Making the most of Facebook: 1/10: Perfecting the Facebook set up.

MAKING THE MOST OF FACEBOOK MARKETING.

1/10: PERFECTING THE PAGE SET UP.

Facebook is the 2nd biggest site in the world. Only surpassed by Google, Facebook has 1.39billion active users, and is growing at 13% yr/yr, with 4.5 billion likes generated daily. That’s a lot of people, and a lot of activity that cannot be ignored. A recent review showed that 50% of people value a brand’s Facebook page over its website. The message is clear: businesses need to be using Facebook now more than ever. To help you take advantage of this social platform, we’re releasing a series of posts giving tips to make Facebook work properly for your business. The first topic is perfecting the page set up.
The set up of a Facebook page isn't that difficult, but it’s worth making sure you've done everything correctly to save headaches later.

• Create the page from your own personal profile. Your profile doesn't show as being connected with the page (unless you want it to) and saves you hassle of logging in via different details every time you want to do something.
• When choosing which type of page to create, know that a ‘local business or place’ will literally put you on the map via the address you enter. However, it will also allow people to ‘check-in’, and rate you. Think about whether this is important to your business, to decide whether it ends up a 'page' or 'place'.
• Give yourself time to get the details right, don’t rush it. You’ll be eager to start inviting your friends to get some follower numbers up, but a little effort now will pay dividends later. Write out what you need in word, spell check and get someone to give it a once-over before you ‘publish’ the page.
• You get an option to choose up to three topics/words to describe your page. When you write the words in the search box, it serves you up other pages & groups that relate to that topic or word. Choose these carefully, you don’t want to associate yourself with a random group with a few people in, or a competitor organisation. Choose ‘interests’, ideally with the most followers.
• If you've set up a company/organisation, you may get the option of adding an Impressum. This is a legal requirement for some European countries but is not necessary in the UK. If you want to add it, you need a sentence that includes the name of your business, address, contact details, name of the owner/manager of the page, and any registration numbers for the company.
• You'll be offered a Facebook URL - this helps to make the page look official, it's tidier than the alternative which is just a series of numbers representing your page, it gives you a neat URL to link to from other pages, and it means people can find the page easier. Make sure you get it right as you only have one chance to change it after!
• To create the perfect logo it needs to be perfectly square to look great. It’ll be shown in news feeds as an icon, so if the detail is too small it won’t be legible. If your logo has text on it, it might be worth using an icon version. Ensure it is high enough resolution too so that it’s not grainy when people visit the page.
• Background images need to be 315 x 851 ;pixels, but Facebook automatically resizes these images so you can just use a good quality horizontal image.
• When you've made the changes to both the logo and the background image go through the image albums and delete those you didn't use, this makes your albums look clean and clear for when people browse.
• There’s a new option to add a Call-To-Action. There’s limited information at the moment as to how successful these buttons are but as it’s there it’s worth setting up correctly. A Call-To-Action, or CTA, is the main activity you want from your page. Do you want them to buy something? Or sign up to a list? Or visit your website? Decide what you most want your customers to do and set up accordingly.
• When your page looks right and reads perfectly, look at your news feed and delete all the activity you've carried out – it’s not interesting for new visitors to see you've added 3 logos or resized the background images twice, so this activity can be scrubbed, giving you a perfectly clear news feed to start posting from.

In the second stage of this blog we’ll be looking at how to start gaining quality followers to your page. Cherry Fusion help set up and manage social profiles for businesses across the UK. To find out more click here.

2 minutes in an elevator – what marketing tips would I give you?

Often when people find out I am a Marketing Consultant they immediately ask me what they should do for their business (or walk sharpish the other direction, understandably). The first thing I tell people is that there is no easy answer, otherwise we’d all be doing it. The second thing is that effective Marketing is not free, and if you pay peanuts you will get monkeys. The third, slightly more insightful thing I tell them is that in my experience the most effective marketing comes from carrying out a range of activities, and not one single act.

Even though I’m not able to give them a one word answer, I do always run through a few of the basics with them to make sure there’s nothing that they’re obviously missing. So, if I met you in a lift and you picked my brains for 2 minutes, this is what I’d be telling you.

