6 Steps to Social Marketing Success with LinkedIn

1. Social Networking

Few contact databases search and obtain results without social interaction. LinkedIn gives your business the tools to deepen current relationships and learn about new ones, including business opportunities.

LinkedIn is continually keeping you aware of changes in your connections and alerts you to new links being made. These indicators often signal opportunities to congratulate colleagues, help them find new strategic positions, or learn about new connections.

This constant flow of social information is helping you to actively manage and expand your potential social marketing audience. Important components in a LinkedIn marketing strategy.

2.Contact Management

LinkedIn is centered on the theory of social networks. These relationships start with a core database of contacts and can quickly evolve into a powerful LinkedIn marketing strategy. The secret is activating that initial base of relationships.

LinkedIn allows you to quickly import nearly any digital address book and match that with existing LinkedIn members. This immediately starts your engagement campaign. You can use LinkedIn to manage your contacts, routinely communicate, and trigger opportunities.

Share news on events you are holding or attending and share with your connections. Utilise events to engage clients. Invitations can also be sent to your LinkedIn network, which will give you an opportunity to meet face to face if they decide to attend.

3. Opportunity Research and Indexing

Opportunities are really the main aim of LinkedIn. It is designed to facilitate opportunity research. LinkedIn gives you easy tools to search and segment not only your network, groups but also the community at-large.

Peering into specific industries, companies, and niches is as simple as an advanced search.

LinkedIn also allows you to make your own profile information available for search engines to index. LinkedIn profiles receive a fairly high PageRank in Google, providing a very effective way to influence what people see when they search for you.

4. Social Marketing

Building connections in LinkedIn is about constructing a premium audience for your business marketing. Your profile and activities with LinkedIn are immediately available for all LinkedIn users to see and have the potential to attract enquiries and buyers to your business.

Some clever strategies to fully leverage your marketing with LinkedIn:

• Responding to LinkedIn Questions, as well as posting your own
• Visiting targeted profiles with privacy settings off, it is like leaving your business card behind
• Request connections and referrals from your existing network
• Always reply to an invitation to connect and offer to help in anyway you can. Or why not offer to meet face to face
• Use Groups to connect with people, professionals really enjoy networking and it’s a good way to share your expertise and learn best practice

5. Lead Management

Every connection in your LinkedIn network is a potential lead. Actively managing them becomes much simpler with a tool like LinkedIn. Connections themselves are opting in, updating their contact information, and guiding you, with their activity, to what really motivates them to action.

Watching your LinkedIn dashboard is like being a fly on the wall as your network of opportunities work to find answers and solutions to their challenges. Think of it more as an opportunity dashboard. This concept allows for you to wait for the perfect opportunity to gain new business and this is your social marketing strategy in action.

6. Lead Nurturing

Not every connection or contact is ready to buy. That is why LinkedIn is so important to your social marketing strategy.
Traditional internet marketing can eat into your budget very quickly through regular activities promoting your latest offers and incentives. LinkedIn allows you to keep in constant contact with everyone in a steady lead nurturing campaign, trickling your social marketing presence, and then alerts you to researching or buying behaviours.

How is LinkedIn working for you and your business? Share your sucess and comments here.

Related articles

• Who’s viewed your LinkedIn profile? (customerthink.com)
• LinkedIn to Let Marketers Use Slide Shows in Ads (socialtimes.com)
• Here’s What LinkedIn Can Do With Pulse (allthingsd.com)
• Don’t Get Too Personal on LinkedIn (hispanicbusiness.com)
• Social Media Newsfeed: LinkedIn SlideShare Ads | Social Ad Disclosures (socialtimes.com)

10 Top Tips To Get Social

Whether your business is just getting its social sea legs or already flying high in the digital world, there is a niche and opportunity for every brand on social media.

(this isn’t my picture so if its yours just let me know and I’ll take it down)

I have worked with many different businesses and brands from getting them started in social media or helping them recreate and tailor an improved strategy for a better ROI through their social media efforts. I have a true passion and social intelligence for all things social which I have successfully passed onto to many of my clients to get them to where they want. I ensure all of your social channels are leveraged and optimised to support traditional and digital solutions and more importantly there is company-wide buy in and understanding on what social can do for you.

