Joy Creative's blog

[joycreatives]

13 marketing tips to get you noticed.

There's no place for shyness when you're running a business. Everyone should know who you are and what you do and how they can benefit from your expertise. But there are easier and more effective ways of making your business known than shouting from the rooftops. 

Joy Creative presents a list of 13 marketing tips! We can often neglect the simple things that could make an incremental difference to the perception of your business. Below are some simple marketing tips that can be often overlooked.

 Create a mobile-responsive, engaging website. Sounds obvious, right? You will be surprised how many companies' sites do not work on mobile devices.

Start a blog, even if it's just once a month. Your clients and prospects will appreciate the free content and begin to build a better picture of your business, its ethos and personality.

Join your local chamber of commerce or networking group. Collaboration and new business can be found here. And if like me you work from home, it's gets you out of the house!! 

Bespoke business cards get you noticed and are no longer an expensive option if sourced properly.

Get yourself a good accountant. This will allow you to focus on the business and grow your network wider.

Add a signature with your contact details and social media links on all outgoing emails.

Develop the skill set of writing great headlines, to intrigue, excite or draw in readers further. 

Give away some free stuff. The great designer and entrepreneur Wayne Hemingway says "business is about generosity"

Make sure all your friends and family know what you do. I'm not talking about trying to sell them something every time you see them. But the more people know what you do, the better.

To make the most of number 9, ensure you know your value proposition. What problem do you solve for your customers? 

Send out regular e-newsletters. Ever-presence is the key.

Publish your portfolio with case studies and pictures. There has never been a better time to use the old saying. "A picture paints a thousand words"

Once your customers are happy, ask them for a referral. This is the most cost-effective method of acquiring  new business. It costs nothing!

Have fun and let me know if you have any questions.

www.joycreative.co.uk @joycreatives

Michael.

[joycreatives]

Joy Creative's latest work

Hello Friends,

We have been busy working away on some great new brands and wanted to share some of them with you.

Sorted Surf is a new company who offer surfing lessons and surf safaris in Morocco. We developed a number of different themes to reflect the nature of the business along with a cool aspirational feel. They decided on the logo with the border after a number of discussions.

Dish Of The Day was started by a friend of mine who saw a gap in the market for an up market Meals on Wheels - One that delivered freshly cooked food to your table. The brief was quite clear on this one and after a couple of presentations we managed to cook it perfectly.

www.joycreative.co.uk @joycreatives

[joycreatives]

Are you lost in the social media maze?

Facebook…Twitter…YouTube…LinkedIn…Instagram…there are so many ways for any self-respecting business to go social these days, it would be rude not to. But how do you do it? And how do you do it so you get it right?

Gone are the days when golf ball typewriters and Basildon Bond paper were the tools of business, and personalised company calendars were all that you needed to stay visible in the minds of customers.

The growth of digital has created so many opportunities to engage with customers beyond the freebie desk calendar, it would melt the mind of our office forebears. But with so many options, it’s also easy to make the wrong moves.

We all love a good photo, but if you’re selling insurance then Instagram probably isn’t the best showcase for your product. Focus instead on making your website as responsive as it can be to meet customer needs. However, if cupcakes are your business then the visual feeds provided by Instagram or Pinterest are brilliant platforms for displaying your wares.

One channel simply does not suit all in the world of social. Deciding which platform to use depends on the nature of your business, knowing who your customers are and where you’re likely to find them. Only true insight into the DNA of your business will provide those answers. If you haven’t found your audience, you’re simply shouting to an empty room, and no one wants to make that amount of noise for no reward. Time spent investigating where your audience is will reap benefits.

So, you’ve picked your platform or channels and found your audience. Now, you need to entertain them. While gaining a 1,000 ‘likes’ on Facebook, or having more followers on Twitter than you’re following are good early indicators of success, the tide can turn against you if your updates are turning off your audience.

People like to feel special. Reward their loyalty, engage with them and kill off the constant updates about heavy traffic on the way to work. Show them things on Facebook first before the rest of world gets to see it on your website; tantalise with sneak peeks of new ranges; offer discounts to Twitter followers; take your audience behind the scenes of your latest development and show them how it happened on Instagram; allow customers to talk to you and, above all, have a conversation with them.

Considered, well-managed content with a purpose is fundamental to keeping your audience with you and engaged with your business. Update your content regularly to keep them coming back for more. You will be rewarded with shares, re-tweets, comments and ultimately, more sales.

To pick the right social channels, look inwards. Knowing your business and examining your marketing plan will help you find your audience. Then play to the strengths of your chosen channels to engage your audience. (And you can still send them a personalised calendar if you’d like to!)

For help navigating the social media maze, contact Mike at Joy Creative who can set your compass in the right direction.

