The Men Who Made Us Spend Ep 3 HD

I thought it wouldn't make sense to mark my return to blogging without finishing what I started.

Below is the link to the final instalment of 'The Men Who Made Us Spend'. Comment, discuss and share!

http://goo.gl/O1Om6p

The Cheapest Methods of Advertising Your Business

Dependent on the type of business that you have set up, or are planning to set up, cost of advertising can be very costly.

Here are some of the cheapest methods of advertising

Social Networks

To set up an account on most social networks is relatively cheap or free. The benefit of social networks are that they cost nothing to make an account. Using social networks such as instagram, Twitter and Facebook, means a business can easily advertise its product quickly and efficiently. It is totally free to upload a picture or video, tweet, write a status. Just make sure you know how to word your advert well.

In terms of further investment in advertising Facebook and Twitter allow users to create paid adverts of their business, in order to reach a wider audience. They even have packages to suit every budget.

Clothing

Clothing is one of the cheapest but most intriguing forms of advertising. A good design always helps out. It doesn't have to be a jumper representing your online or brick store. What if you as the business owner wanted to bring some order and pizazz to your business? Bring in a nice uniform. That's a really strong form of advertisement. Anytime someone sees your staff in a uniform, it will always be related to your business.

Merchandise

Merchandise can be quite a broad topic. Things that people use everyday can be used to promote a brand. Pens, mugs, fridge magnets etc. are all good options to advertise your business. Not only are they handy but the fact they're everyday usage, means many people can see what your companies about and it can peak their interest. In my last post I have mentioned some companies that specialise in this area. You can check it out here

Offers/Competitions

Offers and competitions are one of the best ways to drive people to pay attention to your business.  A motto we swore by at a previous job suggested that "humans are naturally greedy" so they'd always want something for nothing. By providing offers especially where people end up paying less, will drive consumers to your business.

Radio

Depending on the type of radio and station you want to advertise your business on determines the cost of advertising using this platform. For this post, I am going to use local radio as the example. Local radio can advertise for as little as £30

Mailing List

To provide company information on a mass scale a mailing list is probably the cheapest and most efficient way to do this. Software programs such as MailChimp and SendBlaster can send emails to selected people in minutes. The mailing list is created by information put into a database and sent to the relevant people.

Supposing your company came up with a new offer or competition then this is one of the most effective ways to get the message across quickly, efficiently and to many people at once. 

Thanks for reading. For this post some of the ideas were generated by some of my marketer colleagues. You can find them on Twitter @Olson_realm, @Jlunsi and Patrick Oyelese on Linkedin

Marketing Week Live

On the 30th of April, the annual marketing exhibition Marketing Week Live took place at the Kensington Olympia. There were many different types of marketing personnel present. Companies that deal specialise in brand merchandising, digital marketing, recruitment and a few others.

My main goal of attending Marketing Week Live was to build opportunities to network with people involved in similar industries, educate myself and to gain new ideas to develop myself personally and in business. One thing I must commend Marketing Week on were the talks. The talks were absolutely fantastic and the guests that were invited to speak were company executives who had been involved in different elements of mentioned campaigns etc.

There was one such talk that really inspired me, that was in the Marketing Academy bootcamp theatre. Lysa Hardy from Holland & Barrett gave a brilliant, stand out, presentation on 'The importance of using technology in marketing'. It was extremely insightful and really underlined the way marketing techniques are changing or adapting to the current demands of today's consumer. She went into detail about the ways in which Holland and Barrett have actively got customers to keep on spending money with them, both online and offline. She even revealed the early ideas they had in the making, in accordance with the ever changing technologies.

Exhibitors That Stood Out

Aside from the talks in their respective theatres, I was impressed by quite a few exhibitors as there were so many to choose from. The ones that really stood out to me were:

Winglee
http://www.winglee.co.uk

In an exhibition full of promotional marketing organisations there were few that really stood out to me. One of which that defied the odds was Wing Lee Creative.  At first I thought the company had something to do with China, (just because of the name) but after talking to a representative I discovered exactly how creative they have been and can be, in regards to promotional marketing material. The guy I spoke to showed me pieces that they had created for big brands such as Formula 1 (F1) and Babybel. Really creative pieces. One could descibe it as out of this world in terms of creativity. With products to suit all budgets this is a company's services I plan on using in the future and one you should all check out.

Gemini recruitment
http://www.gemini-search.co.uk

Gemini recruitment by name is recruitment company specialising in roles in marketing, advertising and communications. I spoke to a guy called Morgan that explained exactly what they do and most importantly how they go about helping to make the unemployed, employed. If you're looking for roles in any of the aforementioned disciplines then you should definitely check them out.