1. Is your website up to scratch? Whether you have an e-commerce website or not, ensuring the customer journey is good is absolutely vital. The rule is to try to keep the clicks down – strive for a maximum of 3 clicks to task completion. Stats suggest 36% of people visit a website before making a purchase decision. Also consider is your website accessible across multiple devices? 90% of people use multiple devices to complete a task, from phone to tablet to laptop to desktop. How does your website look on a phone? Are all the buttons visible? And clickable? And don’t forget to make it AA compliant. With around 20% of the UK population have some sort of disability, you’re missing out if you don’t make it compliant with screen readers or speech recognition tools.

2. Are you making the most of your social media channels? I get a lot of people who are quite despondent about social media, claiming it doesn’t really work for them. This is likely to be because you don’t have a strategy in place to make the most if it. True, not all businesses are suited to every social space, and I’m the first to warn people not to do it just because you think you should. However you cannot escape the fact that Facebook is the 2nd most used site in the world, only beaten by Google. Which leads me onto Google+. It’s frustrating, if feels useless, but Google’s Search algorithms puts a high emphasis on Google+ activity. So get your business a page, put it on the map, start posting and see your natural SEO magically start to improve.

3. What are you actively saying to people? This goes back to my dating analogy that you need to nurture relationships with your customers and clients. I often recommend email programmes because they’re very effective and one of the cheapest methods of engagement around. Also consider what content you’re putting out on social media. It isn’t easy to create content, so take some time to do it properly – write short news stories, write a few blog posts at a time, take photos, invest in video, or something well-designed. Whatever it is, sit down and work it out in advance, save yourself a daily headache and vacuous gaps between posts. (Btw, I am aware I am guilty of this!).

4. Are you doing a variety of activities? Social media, advertising, CRM, promotions, SEO, SEM, events, networking, advertorials, promotions, sponsorship, PR, press, apps, widgets, games, microsites – there’s so much you can do in Marketing it’s difficult even for marketers to know exactly what’s going to work and what’s not. But what I can say is if you use a variety of ‘touch points’, that your message remains consistent, and you repeat that message frequently, you’ll see a better result than putting all your money into an expensive ad in a single newspaper (for instance).

At this point we’d probably realise that the lift was broken as clearly Marketing isn't something that can be summed up in 2 minutes... The absolute bottom line is that you know your business better than any hired marketer, so go with your gut instinct. However if you ever need a bit of advice or guidance, then please do get in touch.

Visit the website at www.cherryfusion.co.uk , email us at info@cherryfusion.co.uk or call 0117 959 5198. 

The additional 4Ps of the marketing mix

The 4Ps (product, price, place & promotion) are perhaps the first thing we are taught about marketing – I was personally introduced to the concept when I was only 14, but I have encountered kids aged 10 who also seem to know this! As marketing is in it's essence collection of activities, it cannot be easily approached systematically, however scientific certain elements are. 

So we need a ‘check-list’ to make sure we've covered all the basic controllable elements. The concept of the 4Ps came about in the 1940's and quickly developed into 7 Ps (people, physical evidence and process) as our industry increasingly embraced service-based companies.

Business operations have moved on so much in the last 5 years, let alone the last 70 years, that it’s a wonder the 4 or 7Ps are still a valid tool. The 4Ps have in fact evolved and adapted to become more relevant to modern day marketing, for instance the SAVE model (Solution, Access, Value and Education). And now there are additional or alternative Ps that I believe play a part in modern marketing:

Platform – by Platform I mean in its basic terms, an online method of information dissemination and collection. A platform will give you search & directory facilities, CRM (customer relationship management) tools and/or CMS (content management system) tools. The question you’re really asking is where online do I want my business to be? what information do I want to have in each location? How do I want that information to get to all these places? Some examples include market automation systems such as Marketo or CRM systems such as SalesForce, but you could also consider social media platforms here.

Partnerships – It’s not essential for us to form partnerships in order to create a business offering, but the fact is we’re all at it, from the smallest link-baiting through to a brand-link up. It's an opportunity to create a competitive advantage. Search engines actively favour websites that link with others, affiliate marketing (in layman’s terms, paying companies and networks to drive clicks to your site) is now a multi-million pound industry and for small businesses, partnering with complementary services is a major opportunity to differentiate your business offering and beat the competitor. So if you’re operating totally solo, perhaps you should ask yourself if there are any possible link-ups that might enhance your business.