Setting goals and making plans ahead of time is an important factor and can be the make or break of your success in the social sphere. Brands just starting out on social media should focus on acquisition and getting to know and be a part of communities that matter to them and want to be a part of. More savvy brands should look for engagement, awareness and advocacy.

Everyone should be listening, no matter what stage you are at.

I have put together 10 top tips to get you started or help kick start your social strategy:

1. Don’t be selfish or shy

If you’re planning a social campaign that’s not engaging, asking questions, finding out about your audience and communities, sharing useful content and information then what is the point in taking part?

Ensure you connect with the rest of your communications, marketing and media plans and it is all integrated. Traditional and digital media need to support an integrated campaign that has social media at its core.

2. Don’t be frightened. Social doesn’t bite!

Still so many brands are avoiding social media as they still don’t quite understand its capabilities and how it fits into their overall strategy. Brands need to be a part of it in order to connect to their audiences. Social gives brands more opportunity to connect with audiences they may have previously not had the chance to connect with, on the other side of the world. There is nothing more valuable than word of mouth and that is just ‘one’ of the many benefits of social. Show your audiences and customers what you can offer, what you are like and more importantly show off your happy customers.

3. Monitor, measure, adapt.

Social allows you to find out what is going on in the world, what people are saying about competitors, your industry and more importantly you. So make sure you monitor this. Measure it and if needed adapt your messages. More data is available than ever through social and the opportunity now is to connect through two-way communications with your customers across all media’s, and time your messages according to whom you are connecting to and where.

Your content should be your advertising. Is it strong enough to break through all the noise?

4. Listen

Social listening can and should impact planning, execution, optimization and results measurement. Automated tools and reliance upon technology is not enough.

True value from listening will come from your social champions or the one person who is managing all your channels. Ensure they have prioritized what you are listening for, how you are going to capture it and how you are going to share the results.

5. A picture says a thousand words…

Marketing is going visual and you need to do the same. Embed text and brand or product info in relevant graphics to post. Pictures are also the mostly widely used and shared method of posting on Facebook. When people share your images you want them to see your website link or other relevant info.

6. Borrow with pride

Why reinvent the wheel. Look to other successful campaigns and find out what and how they went about it. Adapt it to suit and fit around your brand and messages and borrow with pride. You know it works, so make it work for you.

7. Not another one?

There are so many social platforms to choose one, how do you really know which ones to be a part of and which ones to leave out? The answer is you won’t until you try. There are also some core staple platforms that you should try and be a part of because they offer more than you might thing. Google+ is an example of this. Google+ will be more important to your business and by being on Google+, you will be able to take full advantage of Google’s many services and tools. It hasn’t the social power of some of the other sites but it is a central part of Google and you should be a part of it.

8. Less is more

Nuances exist everywhere, so if you don’t understand how one of your platforms works and how your customers interact there, make sure you ask someone who does.

Also concentrating your marketing efforts to a few social platforms is more effective than spreading yourself too thin over many of the social sites. The time it takes to successfully participate in social media is substantial so you need to build a strong presence on the sites that deliver rather than trying to dominate them all. Some are audience targeted so use the ones that are tailored towards your audience.

9. Think about the future

Quick hits are good, but meaningful experiences drive long-term relationships and build advocacy for your brand. You need to have a guiding principle and long term goal that governs your efforts.

10.  Make it relevant

When people first started using the social sites they were posting things like “just having a cup of tea at my desk” Times have changed, people do not want or need to know this. This will also add no benefits to your social activity. You need to post relevant information to your audience. Make it about your readers and followers, not ‘all’ about you. Post solutions, inspiration, and interesting facts that can be useful and helpful.

Consider the consumer’s minds, brand health, net promoter score and measurements when generating content.

What is the best social media advice you have ever been given? Share your comments here.

 

 

Related articles

• The Most Basic Tips for Using Social Media Sites: (red-brand-media.com)
• Time To Reconsider How You Use Social Media (ministryofsearch.co.uk)
• 19 Things Successful People Do On Social Media (forbes.com)
• Social Media Can Keep Seniors In Touch With Friends And Family (lifefoneblog.com)

 

Top PR & Social Media Trends for 2013

Here are 6 big trends set to shape PR, marketing and brand communications in the year ahead.

