Learn from Your Competitors

It might sound like an odd proposition, but if you are smart in your approach and your research, you could find that the work of your competitors can contribute towards your success. It makes sense to learn about what has gone before you to see what has worked or not worked for businesses before you plough ahead and make the same mistakes unnecessarily. Undertaking competitor analysis isn’t simply a case of checking what’s happening in the market — who is offering what and what is selling and what is not. It is an ideal way to learn about what to do (and what not to do) to make a success of your business. Keep an eye on marketing campaigns and any follow-ups they receive in the trade press, which can be a sure sign that they made an impact. Networking has long been a great way to boost your business knowledge and learn from the experience of others. Businesses are generally open to sharing ideas and best practice as they often have to work together to improve the conditions in which they trade. They need to present a united front when, for example, petitioning the government or challenging legislation which makes their trading difficult. However, it is not all one-way traffic. If you want to become a trusted name and a leader in your field, you will inevitably find yourself sharing some of your knowledge and expertise, and so in turn other companies will learn from the hard work you have put in. But that is how best practice grows and strengthens the offers of entire sectors, not just one business alone. That’s got to be good for business as a whole. So as long as you’ve got something to contribute, make good use of networking opportunities to boost your business. Another way to learn from your competitors is to locate your offices near to them. Benefit from the time, effort and marketing resource that has gone into making an area known for the type of business which is located there. This is common practice and you will find areas in most cities where types of businesses have already clustered. Over time, the sector lends its name to the area and you end up with readily recognised financial districts or creative hubs. The advantage of being in the same location as your competitors is that it cuts down on your marketing costs. Established businesses will have already generated their customer traffic, so the types of customers you want will be on your door step. It will take little marketing effort to get yourself noticed. If you are a new business and haven’t yet started growing your marketing team, then maybe the place to start is with a professional marketer with good experience of competitor analysis. Ask marketing recruitment agencies in Wolverhampton for information on any suitable candidates and how to go about hiring the best talent. If you are looking for marketing recruitment agencies in Wolverhampton, you will find several in close proximity to each other in the city centre.

The Importance of Social Media

While the fast-changing nature of technology and marketing trends seemed to be non-stop, new research suggests that changes to the technology we use, such as social media, are slowing down. However, increased and smarter use of these channels will become more important for your marketing success than your search-engine rankings alone will. With the release of the Hummingbird algorithm by Google, the extent to which your business is being discussed on social media sites will directly boost your search-engine rankings. So you can stop using resources to look out for the next big thing in order to get ahead, and redirect that effort to the channels you have in place and make much better use of them. If you don’t have the right social media management resource in your marketing team, it’s time to review your resourcing strategy and marketing recruitment agencies in Shropshire can help you get this under way. If you are wondering about the ability of marketing recruitment agencies in Shropshire to supply the best talent, check out how they are managing their social media. There are lots of social media tools available, and it is not enough simply to be using one of them. Each can serve a different and complementary purpose to the other, and a mixture of them together can yield great results for your presence online. So make sure you are investigating the best ways to use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and the many other platforms that may be appropriate for your business. When trawling through the minefield of social sites, it can pay to go with your natural reactions about how they work and how easy or difficult you find them to get to grips with. If you find it easy to engage with a site and its content, purpose and how to use it, then the chances are that so will your customers. So keep it simple. Also look for sites which are most responsive to different viewing formats and how they render on the various handheld devices in everyday use. What all these social platforms have in common is the speed by which information, praise or condemnation can be posted live and viewed by many. So as a business engaged in this form of communication with customers, you need to be ready to respond and be vigilant about the types of content or comments being posted and shared about your company, products or services. While this can sound daunting, if managed effectively and efficiently, it can provide an excellent showcase of your customer satisfaction credentials.

Using Twitter

If your business has a serious professional image and you are looking at new ways to get your messages out, you would be forgiven for initially dismissing Twitter as something that is just not right for you. However, it might be time to think again. Admittedly, this form of social media has a strong emphasis on ‘social’ and to the uninitiated it might appear to be simple a medium for fans to follow every move of their celebrity idols. But as with any form of communication, the key is in how you use it. The medium itself does not determine your message. Firstly, do your homework to decide if this route to market is right for you. Do some research on your customers by looking through Twitter to see who is talking about your company and its products and services or those of your competitors and decide if there is a community you can engage with. Don’t worry if there doesn’t appear to be one at first, as you can build it. It is important to remember that you will not get far just pushing out sales-focussed marketing messages. As with many social media tools, the key is to establish yourself as a trusted source of valuable information who is keen to share it. If you feel you can create a meaningful engagement with your customer community, then this is the tool for you. Twitter is a great way to keep contacts and clients abreast of developments, events or new products, but it is also a great tool for customer care and support. It is quick and easy to use. You don’t have to worry about how much of the content will be read, as you might do with emails, newsletters or direct mail. With only 140 characters at your disposal, it would be hard to miss any of it. The real art of maximising your use of Twitter lies in crafting meaningful and impactful communications in just 140 characters. If you have great copywriters in your marketing team, then this will be a challenge they will relish. When you have established your strategy for using Twitter, then you will find that resource is required on a constant basis to manage the outgoing and resulting content. If this isn’t resource that you have in-house, then speak to marketing recruitment agencies in Staffordshire to find out how to engage the right talent. If you aren’t sure which marketing recruitment agencies in Staffordshire to use, then why not take to Twitter to find out about the different agencies? Another part of your strategy will be to monitor and track the impact of your Twitter activity. While it is relatively simple to track re-tweets, you can use apps and software to help you. You will, of course, be able to gauge initial impact from the responses you get, depending on the nature of your post. Before engaging new resource to handle your Twitter-related work, investigate the software available that can automate some functions.