Philosophy, or Personality – What are your morals, ideals and rules? What philosophy is the cornerstone of your business? How do you portray the culture of your business to your customer?  The company culture or philosophy can in itself define a business offering, the company’s philosophy or personality can be the thing that sets it apart from its competitors. Think about companies like Google, Apple or Virgin and what makes them appealing to customers – it’s not just the product, it's their culture that oozes out and attracts us to them. As morality and ethics becomes an increasingly important factor in people's decision-making, getting your company's philosophy correct becomes vital.

Proposition – This is the fundamental backbone of your business offering. It’s not as simple as saying ‘We produce X Y & Z’ or ‘I offer X Y& Z services’ these days we need a new term for what the business offers. A proposition can encompasses all products & services, it tells the customer in a single sentence what your business is all about. If you’re not sure what your proposition is, start with what the audience wants from your business and then create the proposition in terms of a solution to that problem.

There are many ways you can skin the marketing cat. The most important point of the 4, or 7, or 11Ps is that you are able to critically analyse your marketing approach using each P, with the hope that in the absence of a mathematically precise method for approaching marketing, you are able to cover all possible aspects of your business.

At Cherry Fusion we help guide businesses through their marketing planning, building plans that help with any marketing objective. To get in touch call 0117 959 5198, email hello@cherryfusion.co.uk or visit www.cherryfusion.co.uk.

What does your brand name say about you?

We're delighted that we have finally got round to changing our registered business name to Cherry Fusion Ltd.  Prior to this Cherry Fusion was a trading name of the company name "Cherry Red Digital Ltd", which was the original company set up nearly 4 years ago.

The conception of Cherry Fusion came in a few stages. Initially, all I could visualise for my new venture was a rich pinky-red colour that I wanted to use in the logo. I decided the colour was called 'Cherry Red', the digital bit was added at the last second when I discovered that Cherry Red Ltd already existed... Not the greatest way to choose a business name!

The vision for the company has changed with time, and therefore so has the name. Cherry Fusion came about when we wanted to keep the heritage of the company alive, but portray the mix of new and traditional direct marketing techniques we use - it's the combination that creates marketing success, so this was vital to include in the name and the word 'fusion' seemed to describe this concept nicely. 

With this in mind I wanted to share my thoughts on possible routes for choosing a business name:

1. The "Does-what-it-says-on-the-tin" name. A lot of businesses stick to this tried and tested method. It's simple, it avoids the need for any explanation, strap lines or heavy investment in brand-building. There are also online search benefits to a name like this, and it lends itself to word-of-mouth marketing. The downside, is that if you operate in a competitive marketplace you'll have to work hard to be remembered, plus it lacks a bit of creativity and inspiration which some companies MUST have to reflect their brand. 

2. The "Wacky Word" name. This is a current favourite for new & upcoming companies. They tend to have a clean-looking 'responsive' website that makes the process so simple a monkey could do it, efficient and accessible. A name like this is sometimes also a product of the lack of .co.uk or .com domain names available these days, where people resort to making a word up. If the word is chosen carefully and marketed correctly, the name will sneak into your long-term memory and serve you, and the customer well. Examples include MailChimp, Moonfruit, Facebook, Buffer, or Wufoo.

3. The Acronym - This type of name immediately gives a business an air of authorisation and sincerity to it, after all it sits in the company of enterprise companies like IBM, HBSC, TSB, BBC, GSK, and BP. Perfect for a B2B business offering, but be prepared for some serious work on developing the brand so that customers know what the acryonm stands for, and actually remember it. 

4. The Surname title - From Jones & Co, to Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Cadbury and Sainsbury's. If you've got a great surname that will help your business stand out from the crowd, this is a great route to go down. Often used for professions, it generates feelings of trust, heritage and personal service, you know there's a person behind their brand and that they are literally putting their name on the line - it's a guarantee of great service. Again however, you'll need to support the name with an explanation, to explain what you do. 