1. Personalisation

If there’s one keyword for communications in 2013, it’s personalisation. This is not just about customisable product options or dialogue-driven social media streams but real one-to-one communications thanks to the mass generation of sophisticated measurable data that is now available.

What does this mean? that communications can offer relevant content delivered to the right target audience, increasingly in real time. It’s about being more precise with messaging off the back of greater understanding of who your consumers are, what they’re looking at, where they’re going and ultimately what they want.

A recent study by Accenture states that; 61% of shoppers say they’d swap privacy for personalisation, and this is the year to jump on that. Add other words like “mobile” and “context” and it’s a trend that feeds through all of the rest of this 2013 list too.

Burberry is an example of a brand already experimenting with personalisation. It sent personalised invitations to consumers for them to watch its spring/summer 2013 show, then embedded a panel of their Facebook friends alongside the live stream to encourage further sharing. Expect more of this to follow, but with greater focus on automation, behaviour triggers and ever-increasing real-time relevancy.

 

2. Social sophistication

In 2013 consumer engagement via the social space is likely to be more sophistacted than ever before.  The rise of sites like Pinterest and Instagram over the past year, not to mention Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have all heavily impacted every industry. There are still some who are lagging behind, but there is no doubt those who are not engaging within the social space by the end of 2013 will be missing out.

It is expected that this will be the year that social media is met with greater consideration from the boardroom (if it’s not already), alongside the more experimental approach that’s often taken. That’s not to say spontaneity will be by any means irrelevant, but that content strategy will be fine-tuned across the platforms that actually achieve results.

For some that might mean streamlining social presence, for others it will be about treating each platform more distinctly. This will not only maximise scale but enable meaningful brand KPIs (key performance indicators). Either way, integration will be the keyword in this space as social gets increasingly weaved throughout the user experience, across web, email and mobile channels, as well as in-store. The result will see more effective campaigns with higher engagement and longer-term consumer loyalty.

3. Big data

Behind the increasing call for personalisation is of course the data that enables it. As insight and analysis becomes more cost-efficient, not to mention more sophisticated, companies are gaining deeper understanding of how their consumers engage across all touch points. No longer is the term “big data” just about volumes of numbers and statistics, but details that can actually be tied to individuals.

The amount of global digital information created and shared grew nine fold to nearly two zettabytes (that’s two trillion gigabytes) in the five years to 2011, according to market intelligence firm IDC. That figure is expected to be just shy of four zettabytes in 2013, and nearly eight zettabytes in 2015. 2013 looks set to be the year companies figure out what to actually do with the information, and accordingly place it more centrally in their communications strategies.

The focus therefore is on process and action, and due to newer technologies, on real-time responses too.

4. Real-time bidding

Data is also enabling greater audience targeting and automated (or programmatic) buying of online display ads. Known as real-time bidding (RTB). This is where ad impressions are bought and sold one at a time, based on the user and their browser, and within the time it takes to click on a page. The result creates an efficient and important way to create relevancy for consumers.

In other words, marketers such as Amazon and eBay (both big users of RTB already), are no longer just buying banners on specific sites but targeting consumers across the internet based on their profiles and behaviours. It’s about personalisation and scale again.

Backing from both media buyers and publishers (including Facebook with its new ad exchange, FBX), is leading to enormous growth. According to a report from eMarketer, RTB accounted for 13% of all US display advertising spend in 2013, more than triple that of 2010, and a 98% increase on 2011. Growth for

2013 is expected at 72.4%. By 2015, it will account for a quarter of the display market in the US. The inclusion of mobile and video in this space is also expected to significantly increase spend.

5. Pictures

The rise of infographics, photo sharing, and visual storytelling will push PR pros and their clients to deploy messages visually in order to compete in a crowded content market. All Things D reported that in August, smartphone users spent more time on Instagram than on Twitter for the first time since Instagram launched in 2010. This is indicative of a broader shift toward visual content in the digital space. As the old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words”; more important, it might also be worth your customer’s attention.

