George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”.

I like to think I am a bit of an exception to the rule.  I can, and do (do marketing, that is). But I also teach it to others.

I run one-day marketing training workshops in London, aimed at helping small-business owners, self-employed people and those looking to set up in business how to run their own marketing.

The one-day course follows the stages of the marketing planning process – from SWOT analysis and objective-setting, through the multitude of marketing tactics, to budget setting and measurement.  As we go along, the delegates get to build their own plan, using a planning template I created and which is given to each delegate on USB.

Most of the marketing tactics discussed are free or inexpensive (except for the investment of some time), which is ideal for small businesses and startups.  A business can get great returns these days using social media, content marketing, email marketing and so on, as long as they plan their activity carefully, have a consistent approach and are sure about what they want to achieve.

Delegates go away from the course armed with the beginnings of a plan, lots of ideas about which marketing tactics might be right for them, and the knowledge they need to deploy their new marketing plan within their business.

With my ongoing clients and the odd piece of ad hoc consultancy work, I don’t have the time to be aggressively marketing the workshops, so I’ve priced the courses very competitively at just £99, to attract a large number of delegates without having to spend too much time promoting them.  My strategy seems to be working thus far.  The last course got a good uptake and the feedback was excellent.

I’ve just scheduled in the next course – for Thursday 31^st May 2012.  If you’d like to attend, you can book online. Or if you know someone who is self-employed or who runs their own small business, please share the details with them.

It’s not often that I get around to doing my own marketing, so I’ve been trying to proactively schedule in the time once a week to work on it.

Last week I wrote a couple of new blog posts for publishing at some stage in the future, and this week I’ve written up some case studies, two of which I have published on this site:

• Margolis – business blogging
  Margolis is a great company that I work with on an ongoing basis. I mainly do copywriting and content management for them, including managing their blogging.
• Bromley Common Golf Society – website development
  BCGS isn’t technically a client. My husband is one of the co-founders, so he has little choice about where he sources his marketing services! But I have recently redeveloped their website, so I thought I’d write up a small case study about it and let you see the before and after images.

I often write case studies for my clients to showcase their experience or expertise within certain industries. They are perfect as a way of really demonstrating what a company does and how it benefits its clients. Once written, they can be:

• added to your website as a blog post or separate page
• designed and printed for:
  - leaving with prospective clients
  - use as takeaways from exhibitions and events
  - direct mailshots to prospects
• emailed to clients as part of a regular newsletter
• emailed to prospects as part of a campaign to similar vertical market companies
• designed as PDFs and added to document-sharing sites like issuu or scribd
• promoted (with a link to your website) using social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest (if you have a great photo as part of the case study)
• sent to your target media as a press release

Just one word of caution: before you publish, don’t forget to get your client’s authorisation for what you’ve written about them. If you need any help with the entire process, Kerrmunications can help you by researching, writing, designing, printing and promoting your case studies. Just get in touch and we’ll be happy to give you a detailed quote. If you just want a fairly straightforward case study written, prices are from £125.

It’s not long now until the EU cookie law, the EU Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications, comes into effect.

On 26^th May 2012, all UK websites will need to comply with the new directive. According to a report by consultancy KPMG, issued this week, 95% of UK companies have yet to comply.

That’s a pretty poor show really, seeing as the directive came into force in May 2011 (even if the Information Commissioner’s Office did give us all a year’s grace to sort things out!)

But it’s more worrying when you realise that these companies are therefore risking fines of up to £500,000.

What do you need to do?

For you to comply, it’s no longer enough to just state whether or not your site uses cookies and how you use the information you collect – if indeed you are even doing that anyway – many websites aren’t and didn’t even have a privacy policy!

So now, to ensure that you’re compliant, you need to:

• Undertake an audit of the cookies that your site places on your users’ computers – you can do this for free using Attacat’s free Chrome toolbar extension; and
• Find out what information is taken from users of your website and decide whether it falls within or without the directive.

If you’re using cookies that are affected by the directive, you will then need to:

• Tell people that the cookies are there;
• Explain what the cookies are doing – this is the hard bit, but I love Attacat’s cookie policy wording, which they say you can use; and
• Obtain their consent to store a cookie on their device.

