Marketing Blagger » 2006

Marketing law

Posted October 31, 2006

For any of you with more than a passing interest in marketing law, you should visit http://www.marketinglaw.co.uk/.

It’s a service provided by Osborne Clarke - a leading law firm - and provides regular updates on the latest laws and their implications on your marketing activity. You simply have to register an email address and you’ll start to receive monthly updates.

While some of the info is not easily digestible to non legal beagles, they’re certainly worthwhile reading. Do yourselves a favour, don’t learn about law the hard way and be prepared - as Lord Baden Powell would say - to learn about marketing law.

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Filed under: Legal

The joy of testing

Posted October 30, 2006

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I’ve recently become a big advocate of testing. The idea that you should try out a marketing strategy on a small scale before rolling it out across your business. It’s a great way of minimising risk, while at the same time learning what marketing tactics do and don’t work.

An example could be with telemarketing. If you want to conduct a telemarketing campaign and decide your target list should be 10,000, then test your campaign on 1,000 contacts at first. This will enable you to evaluate whether this strategy will achieve your objectives, but also to refine your sales script and potentially improve your performance. With direct marketing initiatives it should also enable you to predict future performance, as success rates typically scale very well.

Testing can be used for many if not all marketing vehicles. If you want to use exhibitions to reach your target audience, plan an annual calendar of events to attend, but don’t invest in more than one or two shows until you know whether this format works. If you’re planning on running a paid for search campaign, trial it for a month or more with a limited budget first and than expand if it works.

Anyway, you probably get the idea by now. Whichever marketing vehicle you choose, test it on a small scale first. If it works, expand. If it fails, drop it and put your time and money into something else.

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Filed under: General

Corporate social responsibility

Posted October 27, 2006

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Are you a professional services business? Do you want to make a profit but also benefit your local community?

If so, I suggest you look into ProHelp. A division of Business in the Community, it helps professional services firms to provide their services for free to local community groups and voluntary organisations. ( see www.prohelp.org.uk).

So why would you want to give your services away for free? Research has shown that businesses that take a lead on being socially responsible benefit from:

* attracting, retaining and developing motivated and committed employees (”78% of employees would rather work for an ethical company than receive higher pay”)

* winning and retaining clients (”88% of consumers said they would more likely to buy from a company that engages in activities to improve society”)

* increased networking and business development, (”2 in 3 businesses believe environmental responsibility contributes to a more successful business”)

* greater PR and improved reputation amongst the local community and target audiences,

And many more benefits.

If you don’t already have a community or CSR programme, have a think about what you can do to impact your local community. If you want to make an impact, I suggest you put a thorough plan together. Think about why you want to do it, what you want to achieve and how you will measure success.

You could also do a lot worse than simply contacting your local ProHelp office to find out what you can do.

** Stats taken form the Better Business Journey initiative from Business in the Community

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Filed under: CSR

Thinking inside the box

Posted October 25, 2006

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I hit a brick wall today. I wonder how many other consultants find themselves in this position, or perhaps, how frequently is a better question.

Have you ever heard the term to think outside the box? I’m sure you have. Just about every manager, business leader and guru has been using it for the past 5, 10, 15 probably many more years than that. People use this expression because it actually makes sense. Trying something new or taking a different approach to a business problem may actually help you to rectify the issue.

In marketing it’s an even bigger buzz word. Marketers are forever looking for something new and different with which to reach their audiences and make money. Whether it’s a new advert, or innovative delivery channel, or even a new product design. They realise innovation is a key component of long term business growth.

Today I heard a different approach, one that’s new to me. It’s called “thinking inside the box”. It translates to only marketing in the same ways that our competitors do - advertise in the same journals, gain publicity in the same press etc etc. I’ve no doubt doing this works, after all if it didn’t, then why would so many smart people invest their time and money in these ways?

However to my mind this is business suicide. Marketing should be multilevel and it should be innovative in order for a business to stand out from the crowd. But there’s no telling some people. I’m sure somebody once said businesses should “innovate or die”.

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Filed under: General