6. Reputation and Crisis Management

As everything social grows, crisis management and online reputation management are key areas of focus for business. The past year was riddled with examples of organisations/businesses with no clue on how to conduct themselves during a crisis situation. Reputation and crisis management is not new, but with brands adopting social media as a large part of their communication with customers and audiences, corporate mishaps that could once be hidden or buried on the back pages of newspapers, can now trend as hashtags on Twitter.

A lack of preparedness and a propensity to outsource scheduled, canned social media posts can land a business/organisation in very hot water. Handle your brand with care. People expect businesses/brands to have a handle on the temperature of topics affecting popular culture. If high profile events have caused distress or irreparable harm, people do not want to see brands ignorant or unaware of current affairs. Nor do people want to see brands trying to capitalize on vulnerable parties. Empathy and sensitivity are proving essential for smart brands going the distance these days.

What about you?

Are any of these trends among your communications plans for 2013? Is your current website, blog or online store able to be viewed on mobile platforms?
Have you secured your Instragram name and account? Do you have a crisis communications plan?

Have you got any examples of brands already promoting their brand or service in a personalised way?
Are you still ignoring Twitter and hope it will go away?
What trend intrigues you and how can you tap into that in 2013 that grows your business?
Look forward to hearing your stories in the comments below.

Should you personalise your email marketing?

Personalising, PR and Marketing go hand in hand. But why use personalised email marketing?

There are many uses for personalised email marketing, such as newsletters, niche marketing, test marketing, end-to-end campaigns, promotions and announcements, up-sell and cross-sell and delivery of loyalty programmes.

Personalised email marketing is perfect for brand-building and increasing awareness. This marketing tool also contributes to your company’s corporate social responsibility profile, helping to lessen the impact of your marketing on the environment by cutting down on the amount of paper needed in your campaigns as you only print what you need based on the results of the campaign.

By perosnalising your emails you are building and retaining a potentially long lasting relationship with your customers. Personalising emails adds numerous benefits for your sales conversion rate. However there are a few principles to remember. I am forever receiving emails addressed to me with my name, but when I open the email it has nothing to do with my preferences, purchases or interests. So it is important to remember that just by including a name; doesn’t equal personalization.

Here are some tips to ensure your emails are personalised:

• Use personal information about your subscribers when they are willingly to give it to you.
• Ensure your emails contain relevant and creative content to each customer.
• Do not keep sending one sales pitch after the other, your subscribers are bound to ignore you after some time.

Here are some benefits of personalising emails:

• Increases conversion rates: Personalising is especially important in email marketing because it helps in building a long-standing relationship with your customers. When you greet your subscriber with an air of familiarity they become more comfortable in reading the information you sent them.
• Increases authenticity: Personalised email also gives you the benefit of being authentic and hence your email is not regarded as spam.  Personalization increases the chances of  your email landing in the prospect’s inbox and that it will get opened.
• Speed: Your personalised email marketing message is fast to deliver and can achieve instant results and feedback. This makes it ideal for test and niche marketing, where a campaign can be tested before scaling up.
• Full personalisation: Recipients receive a personalised message and from the answers they provide in a simple mini-survey, can be specific to their personal needs and interests.
• Tracking and measurement: The technology we use for these campaigns offer full track ability. This is one of the really powerful marketing tools available with personalised email marketing and allows the client to track and measure who is reading your marketing messages, when they read them and what interests them most.

Need more insights into how to personalise your emails for a better response rate? At 2Communicate that’s exactly what we can do for you.

Related articles

• Email Marketing (answers.com)
• Email Marketing (firstdigital.co.nz)
• Email Marketing – Further Information (firstdigital.co.nz)
• 8 Simple and Useful Email Marketing Tips (blogfully.com)
• Case Study – TV3 Outrageous Fortune Email Marketing (firstdigital.co.nz)

5 reasons why you shouldn’t have a Facebook Personal Page for your Business

On its pages, Facebook clearly states that Facebook personal pages are meant only for the individual user, not for a group or business. Despite those stark clear words, people are still making the mistake of using a personal account instead of a business page. But why is it such a big mistake?