Some solutions for your website

If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla, then your site will almost certainly be using a number of plugins or modules that will be storing cookies on your users’ computers.

Here are some solutions for you to consider:

• CookieCert Cookie Consent Tag: this comes as a WordPress plugin or as some code you can add to your site.  It places a consent bar at the top of your site and also provides a link to your site’s unique page on CookieCert.com which details the cookies found during a cookie audit of your site, which in turn allows you to demonstrate your compliance. It looks good so I tried the plugin, but it wouldn’t work for me. Configuring the code-only option is simple, but I didn’t add it to my site because I couldn’t find any instructions about exactly where to put it. I wasn’t sure if it had to be on each page, or if it should go in header.php or footer.php, or somewhere else. And I couldn’t be bothered to faff around testing it or trying to figure it out.  I also couldn’t find any contact details for this company, and they offer “certification” for $195, so all things considered, I decided to steer clear.
• Cookie Control is a neat little icon device that sits on your site – at bottom left or bottom right – and then pops up to ask the user for consent, along with giving links to your privacy policy and to details about how a user can change their browser settings.  You can download some code, and there’s also a WordPress plugin, a Drupal module (and a Magento plugin “coming soon”).  I have installed the WordPress plugin on a couple of my sites (including this one – did you spot it?) and it works well.
• EU Cookie Directive is a simple WordPress plugin that displays a banner at the top of your website. You can configure it with your own message (and colours too if you know some CSS and how to edit it).  I tested it on a couple of sites and it works well, but I don’t like it as much as the nifty Cookie Control plugin.
• The EU Cookie Law WP Plugin is also a WordPress plugin, but it costs £10 – or £25 for a multisite license – and I really can’t see the point in paying for something you can get elsewhere for free!

Further reading:

• ICO’s guidance the rules on use of cookies

Photo credit: Gary Tamin

Today, Twitter turns 6.  Happy birthday, Twitter!

I can’t claim to have been there for  the first couple of  years of its life, but I like to think I have supported the child since it was a toddler!

With the news of its birthday, Twitter announced some new figures:

• It has more than 140 million active users (up from 50 million a day/100 million a month a year ago)
• There are 340 million tweets a day (up from 140 million a year ago)

That’s a lot of people saying a lot of things!

I was really interested to see the sketch Jack Dorsey made of how he thought it would look, and that he called it “stat.us” and then later “twttr”.

Image purchased from: Can Stock Photo ©

Facebook has announced that it is rolling out its “Timeline” view to all company and brand pages. You can activate it right now if you want, but in case you want to spend some time designing your page and getting it right, you have until 30th March to do that before your page is automatically updated.

So, what’s new?

Add a “cover photo”

The page layout is basically the same as for personal pages, so you have the opportunity now to add a large image that runs across the top of your page. I’ve seen a few awful ones where companies have just used their logo here. And while that’s not particularly creative, what’s worse is that the logos were pixellated. You need to be a bit more clever than that and choose an image that reflects your company. Or, even better, have a new custom image created by a graphic designer. You’re not allowed to include calls to action or contact information in the image, so you’ll need to think carefully about this. Think about how you can capture the essence of your company or how you can incorporate some personality for your page.  For example, if you offer creative services or products, you could showcase these (as has my photographer friend Stephanie).

Red Bull – whose previous Facebook pages were lauded for their creativity – have a nice new cover photo:

Yesterday I was playing around with the timeline to get myself up to speed for my clients, and was experimenting with what needs to be done. I ended up with an almighty great big image of me on my Kerrmunications page. Hopefully, by the time you read this, I will have had a chance to change that to something more appropriate!

Change your profile photo

You may only have to change the size of your image for this. However, many pages have previously created customised, tall images that explain a bit more about what they do. These are no good for the new profile photos which are now square.

Highlight your apps

You can choose up to four apps to appear at the top of your page, so choose the ones that you think are best for your audience. It may be your photos, or you may have created some custom pages. You can also now add custom images for the apps and custom page appear at 810 pixels wide instead of 520 pixels.