5. The word-association name - I.e. Febreeze, Hawaiian Tropic, Activia, Blue Dragon, Graze, Lovefilm. A clever concept that can work extraordinarily well to subtly explain what the business offering is, but give you stand out in the market place, in once fell swoop. Perfect for brand names. This type of name however, can sometimes be slightly limiting if you want to change your brand proposition in the future - the key is finding a word-association that is descriptive of the general area of operation and not specific to the product or function.

6. Random & disruptive names - designed to make you smile, frown or generally just sit up and listen. Often can produce a strong reaction and debate, which is perfect if that's what you're looking for. Particularly good for creative companies, bands and frankly any business looking to promote themselves as having creative clout and wanting to make a statement. Examples include band name Does It Offend You Yeah?, Pizza Underground or Hamster Sandwich, or London agencies Mother, Steak, Taxi and Naked.  

7. Location-reflective name - If your brand values have a dependency on location, then it makes sense to include a location in your name, whether it comes from there or not. Particularly good for produce (i.e. Buxton water, or most wine brands), or brands looking to portray a sense of location (Aussie hair care, Bertolli). It can also perhaps be limiting if you're not a multi-million pound brand, as it could give the impression that you only operate regionally.

The key to a successful brand name is positive word-association, reflective of brand values/vision, memorable and ideally inspirational. Also don't forget that it has to work nicely as a logo, work as a URL, and be available to register at companies house (if going Ltd) or not taken by a competitor - if in doubt, always Google!

For more information on Cherry Fusion Marketing please visit www.cherryfusion.co.uk 

Why Marketing is a dating game.

A few years ago I was devising a marketing strategy for a well-known fancy dress brand, who wanted to attract new customers and nurture existing ones. As I mapped out their strategy it struck me how similar it was to strategies my friends were using for internet dating, and I realised the analogy worked right through to creating a long-lasting loving relationship. So this is how to market your company like the dating game:

1. Establish your offering. You've decided you want to attract new suitors (or customers) but the first question really should be, why should anyone bother with you? And in particular, why should “the one” bother with you? The answer is, that they would naturally be attracted to you as you have everything they need and want, but they need to know that: so tell them. Ensure you clearly exhibit what you’re all about (i.e. you love to collect ceramic cats and enjoy taxidermy) and the chances of finding someone with similar interests greatly increases. In practice, what this means is that your business offering needs to be clear, your showcase products need to be displayed, or/and your key benefits need to be outlined. The other tip here is not to lie – it’s no good making out you’re Brad Pitt if you can’t deliver, er, Brad Pitt. You’ll simply lose their interest and create a negative impression, potentially warning off new suitors that you’re not what you say you are.

2. Put your message in the right place. Or in other words, get found by the maximum number of potential suitors. Now this is a sweeping generalisation, but the idea is - If you’re 60+, you’d be looking in Guardian soul mates for your partner, if you’re just looking for a few good time dates, you’d be looking for free dating sites. It also works offline – if you’re looking for an active, adventurous type you might hang out at the climbing wall, or if you were looking for an avid reader, perhaps you’d join a book club. The same applies to marketing your company/product – showcase it in places where your audience is likely to be. Flyering in certain locations, exhibiting at the right shows, advertising on the right sites, newspapers and magazines. And the key to getting this right is knowing the demographics and lifestyle factors of your perfect audience.

3. Convert awareness into interest. Your profile is complete and it’s out and about in the right places, and now you've got their attention. The next stage is to begin a dialogue with them that entices them in. In business this could mean getting online enquiries, or sending out emails to your newsletter sign ups. What would you do in these early stages of dating? You’d make sure they knew exactly who you are and why you’re so obviously perfect for them, but you’d also make them feel special, and ensure the dialogue is regular enough that they know you’re there. In business at this stage you would be attempting to carry this out to as many people as possible to give yourself the best chance of conversion. So direct marketing techniques such as email or direct mail, where economies of scale can be sought by using the right tools, where personalisation on a mass scale is possible, and where your messaging can still remain broad enough to apply to everyone, are the perfect methods.

4. Begin the romance. You've successfully found all the princes amongst the frogs, and now you need to kiss them all to begin a life of happiness together. This conversion of prospects into customers requires you to continue courting, but stepping up your game. You don’t want to bombard the customer with emails, you want to be there when they need you, make good recommendations, be friendly and helpful, and above all remaining consistent to your original offering, so that before you know it they've become a customer.

