Communiqué SME May 2010

Your very own secret millionaire!

If a genuine investor came knocking at your door and offered to plough millions into your marketing effort, what would you do? Well, after I’d checked it was a bone fide offer, I’d give them a bear hug, put them on my VIP list and ask when I could have the cheque! I suspect you’d be similarly enthusiastic, unless you’re a huge sceptic.

SMEs struggle with marketing investment

When I’m talking to SMEs about their business ambitions and marketing rarely does the conversation end with the phrase, “And I’ve got stacks of money in the budget to do it!” Naturally most SMEs are cash-strapped and want to squeeze every last penny out of their marketing – don’t we all? The problem is that the true cost of business includes marketing and achieving improvement performance requires marketing investment.

You have £millions to spend on marketing!

But did you know that your business already has the benefit of a £ multi-million investment? Google have pumped billions into Facebook giving you the potential to reach 56 million people; that’s a market the size of the US! And YouTube has been financed to the tune of hundreds of millions so that you can have your own free video delivery system streaming worldwide. Add to that other free social media tools, such as flickr, SlideShare and Eventbrite, and you’ve got a massive marketing budget at your disposal. Great isn’t it?

Feeling anti-social?

I know, I can hear the groans from here. There is a lot of noise out there and for some of you the thought of receiving tweets about a contact’s favourite curry or their dog’s latest ailment may be just too much. But don’t let that deter you – there are ways of muffling the noise and you could be missing out on a powerful tool for marketing your business.

If you think Twitter is just for twits or Facebook just for sad people with nothing better to do, let us introduce you to social media that can work hard for your business. And if you already know that you are sitting on the fringes and want to get started we can show you the basics.

Whatever you do, don’t bury your head in the sand – Join the Conversation!

Carolyn Page

Top 3 reasons people give me for rejecting social media:

1. It’s a fad

It’s new, it’s emerging, it’s changing fast but it’s part of a communication revolution which puts dialogue with customers at the heart of marketing communications. And customers initiate and drive the conversation. Don’t just do it because others do but ask whether it’s what your customers are doing? What are they already saying about you?

2. It doesn’t bring in business

All I can say is, it has for us! Wishing a lapsed customer of 10 years all the best in his new job on LinkedIn has reignited the contact and won us a year’s worth of projects! And that’s just one example. The great thing is that social media is highly targeted and measurable so you can really monitor it closely and switch activity quickly in response to results.

3. It’s just a load of noise

True. And I’m not interested in what the latest 15-minute celeb did last night but there are tools to help you manage what you see, what you say and who you connect with.

Join the conversation here!

27th May, Faringdon Business Centre

If you don’t know a tweet from a poke, a wall post from a fan page and are just plain baffled by this social networking thing (but know you can’t ignore it forever), our interactive social networking workshop for beginners will put you on the right track. We will introduce you to how social networking works, identify the key tools you should be using, show you what things you can use them for, help you outline your strategy and get you up and running on LinkedIn, the essential professional network for every business.

What r u doing?

11th June, Faringdon Business Centre

If you’re already tweeting, on LinkedIn or have set up a Facebook page, but don’t really know why or what you’re doing we have a workshop for you too.

We’ll help you build a strategy so that your social networking is purposeful and puts you in touch with the people that matter to your business.

And you’ll get a 2-hour one-to-one online tutorial to help you to get to grips with your social networks – LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

See who you could be reaching through Facebook

The Facebook community is growing rapidly. The global community is now larger than the population of the US – now that’s a sizeable market! It’s a must for those selling consumer goods and services, especially if you want a national or international reach.

Click here for the latest facts and figures on UK Facebook use.

Would-be Facebookers . . .

Our colleague Jo says this is a great book for the novice Facebooker.

Read her review here and order through our bookshelf at Amazon prices.

Colporteur Bookshelf

Tweet tweet!

Follow our marketing tips for SMEs

Send Communiqué to someone else | Update your contact details | Unsubscribe

We wanted this newsletter to go to the person it is addressed to, so if that isn’t you please don’t read, copy, save or redirect any part of it. If you’ve received it by mistake please delete it and let us know straight away. We’ve tried our best to make sure it is free of viruses but it is up to the person receiving it to be sure before opening and using it.