Customise your content

• You can highlight posts – this makes them stretch across the whole page, and so makes them more noticeable.
• You can also pin a story to the top of your page. Perhaps each day or each week you might want to highlight something new, and this is a good way to do that.
• Finally, you can populate your timeline with milestones. These can be stories or notes, accompanied by photos or images if you wish, that perhaps demonstrate the history of your brand or company.

Fast facts

Here’s what you need to know to change your page:

LinkedIn has today added a new button that companies can add to their websites and which their users can click to quickly and easily follow them on LinkedIn.

How does it work for the user?

If you’re logged in to LinkedIn and you click on the button, you will automatically follow that company.  If  you’re not logged in, you will be redirected and asked to sign in first, and once signed in, you will start following that company. Really easy!

There are more than 2 million company pages on LinkedIn now, and following a company allows you to stay up to date with their news, products and services. It’s also a great way for job-seekers to keep up to date with companies they’re interested in working for.

Also, according to a recent HubSpot study of more than 5,000 businesses, it was found that traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74%; almost 3 times higher (277%) than both Twitter (0.69%) and Facebook (0.77%). That’s some powerful conversion rate to be taking advantage of any way you can!

How do I add it to my website?

Adding the button is really simple.

1. First, go to the developers’ page.
2. Then type in the name of your company – it will automatically be listed if you’ve added it as a company page.
3. Just select which button you want (with or without follower numbers).
4. Click to get the code.
5. Add the code to your website.

So, without further ado, if you’re on LinkedIn, please follow Kerrmunications by clicking the button below:

I built a new website at the weekend. It only took one day.  It’s for my sideline business where I train small business owners, freelancers and self-employed people how to do their own marketing, called Marketing in One Day.

In just one day I attempt to convey to the delegates my 20+ years’ of marketing experience and knowledge. And I’m pleased to say that in just one day, I managed to build a brand new website for it.

The old website was beginning to look dated. I wanted to revamp the styling, incorporate some social media elements and also optimise it for the search engines (SEO). All these needs led in one direction only: WordPress.

I’m quite proficient in HTML and CSS, skills I gained when working at an internet consultancy during the dotcom boom (and then bust!). But things have moved on since then. Before I rebuilt this website in June 2010, I went on a WordPress training course, which was great. It taught me the basics of setting up a site and adding pages and posts. Since then, I’ve learned even more and I can now create a new website in just one day. Of course, this isn’t always the case for many businesses, but I already had all the images and text I needed. Both needed tweaks here and there, of course – reformatting the image sizes, changing some of the copy – but that didn’t take too long at all.

What took the time was getting the layout how I wanted it and choosing colours and styles. But I was amazed that I could manage to do it all in one day.

Here’s the steps to follow if you want to do the same:

1. Set up your domain name and hosting – preferably do this before you launch a new site as it can take up to 24 hours for the domain name to resolve.
2. Load WordPress onto your server and set up the database. This is easily done on most hosts, as they have a one-click install process. My own host has just introduced one-click install, but as I’d moved my domain to them less thatn 24 hours before I wanted to load WordPress, it wasn’t possible and I had to manually install it. It took a little longer than their fêted “5 minutes” !
3. Choose, purchase, download and add a theme. I chose Theme Blvd’s Barely Corporate.
4. Set up the structure of your site by adding pages and building the menu. Make sure permalinks are optimised for SEO.
5. Format the footer and add in your widgets for things like a Twitter feed, social media links or your contact details.
6. Format the look of your different pages. My own site has three page styles – one for the front page; a page with a right hand sidebar; and a full-width page. This took me the longest, trying to decide how my homepage would look, whether to use a slider or not, what to include on the slider, what colours to use, and so on.
7. Add all your content: your images and text. Make sure to proofread it all very carefully.
8. Add any plugins you want. I added things like: Mailchimp (I want to add a sign-up box later); Google and Mailchimp Analytics; duplicate post creation; and Googlecards to add my Google+ details. But you may want to add some social sharing widgets, SEO-boosting plugins, and others.
9. Test your site. Make sure all the links work, that the site renders well in different browsers and also on different devices. I deliberately chose a “responsive” theme for my site, because it’s already optimised for viewing on computers, tablets and mobiles and doesn’t need me to change anything at all.
10. Promote the site. Using Google and Bing’s webmaster tools, verify your site and upload a sitemap.
11. Backup the site and make sure you have future backup plans in place.
12. Put your site live – the exciting bit!