Happy 2015 [email protected] @joycreatives

[joycreatives]

5 Steps to improve your Twitter following

I was watching "The Fixer" the other night with Alex Polizzi. Alex was helping a family run business called Hecks improve their share of the premium sausage market. The father of the business was around 50+ and was still suggesting that social media and especially Twitter was a waste of time and nothing but people ranting and spreading rubbish. I was astounded to find that a successful businessman was still not on board with Twitter even though it is seven years old and has over 500 million users.

Did you know - 

Twitter users are 3 times more likely to follow brands than Facebook users

67% of Twitter users are far more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Twitter

Tweet exposure has a positive influence on brand consideration

85% of people say they feel more connected to the business after they follow them

Twitter users frequently exchange info about products and services

So as I begin to build my twitter following for Joy Creative I thought I would share some of the tips I am using. And don't worry about having thousands of followers, obviously the more the merrier, but the average Tweeter has 208 followers!!

My 5 top tips - 

Keep an eye out for events, seminars, exhibitions and any topics being discussed on twitter using hashtags. these are great and clearly define a target audience for you. If you can engage with these topics and add to the debate, credibility and future work can be won.

Whilst the ideal is to have more followers than you are following don't be ashamed if this is not the case from the beginning. I suggest 50% of people that you follow will probably follow you back so choose your audience wisely and remember you don't have to follow someone back if they follow you.

The bio on your page should be sharp and succint, try and focus this on what problems you solve for people and how you benefit others, give someone a compelling reason to follow you.

Appoint more than one person in the business to deliver content. Whilst it is a good idea for one person to manage the process of posting, drawing on a range of junior to senior positions will help deliver relevant and engaging content. The senior directors must be on board with this for it to work.

Keep it consistent, there are key times to tweet depending on the industry. Keep a nice steady flow of content coming through and don't be afraid to re-publish content, it may have been missed the first time around.

Hope this helps and do get in touch if you have any questions.

[email protected]

[joycreatives]

Delivering the Spark

Helping Estuary Electrical & Renewables gain awareness

I like to use my blog to demonstrate some of the work I have been delivering for my clients. Below is a short summary of a brochure we produced to help increase a client's brand awareness for a specific audience.

Business Problem: Estuary Electrical & Renewables were keen to tender for more long term contracts directly. Having now completed a number of large projects successfully they were keen to build on this momentum and win more work within the South East of England.

Solution: Joy Creative worked with Estuary Electrical & Renewables to identify contracts that best suited their team's skill set. Discovering a number of organised events we focused on council run "meet the buyer" events. Working to prepare both directors for the meetings, to ensure their pitch was good, we also wrote and designed the collateral to leave with the buyers.

Results: Estuary Electrical & Renewables have not only forged new relationships with large contractors and councils. They have been invited to tender for a number of new contracts.

@joycreatives

www.joycreative.co.uk

[joycreatives]

A hair raising exhibition

Inspiring hairdressing skills

I had the pleasure of being invited as a guest to Salon International @Salon_Intl  last weekend with The Feds, or as they’re otherwise known, The Mens Hairdressing Federation @TheMHFed. Started by the well-known men's hairdresser Adam Sloan @adamsloanbigyin their aim is to inspire new people to join the industry, showcase talent, encouraging education and the transfer of skills.

Salon International's salon​_Intl purpose is to bring like minded people together, inspire, educate the industry and share ideas and techniques. A perfect platform for the @TheMHFed team to deliver their message and network with like minded people.

There was even some revolutionary new ideas on fashion!

Joy Creative has been acting as a consultant to their creative director Aaron Dorn @hair_did and helping develop a defined list of benefits for each member, feedback on branding as well as being a sounding board for ideas. I hope to be completing some more work for them later in the new year.

[joycreatives]

The social dilema

Just a bit of common sense

It was with great excitement that businesses viewed the increase in sales that social media channels would bring them. Stories of thousands of likes and business leads rushing in were heard and the buzz of this great new medium spread like wild fire. Many businesses opened an account posted a few comments here and there and waited for business to come rolling in.

Where did all the leads go?

I was pleased to see that a snap shot of businesses in my local area have some sort of social media presence, however not surprised to see only 25% using them and just 10% using them well.

What is clear to me is that a number of people got a little lost in the excitement, opened a social account, then got disheartened with the responses received.

In my opinion Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all of the other Social Media sites should not be mistaken for anything more than marketing channels, fantastic ones at that. However they are just like any other channel and need time, energy and engaging, relevant content to be delivered through them.  Don’t get me wrong, used well they can change the business completely and deliver on all of these promises and more, however used sporadically and with no real purpose they potentially take the shine off a business.

Some say that content marketing will need to take a new direction due to the abundance of content that is out there, interesting times ahead but I am sure the Social channels are here to stay.

Have a great weekend. 

joycreatives