Category: Marketing

In this episode we are joined by IMC Club Member Dave Hargest from Selmach Machinery. During this episode he shares how he used 360 Matterport to create his own 3D Virtual Tour to showcase the companies showroom and boost audience engagement.

Ben and I will revisit the importance on gathering Five Star Reviews and discuss the best ways to get feedback for your business.

Another example why making the effort to personalise your marketing can help make you stand out against your competitors.

Boasting a growing loyalty membership and subscription base, Pets at Home is investing significantly in personalisation in a bid to boost its marketing effectiveness.

During the past six months, Pets at Home has launched over 300 targeted marketing campaigns and claims to have experienced a threefold increase in “supplier-driven communications”, improving response rates and marketing efficacy.

Manny Pham, Marketing Week

Linked in the ICO newsletter yesterday was a marketing checklist PDF. It’s worth reviewing particularly if you use bought in email lists.

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Ben & Clare discuss why every business should be gathering video customer testimonials.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

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Ben shares his method for developing a blog content strategy and the best ways to get your website found online.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

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Martin Dugan from Double Tap Marketing shares his approach with Ben on how he manages outbound marketing, cold calling through to nurting the outcomes.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

I take you through some key strategies to to build your perfect ecommerce sales funnel, from first contact to getting the sale. You’ll be able to apply the strategies in this video to almost any business even if you don’t sell online.

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Ben speaks with Ben Everard on his approach to problem solving and the steps he uses to overcome them.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

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Ben talks to Claire Doré, a life coach about her tips on reprogramming your mindset and achieving your goals.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

Forrester’s report emerges alongside the ongoing debate on balancing the role of short-term direct response activity and long-term brand-building. Increasingly, the tendency to use short-term online metrics as primary performance measures will have implications for long-term brand success, as Mark Ritson’s recent article warns, with brand building techniques historically more intangible to measure and challenging to link to conversion.

‘If you look for returns from your marketing on a 12 month or shorter time scale, you will inevitably undervalue long-term brand building and move too much of your marketing investment into shorter-term tactical fare. This will result in superior ROI initially, but two very different stories will emerge over the next five years.’

Marketing Week, How the value of marketing has taken centre stage

The next 12 months is going to be interesting as marketers will held more accountable to justify and prove short and long-term effects of their campaigns.

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Ben speaks with Rod Hande, an up and coming magician on what marketing methods he uses to promote his business. Rod also does his first video conference magic trick!

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

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Ben share’s his ultimate guide to proof reading marketing content in ten achieveable steps.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

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I am joined by Shayna Rattler a leading expert in corporate sponsorship and influencer marketing to discuss how this could benefit your business.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

Roger Britton from Community First shares his thoughts and feedback on how Rather Inventive helped and delivered in making his new website.

👋 If you found this testimonial inspiring join my Marketing Club to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web. Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here https://ratherinventive.com/club/

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I am joined by Clare to discuss the reasons why you should be making video testimonials and how your business will benefit by them.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

Republished from a short feature in an email newsletter for Start and Grow Enterprise.

Over the last 12 months, people have shifted dramatically to buying online. According to McKinsey, ‘more than three quarters of buyers and sellers say they now prefer digital self-serve and remote human engagement over face-to-face interactions – a sentiment that has steadily intensified even after lockdowns have ended.’

So it’s more important than ever to understand who your best customers are and appeal directly to them, especially if you cannot see them face to face or speak over the phone. When you know your customer, it helps you find more people like them, find better customers, and make your marketing more manageable by focusing on what matters.

A great way to make sure you are talking your customer language is to write out how your product or service fits your customers’ needs. It’s a simple process but it can highlight what’s important to your customer and helps you to focus on what to write.

To start, note down at least three goals or needs your customer has. For example, if you were a food box delivery service, these could be to: Save time cooking, Save money or Save stress. If you aren’t sure what your customer’s needs are, it won’t hurt to ask them why they buy from you. Send out a survey or ask them next time you are on the phone or chatting in Facebook Messenger.

Once you have your customer needs, you should match how your product or service addresses these needs. For our food box example, you may help them save time by pre-measuring the food. Your boxes could have a fixed weekly cost to save money. And to reduce the stress of cooking a healthy meal, you can provide free tasty recipes.

Focusing on your customer needs and how your product benefits them will show your customer that you understand them and help your product stand out from the crowd. I find it also makes writing copy easier for social posts or your website as you’ll know what to focus on.