Well, that’s it. Never mind Marketing in One Day – this was WordPress in one day! Here are the before and after shots:

I was interviewed a while back by Momentum Careers Advice for their regular Monday interview on their blog. In an attempt to dispel the myth that marketing is all about colouring in, I hopefully give an accurate view of what marketing is about.

Below is a transcript of the interview – the original is on the Momentum Careers Advice website.

Welcome to this week’s ‘The Monday Interview’.

Ever wondered what marketing is all about?  A lot of people do.  Over the years that I’ve been involved in careers work, I’ve seen no end of clients wishing to break into this competitive career area.  And many of those who are at the very start of their career planning know little about what is actually involved in this essential business operation.

Well, luckily we have an expert on hand today to help clarify exactly what marketing is, along with providing us with some useful tips on how to get started in marketing.

Claire Kerr has been working successfully as a marketing consultant for over 20 years.  For the last 7 of these, she has been running her own consultancy www.kerrmunications.co.uk which focuses in particular on marketing communications.  In today’s interview, she tells us the good and the not-so-good points of her job, and highlights the growing importance of using social media in this fast moving industry.

Thanks, Claire, for this fabulous interview and for teaching us so much about what is really involved in marketing.  Now, repeat after me everyone:  “it’s not just colouring in”…

*****

So, briefly, what is your job?

“Currently, I’m a self-employed, freelance marketing consultant, and I have been doing this for the last 7 years.  Before that though, I held a number of roles in marketing: from marketing assistant right through many different job titles up to marketing manager.”

How did you get into it?

“I really fell into marketing by accident; it was never a design of mine.  I graduated from university in 1988, when it didn’t particularly matter what you studied and degrees were only just starting to become vocational.  My degree in politics pretty much counted for nothing, except the fact that I was clever enough to go to university!  I left not knowing what I wanted to do or how I wanted my career to pan out.  In the summer, after graduating, I saw an advert for a marketing assistant in the local paper.  It was for Canon.  They were asking for A ‘levels, not a degree, so I was unsure whether I was overqualified.  In this case, being overqualified was probably an asset, because I certainly didn’t excel in the marketing department.  I don’t even think I really knew what marketing was at that time, and in the interview I recall answering that it had “something to do with advertising”.

Describe a typical day.

“Marketing – or in particular, marketing communications, as I do – is extremely varied, so a typical day is very hard to describe.  Whether you’re working for a company “in-house” and doing its marketing, or working as an agency doing the marketing for several companies at a time, it’s probably the same though.  To give you some examples, today I researched and wrote a blog post for one client, then spent some time looking into security equipment for products on display at another client’s trade show.  I wrote some web copy for a third client, started to outline a marketing plan for a fourth client and arranged a meeting with a prospective new client.  I work for several clients at once, but even in an in-house situation, my work was as varied, encompassing: PR, advertising, direct marketing, email marketing, social media, internet/digital marketing, content marketing, events, database management, etc.”

What do you enjoy most about your job?

“I really love the variety of the work itself.  A lot of it is about researching and sourcing products and services – a market research company, or a marquee hire company or a photographer – which suits my inquisitive personality too.  I entered into the world of marketing not really knowing what it was all about, and nearly 25 years later, I’m still here, and still enjoying it.”

And the least?

“As a freelancer, I find it really hard chasing companies for payments.  It just doesn’t sit easily with me that people would try to not pay me for the work I have done for them (thankfully not the case with any of my current clients!).  But as for marketing in general, I think what I enjoy least is that it isn’t well valued in the work place.  There are very few marketing directors on the boards of companies.  If your discipline is finance or operations, and sometimes human resources, companies will have a board place for you, but rarely is the same true if you’re a marketing director.  So there is a limit to how far up the corporate ladder you can travel. That’s one of the reasons I set up on my own.”