Here are 6 really good reasons why you should disassociate your personal profile and create a dedicated business page for your group or business:

1. You are breaking the rules! 

You may have set up a personal Facebook profile using the name of your business or your business branding. If you also have another Facebook page for your own personal use, you are in violation of Facebook rules and one or both accounts could be suspended. Section 4 of Facebook’s terms clearly states that you shouldn’t have two separate Facebook accounts and you should never use a personal Facebook profile for commercial gain. I have seen businesses have their accounts suspended altogether over this malpractice. You will then completely loose your Facebook presence.

2. Your Business won’t be seen

Facebook business pages can be optimised for search engines like Google, but personal Facebook profiles cannot. Profiles are not indexed by google. Surely you would like as many potential customers as possible to find your company online wouldn’t you? Using a personal page to promote your company is ruining your chances. The intrinsic features of a personal profile are to help individuals make connections at a personal level. People are unable to ‘Like’ your page and instead have to request you as a friend. Many will just look at your page and leave. Should they ‘like’ your page which is instant they will then receive regular updates on your group or business. Read my next point…

3. No-one will ‘Like’ your business

It will be much more difficult to gain ‘friends’ as a business if you’re using a personal Facebook profile because regardless of privacy settings (which confuse most Facebook users anyway), people will be reluctant to share personal information with a company, no matter how good that company is. I know I wouldn’t. A Facebook business page allows people to ‘Like’ your company without any privacy risks because your company cannot access their personal information.

4. You are missing out on some very useful statistics!

Insights are a large benefit that you will receive FREE as part of your Facebook business pages. Without ‘Insights’ how do you know if your Facebook campaign is working?

5. Your business could run out of Friends

Although it’s not easy to verify, many commentators say that Facebook will only allow a personal profile a maximum of 5000 friends. But your Facebook business page can be ‘Liked’ by a limitless number of people. Why limit your opportunities?

6. Your business will be one dimensional
Whilst you can only have ONE personal Facebook profile (if you’re obeying the rules) you can create more than one Facebook business page. So if your company has several sub-brands or specialities, you could consider creating a dedicated Facebook business page for those too.

It’s not rocket science. Facebook personal profiles are for people and Facebook business pages are for businesses. Of course you can still reflect your business in your personal Facebook updates, I do it all the time! But it’s simply not designed to enable a company to maximise the many benefits that social media offers.

UPDATE: Facebook has now developed a tool that will allow businesses that have made the mistake of setting up a personal profile rather than a Business page profile to migrate one to the other.

2Communicate are currently helping many of our clients who have made this mistake (you are not alone, lots have done it!) to successfully make the change and reap the many benefits of a Facebook Company Page.

So get in touch and make the change today email: sarah@2communicate.co.uk Tel: 07958 490263/ 01905 356778 

Related articles

• 7 Key Ways to Optimize Facebook Fan Page SEO (along with Mozinar Q&A) (seomoz.org)
• 18 Creative Examples of Facebook Timeline Covers for Brands (amsterdamprinting.com)
• Facebook Profiles can now be converted into Business (Fan) Pages (thecontentlab.icrossing.com)
• More Than Privacy Controls, Facebook Needs Our Trust To Keep Growing (techcrunch.com)
• How do I connect Facebook to business page instead of personal account? (ask.metafilter.com)
• Focus on Facebook: How to Market Your Business Through Social Networking | eLocal (elocalroofers.com)

How To Promote Your Business

Whether you are selling a service or a product, just by having your own website or shop alone won’t bring you customers and business through the door. You need to promote it.

Business promotion is an essential part of running any successful business. You should spend at least an hour a day on business promotion or planning how to promote your business (and more is better, if you can fit the time in.)

So where do you start?

There are potentially hundreds of different ways you could promote your new business but many can be timely and costly, so it’s a good idea to decide which ones will work best for you and achieve the desired results for your business. Marketing and Promotions is not a ‘one size fits all’ and what works well for one business, may not necessarily work effectively for yours.

This article aims to help you get started and help you grow your business/ service by deciding what might work best for you.