Ben chairs a discussion with Nicky Ayers (Ecl-ips CCTV), Catherine Every (Pippin Copywriting) and Jon Johnson (Mountain Perspective) looking at how future trends and challenges could impact on our strategies for lead generation.

Notes

What could the future of marketing look like?

You don’t own the platform

• Rely on social and ads for new customers
• The sales funnel is out of your control
• No direct access to audience
• What happens if their policies change?

People prefer to buy/work online

• People prefer digital experiences – Easier, quicker.
• Remote working reduces town centre visitors
• How do they find out about you?

Search is voice only

• In the car, jogging, cooking
• Voice assistants only surface the first few results
• How do you get found in a sea of a thousand results?

Tracking is dead

• Browser tracking cookies are being blocked
• Email is hiding your opens and clicks
• How can we target them on other platforms?
• Do we need to collect so much data?

What you can do about it

Build a strong brand

• Trusted and consistent
• Meet people where they are then invite them back to your place – your website

Tribe Marketing

• Work with partners or as a group
• Make use of their audience
• Refer often

Use Video

• Focus on personality (brand)
• Make it useful, share something of value, have fun
• Great audio/lighting

Use structured data

• Answer questions, add FAQ schema
• Be the ultimate answer on Google 
• https://soundcloud.com/rather-inventive/interview-duane-forrester-yexts-vp-industry-insights

Be remarkable
Create email and social posts people really want to read, watch or be part of

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I share our process for reviewing your blog posts to find out which articles are getting the most visits and cause people to take action, and which ones are deadwood that needs cutting away.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

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In this episode I share an extract from my conversation with Michelle Evans onhow developing a marketing funnel can take your from simply surviving, to SOLD OUT. Michelle takes us through the steps of developing a funnel from understanding your audience before jumping in to develop a funnel that will nurture more customers into working with you.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

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In this episode I share an extract from my club webinar where I look at the uses of email marketing and what clicks and views to expect.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

My recommendations and advice for people regularly promoting their businesses who have completed the Foundation and Pro levels.

Notes

Marketing Fundamentals walkthrough (Expert)

Audience & Planning

• Review progress against business objectives
• Watch IMC #1 Planning your marketing strategy
• Ask customers why they made their decision to buy from you
• Watch IMC #14 How to make fab client testimonial videos
• Refine your customer persona

Stats & Analytics

• Identify two actions to increase website visits
• Review your stats on YouTube
• Watch IMC #3 YouTube Engagement
• Review stats on website landing pages and goals
• Review email clicks, which campaigns are working the best?

Web Design & Development

• Watch IMC #10 WordPress walkthrough
• Add the benefits of your product to your landing pages 
• Offer a free trial or consultation
• Add customer case studies
• Add an interests drop down to enquiry form or newsletter sign up
• Begin to add CTAs to blog / news content
• Watch IMC #25 WooCommerce walkthrough

SEO & Content

• Register your business on 5 high quality online directories
• Perform deeper competitor research
• Search for the keyword on Google
• Review the first three organic result snippets (ignore the ads)
• Visit each of the first three results
• Compile your results
• Conduct a review of your landing pages
• Watch IMC #20: Blog Content Consolidation
• Arrange guest blogging to build credibility & backlinks
• Add additional topic related words to your landing page or blog content
• Write another two blog posts

Social Media

• Develop a sharing strategy for social
• Make your social posts remarkable
• Show awareness of ideal clients sector
• Introduce video into marketing activites
• Turn your what you learn into content
• Watch IMC #15 How we make our podcast
• Setup a pretty Facebook URL
• Setup YouTube channel linked to Google +
• Watch IMC 21: Mining LinkedIn to find prospects
• Create your Social Tribe
  

Email Marketing

• Collect visitors data with a compelling offer
• Design a follow up email with extra information
• Optimise your email layout for clicks
• Experiment with animated graphics or videos in your email
• Design a specific email newsletter targeted at your ideal client
• Test your emails to make sure they aren’t going into SPAM

Business

• Review your customers in terms of price, profitability, ease of conversion, previous business
• Raise your prices by 10%
• Focus on your best prospects first
• Use CRM to track the nuturing process

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A lot of people’s go-to in marketing is social media but I’ve noticed a reinsurance in email newsletters. I speak with Nikki Elbaz an email marketer about the benefits.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

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For this episode I’d like to share an extract from my Marketing Boost webinar where I look at why feedback is important and how to get more of it. Spoiler, you just need to ask.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

My advice for business getting serious about their marketing. These tasks follow a similar format to my Foundation level but will be suited to business already doing a bit of marketing.