What are the common misconceptions that people have about the work you do?

“I have a very lovely and very valued friend who has always – teasingly – said that marketing is about “colouring in”.  Others have said that it’s just about creating brochures.  While creativity and literature production *are * a part of marketing, the further up you progress, the more it is also about strategy and planning.  A company’s success is, in my opinion, hinged on its marketing plan, and so marketers ought to be more valued and respected.”

What are the main skills you need to work in marketing?

“Listening and communication skills are probably the greatest assets a marketer can have.  Marketing is all about understanding what the customer wants and delivering it to them (profitably).  If you don’t listen to your customers, you will never be able to translate what you sell into tangible benefits that they want and can relate to.  Additionally, a great deal of marketing these days takes place on the social media platforms.  This is where the communication skills come in.  Instead of the hard sell, a skilled marketer will engage in conversation and communicate with interested parties.”

Tell us a little about the benefits that come with the job.

“Marketing is pretty well paid, but it is quite difficult to get into these days – not like back in the 80s, anyway!  If you are qualified (with a marketing degree or a qualification from the Chartered Institute of Marketing or similar), then it’s easier and also better paid.  In some larger companies, with regional branches and a salesforce that needs supporting, a company car is often one of the benefits as it’s pretty much a necessity that the marketing staff work closely with the sales force.  Otherwise, benefits will depend entirely on location, type of company and type of marketing you are doing.”

What advice would you give someone wanting to break into this career?

“My first piece of advice would be to get some experience and also some relevant qualifications.  Either gain a marketing degree, or study for a further education marketing qualification (in my opinion, preferably from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, as it is well-respected as the industry body).  And also make sure you undertake some intern or paid work experience.  Experience is invaluable in marketing.

My second piece of advice would be to not even consider marketing as a career if you can’t spell or write coherently.  There is a lot of copywriting in marketing, even for internal communications, and so it pays to be articulate and to know your grammar!

Finally, you would do well to use Twitter or LinkedIn to make sure you know what’s going on in marketing in general. Join some relevant groups, follow some marketers, marketing magazines and journalists on Twitter, and keep abreast of what’s happening.  Technology and tactics move pretty quickly in the marketing world, so you will always need to be up to speed.”

Where do you see yourself in 10 years’ time?

“I’m really happy doing what I’m doing.  I don’t particularly want to be the MD of a 20-strong marketing agency; nor be a board-level marketing director in a global conglomerate.  I enjoy working with my handful of clients and helping to promote them so that their businesses are successful.  My success at marketing them ensures their success, which in turn guarantees my own success.  What’s not to like about that?! “

AND JUST FOR FUN…

First in the office or last to leave?

“First in the office – I work from home.”

Tea or coffee?

“Coffee.  Currently served up by a Nespresso machine – sans George Clooney though, unfortunately.”

Staff canteen or packed lunch?

“Lovely home-cooked food (but leftovers sometimes too).”

The lift or the stairs?

“Stairs sadly.  No lift here!”

Out after work or straight home to bed?

“Straight home to … more work.  One of the disadvantages of working from home is that you can never really switch off.”

Image courtesy of Grunow.

Twelve for ‘12

Apart from completing my tax return, I usually take the time over the Christmas break to analyse my overall business strategy.  Although I’m accustomed to fine tuning my marketing tactics as I go along, I always use the pre-New Year period to assess my overall marketing strategy in some detail and to see where I need to make any changes.

As you may well be doing the same for your business, I thought I would give you a helping hand with some New Year’s marketing resolutions you can easily implement:

1. Hone your marketing strategy.  First things first, make sure your objectives are still relevant and that they are SMART.  You can’t get to where you want to be until you know where you’re going, so get this bit right before you embark on plans for the year ahead.
2. Get blogging.  Did you start a blog and then abandon it?  If so, you’re in good company – lots of companies do the same.  So this year, resolve to blog and to blog regularly.  It doesn’t have to be frequently – maybe only twice a month is enough in your business – but it needs to be regular.  Brainstorm plenty of subjects and ideas in advance, write up some pieces when you get a chance, agree a schedule for publishing the blog posts – and then stick to it!
3. Ramp up your social media presence.  Did you ever add that Facebook business page you were going to?  Did you set up a personal or business Google+ page?  Have you neglected your Twitter account?  Did you add information to your LinkedIn company page and update the status for it?  Not all the mainstream social media may be right for you, but you would do well to be out there somewhere at least!
4. Get some client love.  Ask your clients to recommend you on LinkedIn.  Use those testimonial quotes on your website, or write case studies that demonstrate how your services have helped your clients.
5. Reach out to your customers.  Implement a regular email newsletter.  You can tell them your news, link to your new blog pieces and showcase client case studies.
6. Assess your on-site SEO.  Are your keywords still relevant?  Have you even checked your Google Analytics to see what search terms visitors are using to get to your site?  Make sure your website copy is relevant for your users and includes your keywords.
7. Engage more.  Stop telling and selling and starting listening and conversing.  Social media allows us to speak one-to-one with our markets now, so use this to your advantage.  Find out more about your customers and prospects, their likes, dislikes, needs and pain points.  Then you can react accordingly with products and services that meet their needs, or promotions and offers that will encourage sales conversions.
8. Give your website a makeover.  If it hasn’t been changed for a few years, then your website may be in need of an update.  Content management is a must now, so that you can add blog posts and change your site easily yourself.  There are several content management systems available, but you can’t go far wrong with WordPress as it is the most popular platform, so is well supported and updated.  It’s also excellent for SEO, with many integral features and free plugins that improve optimisation for search and for users.  And it’s great for social media integration, for bringing in a Twitter feed or displaying wall posts from a Facebook account.
9. Make your website mobile friendly.  Mobile share of internet access in the UK is about 7% – and is growing rapidly.  Mobile access to the internet is predicted to exceed desktop usage by 2014.  Make sure you’re not putting off those 7% and get a mobile optimised site now.  [OK, so this is me giving advice I haven’t taken myself!  While my website has been changed for mobile use, it doesn’t really work how I would like it to and I need to sort it out.  So this is one resolution that’ll be on my list this year].
10. Get visual.  With more than 3 billion views every day, YouTube can’t be ignored.  You can create videos of customers giving you testimonials, or introductions to your products or services.  If you have a technical product or services, then support videos will help your customers and reduce the burden on your technical staff.
11. Create useful content.  Content marketing is a great way to show your expertise and to engage with clients and prospects.  Apart from blogging or using video and social media, consider some other ways you can create content that your audience will want to consume.  You could run a webinar series, or write and issue a white paper.  Or why not approach a magazine or popular blog with an idea for an article you could write?
12. Don’t forget your employees.  Internal marketing is just as important as external marketing.  Make sure you communicate with your staff and let them know what’s going on with the business.  PDF newsletters or emails are great for imparting information and meetings and events can encouraging feedback and engender staff loyalty and motivation.  You can even include your staff in your marketing efforts by asking them – or incentivising them – to write blog pieces for you.

Happy New Year!

Twitter has launched a new look as of today.

The simplified design will carry across all Twitter-access platforms. It is available straight away on mobile versions, and will be rolled out over the next few weeks for the web and Tweetdeck versions.

If you go to fly.twitter.com, you can check out the new look in full, but basically there are five new sections:

Home – this is the timeline, where you can see the tweets from people you follow. A major change is that media such as video and pictures are now embedded in the tweets.

Connect – this section is where you can converse. Here you will find @ mentions and and details of who has followed you, or retweeted or favourited your tweets.

Discover – this is where you can find friends and where Twitter suggests whom you might like to follow. A new feature also uses your information such as who you follow, your location, and the content of your tweets to customise content for you.

Me - this profile section is all about you and is where you can edit your details and see your own tweets and DMs.

Tweet – finally, there is a tweet button – which is self-explanatory really!

If you can’t wait for the new version to roll out to you, just download the new application for either iPhone or Android and you will automatically get the updated version for PC. I haven’t had a play as yet, so I’m off to download for Android right now and see what I think of the changes.

BTW – I love the “home” icon – it’s a birdhouse – great, consistent branding!