16 ways to promote your business: 

1. Have you got a website?

For those with no idea about websites, this suggestion might seem extremely daunting. However a website is one of the most fundamentally important tools you should have to promote your business. One thing you do need to remember though is that just by having a website, it doesn’t mean that everyone is going to start flooding through the door as you need to direct your target audience to your site. There are a number of ways you can do this via some of the further steps below.

Aim for a clean easy to navigate design that tells people what you are offering and emphasises your professionalism and skill. Give your potential clients as much information as you think they will need. Remember, this is most likely going to be your first point of contact with a potential client, and could determine right away whether or not the contract goes to you.

2. Tell everyone you know about it. 

Tell everyone you know about your business; what it does, what it offers and who it will benefit. I’m sure family, a few friends and friends of friends will also benefit in some way from your business. Is there anything you could offer them for free as an intial introduction? By offering this sort of introduction, word of mouth should then follow. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful ways of promoting any business. As long as its positive! If you have made a marked change to their lives or their own business somehow through your business, then they will definitely share this with their friends and family.

3. Buisness Cards, Leaflets, Brochures, Postcards…

Many may think business cards are a bit old hat now when we have so many different social media sites to choose from that we could promote our business through, but there is nothing more engaging and personal than meeting with a potential customer when out and about at a chance meeting and ending the conversation with ‘here take my card, if I can be of any help in the future, please get in touch.’ Far more professional than scribbling down your details on a piece of scrap paper that they kight just throw away in error when they get home. It also demonstrates how serious you are as a business and a professional.

Get your business cards into the hand of anyone who can help you in your search for new clients. Call your friends and relatives and tell them you about your business. Visit local business and community centres and leave a stack behind.

You could try and be original and creative with your business cards to. Offer them something a bit different to stand out from the crowd. Take a look at these Top 100 really creative business cards.

Leaflets and brochures are also still very much welcomed when providing an extra source of information to someone looking to find out more about a product or service. Customers are much more savvy these days before they buy and want to go away and think about whats on offer. If you have a leaflet, brochure or something that they can take away and look at that appealing and eye catching that they aren’t just going to throw away then you have an ample opportunity to tell your audience what your business can do for them. With any of your messages or communications, always think about the ‘whats in it for me’.

4. Social Media Networks

Facebook, Twitter, linkedIn, Instagram, PinInterest… the list goes on. But make sure your business is on at least one. They all offer different ways and different advantages to promoting your business. You will need to think about whether you want to sell things, offer a service, share ideas, and provide content or advice or whether you want to just update your customers on your business success.

Put videos of your product or service on YouTube and other video-sharing and slide-sharing sites.

Here are some great tips on getting started with Social Media networks and deciding what might work best for you.

5. Talk to all the vendors from whom you buy products or services.

Give them your business card, and ask if they can use your products or service, or if they know anyone who can. If they have bulletin boards where business cards are displayed (printers often do, and so do some supermarkets, hairdressers, etc.), ask if yours can be added to the board.

6. Attend meetings of professional groups

Attend groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Clubs, or civic associations. Have business cards in a pocket where they are easily reachable. Don’t forget to ask what the people you speak with do, and to really listen to them. They’ll be flattered by your interest, and better remember you because of it.

7. Pay for membership in groups that attract your target customers/ join free groups on LinkedIn.

If the group has a website and publishes a list members on the site, make sure your name and website link get added. Once it is added double check to be sure your contact information is correct and your website link isn’t broken.

LinkedIn offers thousands, if not more, professional groups that you can get involved with and spread the word about your business and its service. You must get involved for them to be of any value, however don’t just ‘sell, sell, sell.’ Share a bit of your personality, what you do and provide guidance where you can. accredit yourself as a professional within your area. People buy from people, not business.

8. Look for something unusual about what you do, and publicise it. 

Send out press releases to local newspapers, radio stations, cable TV stations, magazines whose audiences are likely to be interested in buying what you sell. Be sure to post the press releases on one or more online press release services, too, being sure to include links to your website. To increase your chance of having the material published, send along a photo (but not to radio stations) with your press release.