Notes

Marketing Fundamentals walkthrough (Pro)

You’ve graduated to the pro level well done. These tasks follow a similar format but will be suited to business already doing a bit of marketing or those who’ve completed my Foundation level. 

Audience & Planning Section Highlights

• Review progress against business objectives
• Watch IMC #11 on understanding your customer
• Compare your customer needs to your product fit
• Write down your customer needs for each of the three buying stages:
  • 1. Awareness (social activity, adverts etc)
  • 2. Consideration (help articles, FAQs)
  • 3. Decision (product details, checkout)
• Build a customer persona: Download Persona Template
• Write a customer pain list of questions that you can help with
• Invite clients to take an online survey to get feedback

Helpful Links:

#11 Understanding your customer – Inventive Marketing Club (GROUP) for Members
3 simple steps to find your ideal clientAsk an expert to help you with this
How to Use Customer Satisfaction Surveys the Right Way
Create simple surveys in Google Forms

Stats & Analytics Section Highlights

• Watch IMC #7 on how best to use Google Analytics
• Check out your stats in GA
• Decide which GA stats you need to measure to reach your objectives
• Setup GA Goals to track activity on your website
• Identify one action to increase website visits

Helpful Links

#7 Google Analytics – Inventive Marketing Club (GROUP) for Members
About Goals in Google Analytics

Website Design & Development Section Highlights

• Grade your website and marketing (again)
• Watch IMC #8 to learn why image optimisation is important
• Reduce image size
• Remove unused plugins or add-ons
• Ensure your website navigation is clear and simple
• Audit your page content to ensure information is current
• Make sure your website has a Call To Action

Top Tip: Don’t delete plugins straight away, leave them deactivated for a couple of weeks just to make sure you don’t need them. If you have had the site developed by a web developer ask them to double it check to ensure that ones you are not using aren’t slowing down your site.

Helpful Links

IMC #8 Image EditingInformation on Optimising Imagescompressnow.comtinypng.comImageOptimSafe SVG plugin
Speed up your WordPress website

SEO & Content Section Highlights

• Watch IMC #6 on SEO tips and strategy
• Research competitor sites on Google
• Write a blog article that answers a question from your customer pain list
• Check that your site’s page titles clearly relate to the page content
• Create unique descriptions for each page
• Watch IMC #16 on Improve landing page SEO
• Create a landing page for each keyword
• Listen to Greg talk about SEO and affiliate marketing
• Write two blog posts
• Get listed on Yell.com

Helpful Links

IMC #6 SEO Strategy
Get an expert to write an article for you
IMC #16 Improve landing page SEO
On-Page SEO, a beginners guide
How to write for business – cutting out the waffle

Social Media Section Highlights

• Watch IMC #4 on reviewing your LinkedIn profile
• Add business website links to your LinkedIn profile
• Endorse 3 people on LinkedIn
• Send LinkedIn connection invites to people you met recently
• Watch IMC #12 for tips and advice on Google My Business
• Optimise your Google My Business profile
• Ask customers to write a Google review
• Connect with target clients on LinkedIn
• Set up a business Twitter account
• Participate in a local networking hour on Twitter
• Set up a business Facebook Page

Helpful Links

IMC #4 Get more out of LinkedIn
LinkedIn Skill Endorsements – Overview
Watch IMC #12 Google My Business walkthrough
IMC #5 How to get Five Star Reviews
A Complete Guide To Twitter Networking Hours

Email Section Highlights

• Watch IMC #2 Using email marketing effectively
• Setup an email newsletter service
• Collect email addresses from visitors to your site
• Review your email strategy

Helpful Links

IMC #2 Using email marketing effectively
8 Small Business Email Marketing Tips for 2020
Add a Signup Form to Your Website5 simple steps to your email marketing MOT

Business Highlight Section

• Create a spreadsheet to track your leads
• Listen to Rocky Romanella business leadership development
• Watch IMC #13 Productivity at work
• Review your sales process from initial lead enquiry to final invoice

Helpful Links

Example Google Lead Sheet
Watch IMC #13 Productivity at work