Here’s a great piece of free publicity and marketing.

20 year old student Nathan Wybur made a lasagne to look like Engalnd World Cup Boss Fabio Capello.

Now he might not have done this on purpose to get free publicity but he certainly got it!

To get free publicity you need to have an angle that the press, social media sites and people pick up on.

With this example the story was:

TOPICAL – everyone’s talking about the world cup at the moment!

UNUSUAL – whoever makes a lasagne to look like someone’s face!

CELEBRITY – ……and the face was that of Fabio Capello – Englands manager! So that’s a double whammy!

LIKEABLE - Nathan’s just a down to earth, 20 year old student

VIRAL FACTOR – people are talking about it

Add all of those 5 factors together and you’ve got a great story.

So what can you do along these lines for your business?

Sometimes the best ideas are very simple, topical and unusual. The press pick up on the them and then you’ve just created yourself a whole load of free publicity!

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker - Internet Marketing Consultant

I’m often asked to work with small businesses to help with their marketing.

The thing is, marketing need not be expensive as long as you know what you’re doing and for the small business I recommend that you try out different marketing mixes and test, test, test until you nail a marketing approach that works best for your business.

No matter what any “marketing guru” may say, no one really knows how effective a marketing campaign will be until you’ve tried.

The first thing you need to do is work out what budget you want to play with. And it is to play with.

You need to go into this with the mindset that you’re going to use this money to see what works and what doesn’t. You’ll then modify, refine and test some more until you nail it.

So many small businesses start with a budget, they implement some ideas and then because they do not get an immediate return they just bin what they were doing when all it took was just a couple of changes and bingo! A winning formula.

So your mindset is really important when going into this.

So you’ve got a budget. Now you need to work out what to spend it on.

If I were you I would really get to grips and understand everything there is to know about your prospects and clients first. Who are they? How do they make ther buying decisions? Where do they “hang out” on the internet or otherwise?

Armed with this you will be better informed as to where to advertise, what campaigns to run and how to split your marketing spend. 

Then select some marketing approaches and do everything that you can to measure the response that you get. Direct marketing works best for small businesses rather than just brand awareness so bear that in mind when conducting pay per click campaigns, direct mail and when running adverts.

Then it’s a case of testing, measuring and tweaking. There’s lots of advice on this site but my biggest piece of advice is to just do something! And then modify what you’re doing as you go.

Happy marketing

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker - Internet Marketing Consultant

Just how do you put an internet marketing plan in place?

Now many business owners just implement a set of tactics in a very haphazard way with no planning or well thought through outcomes.

These same business owners then give up as soon as the results do not go their way! 

Instead, what you need to have in place is a solid internet marketing plan.

Here are 8 factors you need to take into consideration as you complete your internet marketing plan:

1. Set Your Objectives

What do you want your website to achieve? To sell your products? To create leads? For positioning? To educate your visitors?

2. How Are You Going To Make Money?

What’s your business model? Do you have a funnel in place that offers low end products first and then over time you sell more expensive products to them? Do you know EXACTLY how you are going to make money?

3. Marketing Budget

 How much do you want to spend up-front and then each month on advertising, content product etc

Many business owners go into this blind. Instead, work out how much you’ve got to play with and then cut your cloth accordingly.

4. Target Market:

Get to understand your target market very closely. What their pains and desires are. You need to know everything about them.

5. The Competition:

Who are they? What do they do? What are they better than you at? What are you better than them at? How do they market themselves online? What’s their online profile like? What’s their business model? Keep you friends close and your enemies even closer!

6. USP’s:

 Be very clear on what your Unique Selling Propositions are. Sometimes you think they are unique when they are not!

7. Assess Your Current Website:

Does your website match up with points 1 to 6 above? Conduct a thorough audit.

8. Traffic Generation:

Based upon your available budget, what internet marketing methods are you going to use to drive traffic to your website? There are countless ways to do this: SEO, pay-per-click, banners, text ads, ezine adverts, link swaps, social media, joint ventures, articles, content generation, posting blog comments on others sites – the list is endless! Work out which ones you’re going to use and then test them.

There are other factors but this is a good start!

Happy marketing

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant – Internet Marketing Consultant - Motivational Speaker

If you’re a business owner, currently use FLASH and want your sites to have full functionality on Apples iPad, iPhone et al then listen up!

You see, the fight continues and it will affect you in the end!

The constant battle between Adobe and Apple went to new heights earlier this year when Apple announced that the iPad would not support Flash and instead would look to HTML 5.

This is another kick in the “you know where” for Adobe.

Back in 2008 when the iPhone was launched it was rumoured that Adobe would produce an “enhanced flash application” that would support all of Apples innovations but Adobe could never reach Apples high standards of technology.

I think the time has past and the opportunity is now gone forever for Adobe to be partners with Apple and in a straight fight between the two, my money would be on Apple!

So bear this in mind if you are producing videos and applications in flash. If you want them to show up and play on the iPad, iPhone etc then you need to change to something like HTML5.

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert – Motivational Speaker

Sean and his team have worked with over 800 businesses providing marketing services, marketing consultancy and sales training that have and can include:

• Internet marketing consultancy to improve the way that you market online and to integrate it into your marketing plan
• To act as a branding consultant to ensure your marketing messages and image are consistent with what you want to achieve
• To provide innovative and cost effective marketing strategies to develop new business at a reduced cost compared to "normal marketing methods"
• Training your sales teams on how to close more deals
• Reviewing your existing sales process to modify it and to give your sales teams the best chance of success
• To help you formulate a strategy for your marketing in line with your company goals
• To help you develop a marketing plan that you can easily put into action!

...or it could be a simple as just reviewing what you are currently doing and making recommendations. Sean also owns the Internet Marketing Academy that has a lot of resources to help you become more successful online.

Make an enquiry today to discuss your requirements.