9. Blog or write an article that demonstrates your expertise in your field.

Send it to newspapers, magazines, and websites in your field that accept submissions from experts. Be sure your name, business name, phone number, and a reference to your product or service is included at the end of the article. If the editor can use the article you get your name in print, and possibly get your contact information printed for free, too.

10. Publicise your publicity. 

Whenever you do get publicity, get permission from the publisher to reprint the article containing the publicity. Make photocopies and mail the copies out with sales letters or any other literature you use to market your product or service. The publicity clips lend credibility to the claims you make for your products or services.

11. Offer to be a speaker.

Industry conferences, volunteer organizations, libraries, and local business groups often need speakers for meetings. You’ll benefit from the name recognition, contacts and publicity.

12. Offer a free, no obligation consultation 

Show people what you can do before they buy to people you think could use your services. During such consultations offer some practical suggestions or ideas and before you leave ask for an “order” to implement the ideas.

13. Free gifts, otherwise known as merchandise 

This method does take a little investment to start with but can yield good results if it’s done properly and is correctly targeted. Invest in some branded sweets, pens, USB sticks, fridge magnets etc to promote your business. The advantage of these items over traditional business cards is that they are more likely to be kept, plus your contact/business information generally remains on open view, as opposed to being in a wallet, purse or filing system somewhere.

This will help get your company name and details out to your target audience, and will hopefully get your name and details seen by the right people.

14. Hold an open day or event

Can you hold an open house or event to promote your business? Invite some other local businesses along including press and journalists and tell them all about your business. Provide them with some entertainment and feed them and let them try your business if possible so they can see it for themselves. They will remember you for this and could be the start of a long term working relationship for future positive and ongoing PR opportunities.

15. Create your own app

This isn’t all that difficult to do and there are a number of companies out there already offering this service. You don’t necessarily have to offer an app that actually sells your service or product but perhaps uses it in some way to remind customers of it. An example could include a game which uses your product as part of that game.

16. Competitions 

A really age old, great way of promoting your business and giving something back to potential customers. It is also a great way of building up your customer database with their details, as with their permission you can then go on to send them future communications about further services or products.

These have only touched the surface on the many opportunities you can utilise to promote your business, but these aim to get you started and get your business out there into the big wide world.

Related articles

• How to Make Professional Business Cards (answers.com)
• Networking Tips for Business Owners: 5 Ideas for Promotional Products That Will Get You Noticed (amsterdamprinting.com)
• Why Business Card is Important to Every Business? (businesscardsizes.wordpress.com)
• Small Business Marketing Magic – 10 Ways to Use Customer Testimonials (amsterdamprinting.com)
• 5 Top Offline Marketing Tips for Online Businesses (firmology.com)
• The Advantages of Making Business Cards Online (ruralstops.blogspot.com)
• 3 Creative Ways to Market Yourself Without Social Media (thesocialschoolhouse.wordpress.com)
• 10 Commandments of Correct Business Card Marketing (printrunner.com)

Give a Hen a Home

Here in the 2Communicate towers we are already thinking about Easter. Not just the chocolate eggs though…as one of our current campaigns is to help raise awareness of compassionate living, particularly for the benefit of farm animals on behalf of Compassionate Dorset. We want to try and encourage as many people as we can to go free range and rescue some hens in need of a loving free range home.

Above: Compassionate Tee ‘Chook’ in White

There are a huge number of farm animals needing our help and rescue from abuse, neglect, slaughter and abandonment every single day. The Farm Animal Sanctuary are one charity whom help rescue up to 600 farm animals from goats, pigs and sheep to hens. The Farm Animal Sanctuary provide these needy Farm Animals with a better home and safe haven so they can live the life they deserve. Reading the stories behind some of the rescued farm animals brought some of us to tears! Looking after farm animals can be a full time job and not for the faint hearted; it’s a lot of hard work and expense, but hens are a little easier… Hens require food, water, a clean coop, roaming area and a loving home, they can also be lots of fun! You will need enough outside space for a chicken coop or shed and an exercise space.

Did you know that the British Hen Welfare Trust save approximately 60,000 hens from slaughter and find them caring pet homes so that they can enjoy free range retirement. One very topical story at the moment is centred around the plight of hens, and Compassion in World Farming claim that some egg farmers in the UK are still using barren battery cages, despite assurances that the UK would be fully compliant with the ban on these cages when it came into force on 1st January 2012.