Snappy Strapline Summaries

Getting your message out to the market is a non-stop challenge. Frequency of visibility of your brand can only be a good thing. If you are succeeding with that, then you can maximise on the ongoing impact by having snappy straplines to accompany your logo to quickly communicate what it is you are about. However, generating the right strapline is not as easy at it might appear, even though they are usually only a matter of a few words. You can take a few approaches to get the creative juices flowing, and it is wise to remember that the best suggestions can come from the most unlikely of sources. Setting up a brainstorming session with your marketing and sales teams is one way to generate ideas, as the natural flow of suggestions comes from the ideas of one person sparking an idea in another. While this might not immediately generate the final useable strapline, it can take you a good way towards it and the good offerings can be fine-tuned. Another good approach which works well to get staff engaged and feel a sense of belonging to your brand is to set up a competition at work to get all staff sending in suggestions. Obviously, you should offer a great prize for any submissions used. If you cannot generate a strapline which fully hits the mark by less formal means, then you could always engage the services of a marketing agency. You could also bring in a freelance copywriter if this is not a skill which you have in your current marketing team. Copywriting is a skill that can take a while to develop and if you don’t have the capability in-house, it is worth weighing up the benefits of recruiting. Copywriters will bring you strapline solutions, and they can also craft your online content, your advertising copy and content for all your marketing literature, taking the burden off other members of staff who are not best suited to it. Additionally copywriters can be well placed to contribute to your internal communications functions and business documentation too, so there are many ways that you can secure a good return on your hiring investment. If you speak to marketing recruitment agencies in Worcestershire, you will also find that many marketing candidates list copywriting as one of their many skills, so they will be able to turn their hand to other marketing tasks too. However, if you do want someone to purely concentrate on the written word, then marketing recruitment agencies in Worcestershire will be able to find you the ideal person.

Taking New Ideas to Market

Seeing ideas turn into reality is a dream come true for inventors and entrepreneurs. But the process can involve a lot of hard work and long hours. Getting a product from the drawing board to the shop shelves or into the hands of sales professionals is a long process but this is just what it happening in Coventry. The Health Design & Technology Institute at Coventry University has been busy helping local innovators in the health and social-care sector to bring their products to market. The inventions have largely been products which help individuals to live independently in the community and remove their dependence upon other healthcare services. The ever-increasing size of the UK's older population means that the demand for products which support independent living is only going to grow. But even when a market is as certain as this and an idea seems sure to succeed, there is still the question of how to turn the idea into reality. For innovators in Coventry help is at hand. Support from ERDF funding means that local entrepreneurs and SMEs can access consultancy services for product development, including design services and testing for usability. The university is using its expertise and excellent facilities to deliver these services, which include quick production of prototypes and testing. The testing is vital, either to inform a subsequent design stage or to qualify the product claims regarding features and benefits that you will want your marketing messages to carry. The reports are independent validations of your product. So your idea works and you know your market, but it still isn’t going to sell itself. You need to work on how you are going to market your product. This is where your marketing planning comes in. You know that your product is great and so do all those who have helped you develop it, but can you put that into words that a new customer would quickly appreciate? Defining your product features and benefits and agreeing your market messages will be things you need to get started on. If this is a new brand as well as a new product, then you’ll need to establish that too. You already know who your target market is, but do you know what their purchasing drivers are or what type of communication they are likely to respond to? These are all things you’ll need to know to develop your marketing strategy, while at the same time setting realistic budgets with which you need to implement it. If you are looking for investment to help take your product to market, then be realistic about what you’ll need to support your marketing, and make sure you’ve done your homework. If you are a new business, you may not have this expertise within your resource base. If this is one of your first hires, you might want to enlist the help of marketing recruitment agencies in Coventry. If it is too early to take on full-time permanent staff, then speak to marketing recruitment agencies in Coventry about short-term contracts or even temporary part-time positions as long as you can engage the right level of expertise.

Meaningful Engagement with Younger People

A recent report in Warwickshire, which was submitted to the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Children, Young People and Families, has illustrated a successful reduction in the number of NEETs — those not in education, employment or training — among young people aged between 16 and 19. In 2005-2006, the NEET figure for all 16 to 19 year olds in Warwickshire was 6.7%. However, by the academic year 2012-2013 the number had come down to 3.6%. This is a very encouraging improvement in the outcomes for school leavers, ensuring that they are either engaged in employment or other meaningful activities which can help prepare them for the world of work. Despite these encouraging figures for the county of Warwickshire, the issue of high youth unemployment has not gone away. With recent figures for youth unemployment at all time highs, it should remain a concern for employers that the next generation is not being fully engaged in order to be ready to take up the reins when older staff retire. While resource costs are among the highest costs businesses have to cope with, there is another way to prepare the next generation of employees for your business. Apprenticeships are a cost-efficient and effective way to bring in new talent and train them in the skills you need for your business. Often one of the concerns that employers have when taking on new young employees is that they don’t have the skills that they need to make them immediately useful and productive. So an apprenticeship is the ideal way to get them up to speed and competent in the skills and abilities they need to perform their jobs. An added benefit is the fresh blood, new pairs of eyes and enthusiasm that new employees can bring to the workplace. If you need to review your future resource planning and are considering taking on an apprentice, then speak to your local marketing recruitment agencies in Warwickshire. You will also need to engage with a training provider to deliver the training and assessment element of the apprenticeship framework if you do not have these professionals in-house. Alternatively, you can contact the council for advice. It is already working with the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership to help ensure that businesses generate a good enough range of employment and training opportunities for the young people entering the labour market. Remember that marketing recruitment agencies in Warwickshire might already have young people on their books that have registered interest in getting an apprenticeship, so your talent pool may be ready and waiting.