5. Create a long-lasting relationship. The kind of partner you want to create is one who is loyal, sings your praises to their friends and never has a bad word to say about you. So how do you ensure you get this kind of long-lasting love? You give what is expected of you – remaining consistent to your proposition so they are never dissatisfied. You occasionally surprise and delight them. You don’t become over-bearing and call/email/visit more often than they want. You’re always there for them. And above all you continue to love each and every customer until the very end. That way, why would they ever leave you?

Find out more about our Marketing Packages "The Love Story" and "The Counsellor", to solve your customer relationship woes.

5 reasons why email marketing is the best tool available to Small Businesses.

A report published in February commissioned by the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) and Alchemy Worx (a top London email agency) showed that blue-chip company marketers are planning on increasing their email marketing budgets in 2014 as return-on-investment (ROI) hits an incredible 2,500%. The report says that this has come from more targeted campaigns, a switch in focus from open & click rates to ROI, and integration with other channels.

In short, companies are understanding the true value of email marketing, which is why your business should too. Here are 5 reasons why you should consider carrying out email marketing:

1. Email is cost effective. It may cost to get an email designed and built, but once you have this valuable asset, consider that you are then able to very easily send your message to huge volumes of people, at as little cost as 0.005p per mail. And according to the report, for every £1 spent, companies see £24.93 in return, 77% of which come from segmented, targeted and triggered campaigns.

2. The best data is often the cheapest. By data, I mean email addresses of recipients to which you will send the email to. The cheapest data is free to you – it comes from someone signing up for an email on your site. And this person is likely to be the most engaged of recipients, because they’ve willingly requested that you contact them. This in the industry is called ‘owned media’. On the other end of the scale, the most expensive data is bought from a list broker, sometimes called ‘bought media’. If the broker is legitimate, they will have obtained the names from lists of people who have ticked to ‘receive related 3rd party emails’. This means that whilst they comply with data protection rules, these people are cold to your company, so your email will have to work very hard to warm up these prospective customers. The very worst data comes from ‘scrapping’ which means that an automated system has illicitly taken email addresses from sources available on the web. And this type of data could come at the biggest cost of all, as this is illegal. Read more on the Data Protection Act rules here.

3. Creating emails is getting easier. Traditionally emails are conceived by a designer, then coded by a developer, which takes time and money, and reduces your control. But if you’re willing to be a little restricted in layout and design, they latest deployment systems available mean you can do away with this traditional route, and create templates yourself. And the great news is that these templates are often “responsive” – adapting to different tablets or smartphones, which means they look cutting edge and will perform better.

4. You can personalise, segment & target audiences. What other marketing techniques are there that can adapt to each individual customer with the most relevant information for them? To begin with you can pull in dynamic fields from your data lists so that the email brings in the recipient's details. This helps customers to feel it’s more relevant to them. Good data will also allow you to target based on information you’ve obtained about your audience – age, demographics or purchase propensity, for instance. Then you can create unique messages that appeal to each of these target audiences, i.e. cross-sell products they may like based on previous purchase, feed up articles of interest based on their preferences or deliver gift ideas based on their demographics/lifestyle. The report shows 60% of email revenue came from segmented emails in 2013.

5. You can create a lifelong relationship with your customers. Emails don’t have to just be about the hard-sell. They can be used to create a dialogue with your potential customer that works to improve engagement with your brand and over time, eventually creating a life-long advocate. The report shows that the 2nd best performing email in 2013 was ‘welcome’ mails, and ‘survey’ mails coming in third. To create the best relationship, consider how you would treat a customer in real life. Welcome them to the company as soon as they arrive, reward them for showing interest by offering exclusives and special offers, give them the information they really want to hear about at the right time and reward them for staying with you.




This blog was written by Lydia Walker, who has over 12 years’ experience creating CRM campaigns for companies such as Disney, Panasonic and Microsoft. For more information on email marketing for small businesses, get in touch for a free chat to see if we can help you.

Sources:

http://dma.org.uk/toolkit/infographic-national-client-email-report-2014http://ico.org.uk/for_organisations/sector_guides/marketing