the current market. Sometimes you may find you need to lower your prices whilst at other times, it may be appropriate to raise your prices. Consider how airlines use their pricing to...
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