According to percentage figures issued by Defra, the illegal cages could contain as many as 300,000 hens. The British Hen Welfare Trust rehomes commercial laying hens and educates us all on how we can make a difference to hen welfare and encourage support for the British Egg Industry. We ask you to think next time you go to grab a box of eggs to make sure they are free range. Or you could have your own eggs waiting for you at the bottom of the garden, could you give a hen a home?

Did you know . . .

How are eggs made?

• An egg takes the hen 25 hours to make, so at most, a hen can lay 6 eggs per week.
• When hens are young, they lay small eggs; as they get older; the eggs get larger, and aren’t laid as frequently.
• The hen puts the shell on the egg just as it is laid. It takes about 10 seconds to harden.
• The hen always puts the same amount of calcium on her eggs, so small eggs have much thicker shells than large eggs – because the calcium doesn’t have to stretch as far.
• Eggs have a natural protective coating called the “bloom”, which gives the egg a slightly “matt” finish. Washing Grade A eggs before selling them to the public is illegal, as it removes this coating. In the 19th century in Ireland, a farmer could be put in jail for washing eggs.
• It isn’t necessary to have a cockerel; the hens lay eggs anyway, but they aren’t fertile.

In the kitchen . . .

• The fresher the egg, the harder it is to get the shell off after it is boiled. On the other hand, very fresh egg whites whip more quickly than older whites.
• When the Romans came to Britain, they were surprised to see people eating hen eggs.
• Eggs are actually a low fat food – an egg has only 5 grams of fat on average, and most of that is unsaturated. Eggs are one of the best sources of protein, as they contain all of the essential amino acids needed by the body.

So 2Communicate want to help raise awareness for all Farm Animals needing our help and we want to hear your farm animal rescue stories. Have you recently rehomed a hen? Or know of a brave and happy ending for a farm animal who may have been previously suffering?

We want to hear your story, with the winning story receiving a Fantastic FREE Compassionate T-shirt of your choice!

We have extended our competition and our closing date for all entries is to be in by 4pm Friday April 20^th. So get writing guys and you could be wearing one of these fantastic Compassionate Tees…

Animal Lover?

2Communicate are currently working with a welfare group Compassionate Dorset (CD).

Compassionate Dorset is a voluntary animal welfare group promoting compassionate living, particularly for the benefit of farm animals, through local fundraising events and global creative projects. CD’s main aim is to help end factory farming by empowering and educating us to make a difference for animals, people and our planet, simply through the food shopping choices we make. Since working with CD here at 2Communicate we have definitely started thinking much more about where our food comes from.

CD are a local supporter group for the charity Compassion in World Farming which was founded in 1967 by a concerned farmer on a mission to improve the lives of farm animals.

What makes CD different? 2Communicate are particularly excited to be working with CD because of their innovation and creativity, and clear passion for the welfare of animals. We also love animals here at 2Communicate so it makes our job much more worthwhile! CD have launched their own online Compassionate Tee-Shop where they sell their very own unique range of fabulous designer t-shirts in aid of Compassion in World Farming. What’s even better is there is a story to tell behind each and every tee. CD’s latest designs are all in line with Compassion in World Farming’s latest campaigns.

Whats the story behind the Cow tee? Well this relates to the ‘Cows belong in fields campaign’ to stop the mega-dairies coming to the UK.

Chicken and Chook tees are to raise awareness of the ban on barren battery cages which starts in January 2012, but millions of chickens will still be caged so CD urges people to only buy free-range eggs and products with free-range eggs in them.

Lamby tee is to raise awareness of the proposed 8 hour limit on journeys for animals being transported for slaughter.

Show your support and check out the tee shop and we guarantee you will not be disappointed. We are so sure of this that we are offering you the opportunity, on behalf of 2Communicate, to win a tee of your choice based on the winning story we receive from you of a heroic animal rescue. Send your entries to sarah@2communicate.co.uk by January 31st 2012 and you could be the winner of one of these fantastic tees.