Why you need to be really clear on your target client or ideal customer!

target market Jul 24, 2021

If you know me well, you’ll know that I’m always talking about the importance of understanding your target audience!

If you're a virtual assistant, solo entrepreneur or freelancer, I always say that you should know your ideal client as well as you know your best friend!
Yes, really! 

If you want a successful business, then taking time to understand your target audience is so important!

Yet it's one of those tasks that is often skipped because small business owners are excited to get to the exciting stuff! 

I do understand. It’s much more fun designing a flyer in Canva than it is racking your brain about your target customer.  But if you don’t understand your target customer, creating that flyer in Canva could be a waste of time because your marketing message might not work well enough. How can you make it appeal to someone if you don’t know who that ‘someone’ is?  

Unless you understand your target audience you...

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How to create a simple marketing plan for your small business

If you’re an entrepreneur or a small business owner, I’d like to ask you a question.

 

Do you have a marketing plan?

If you answered, “Um, no, not really….”, then you’re not alone. In fact, you’ve given me the answer I usually get when I ask that question!

The truth is that most local business owners don’t have a marketing plan, and I understand why….

Most entrepreneurs start their business because of a love of what they do – whether that’s bookkeeping, beauty, baking or building. 

They don’t start a business to spend time putting together marketing plans and mastering marketing techniques, and they most probably won’t have banked on marketing having to be such a large task on their business to-do list!

But unfortunately, that’s the reality. If you want to grow your business, then you need to attract more customers.

In order to attract more customers, you need to do some marketing.

In...

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Could a webinar help you promote your small business?  

webinar Feb 07, 2021

Have you thought about using a webinar to promote your business? If not, it could be worth investigating…

Webinars have been popular for many years, but they increased in use in 2020 when the pandemic hit and everything had to move online. Those businesses that were already using webinars continued to do so, and many other businesses discovered the benefits for the first time….

Cost Effective Marketing for Small Businesses
In fact, advances in technology and affordable access to webinar software like Zoom have helped to make webinars a cost-effective marketing option for small business owners to utilise.

There are many advantages to running webinars, such as raising a business or businessperson’s profile and showcasing knowledge. They are also very flexible in how they can be used - for training, information sharing, lead generation and/or selling.

Webinars are great for distributing business messages both locally and globally – you just have to consider...

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Does My Small Business Need A Blog?

blog post blogging Jan 31, 2021

Blogging is one of those marketing activities that most small business owners have heard of, but many are still unsure whether it’s something they ought to be doing or not.

If you’ve not started blogging yet, it may be because you’ve got some unanswered questions around what it actually involves.  

In fact, most small business owners ask, “Do I have to blog?” rather than “Should I blog?” because they’re already so busy, and don’t want to add another marketing task to their to-do list unnecessarily!

Flexible Commitment
The great thing about blogging is that you’re in control of how often you post.  Whilst it’s good to blog regularly, it’s your choice as to whether you put out a blog post weekly, monthly, bi-monthly or less frequently.  That’s great news, as it means that if you fancy giving blogging a try, it doesn’t have to be a huge time commitment - and it really can produce some...

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Small Business Content Creation

How to keep generating fresh, interesting content for news, social media and blogs!

You’ve heard the phrase Content is King, well it certainly is in the information age we live in!

Whatever type of marketing you undertake, whether it’s online or offline, including PR, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Ads, direct mail, presentations or adverts – it all needs content!

Increasing the amount of content you put out can assist with attracting new clients and growing your business, by helping you rank higher in online searches and elevating your business profile in the marketplace.

But I'm sure you already know all this! 

What you probably really want to know is, as a busy, business owner, how on earth you can generate enough exciting content regularly when you're already working long hours without getting on the content treadmill!

You know you should be posting on social media more frequently. You’re keen to write more blog posts for your business,...

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LinkedIn Marketing – just B2B? Or B2B and B2C?

linkedin Jan 16, 2021

I quite often get asked questions about the choice of social media platforms for marketing.  Many local business owners are confused about which social media platform(s) they should spend time promoting their small businesses on.

From a marketing perspective, the answer is simple. Spend time on the platform(s) that your target audience spend their time on.

That doesn’t mean you can’t be on other platforms – just make sure you’re prioritising your marketing time wisely, and putting more effort into the marketing platforms that your target customers use.  A good example of this can be found with LinkedIn.

Most would agree that LinkedIn is predominantly a business-to-business (B2B) platform, which many entrepreneurs who run B2B businesses use to try to generate new leads and build up new networking connections.

So, does that mean if you run a business-to-consumer (B2C) business that you don’t have to worry about LinkedIn?

Well, in my mind –...

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The Power of Goal Setting

goal setting goals Jan 09, 2021

So, it’s the end of the first full week of 2021.  How’s it been for you? 

If you set goals, how are they going? 

If you didn’t get round to setting goals yet, are you still planning to? 

For many people, me included, 2021 hasn’t started quite as well as hoped. There are still lockdowns and other restrictions because of Covid-19 affecting things. Some projects won’t have got started as early as planned (some of mine are a few days late starting because of emergency home-schooling!) and some may take longer to come to fruition because of other limitations.   

But it doesn’t matter – because once you’ve got goals set, they’re there until you complete them. Or decide to cancel them. 

For some reason, this year has been the easiest it has ever been for me to set goals. 2020 was a useful reminder about what’s really important in life, and that’s really helped me hone my...

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