Roantree
http://roantree.co.uk

Another promotional marketing organisation. Roantree's products really drew me to them upon walking past. I spoke to a representative of the company and asked him how Roantree differs from similar services such as Vistaprint. He went into great detail taking the time out to explain thoroughly.  The personal aspect of Roantree is a sure fire selling point, not to mention the quality of the products.

Demojive
http://demojive.com

Demojive is the first company I've come across of it's type. They are solely dedicated to making video which can be used for promotional marketing campaigns.  It's a brilliant concept. Interested in some new video for your business? You must have a look.

Depositphotos
http://depositphotos.com

I'm pretty sure there are hundreds of companies that sell images/videos for business use, however from a discussion with the lady at the Depositphotos stand, I decided that Depositphotos stands out amongst the crowd. They offer brilliant images for cheaper than some other popular competitors and the percentage they pay distributors is really good too. See their website for more information.

Amazing If
http://www.amazingif.com

Amazing If are a career development organisation.  I visited Amazing If's talk at the marketing Academy bootcamp theatre about networking. Personally I didn't think I was the strongest networker, but the ladies that founded Amazing If, Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper, enabled me to learn of many ways I can improve. Using the topic of networking they also mentioned other skills that could help me with career development and for that I just had to ensure I mentioned them in this post.

Thanks for reading my personal review of Marketing Week Live 2015. If you want to experience it first hand I've included a link below for registration. I'll definitely be there next year, so hope to see some of my audience.

Register for next year here http://goo.gl/nQnGI5

Tips For A Successful Social Media Campaign

1. Know your target audience

This is always the basis of any campaign. Always ask yourself:

Who will be interested in my product or service?
What social networks do they use?

First things first. Make sure you identify your target market and tailor the campaign to suit that demographic. You must always understand which social networks they are likely to use and customise the campaign accordingly. Do they use Twitter more than LinkedIn? Do they use Instagram? You must find these answers before planning your campaign based off what you know.

2. Content

Always consider what kind of content you should deliver and on which social platform. Video, images are usually very attractive to a user seeing the campaign. Also include links to further information that will normally expand on the reason behind the campaign.

Sometimes reading text and viewing videos and images is not enough. Try and produce content that can get the user involved. Hashtags and competitions are always good ideas. Another way to use content to your advantage to cross promote on social networks. For example use Twitter to promote your competition on instagram and vice versa. It won't just broaden your social brand, it will also weed out the users of the other social networks which will help you later on.

3. The right tag line/slogan (words that set you apart from other brands)

Ensure the choice of words for the campaign are engaging. Short and sharp messages are easiest to remember. If they are part of another campaign, i.e television, radio, make sure the words used match those campaigns.

4. Monitoring and measuring (during and after)

Monitoring your campaign is a key learning curve. It is important to note how well or badly, the engagement on social networks was before the campaign and how much it is after. It is also just as key to realise the specific time and days the target market engage with the campaign. It's a trial and error process so you can take your time with it, just make sure you take note of what is happening.

At the end of the campaign make sure all the results are noted. Engagement is vital. Even note whether the responses were positive or negative. When the next campaign comes round you'll have the information about your target market that you need. Use this to your advantage in the next campaign.

Some good tools for monitoring:

Google Analytics 

Sprout Social

Social Mention

Topsy

5. Response

The next tip goes hand in hand with monitoring the campaign. Consumers need to know that you are taking note of their response. Try and interact with them. It can be difficult depending on the size of the campaign/brand but always try your best. Consumers need to know that you're actually taking an interest in what they have to say. It could be reply comments on Youtube or mentions on Facebook,Instagram or Twitter.

Comment/Share and Follow me @Allenbusiness on Twitter

How Depop Brings Out Your Inner Marketer?

What is Depop? Depop is one of the latest trading mobile applications, that allows users to buy and sell goods. Sounds basic enough right?...Wrong. Depop allows users to fully integrate social networks into it's app, by giving users the opportunity to effectively market products using them.

Many people may know by now, that most of people's time these days is spent on social networks, so much so, that pretty much all social networks have apps on mobile devices, as well as the traditional websites. From a marketers perspective, this is the perfect platform and clears up why Depop would target social networks.

Depop allows users to market and sell their own products by using images taken from the users phones, (which are moving closer and closer to actual camera's these days) and sell them to people involved in their social networks. If you were to assume that the majority of users on our own social networks like many of the things we do, (Yes it's a bold assumption) then from the outside looking in, you can see why this app would hold mass appeal.

From a social standpoint the things that people have in common with each other can sometimes form the basis on which they'll become friends or at the least, friends online. For example I'm a big football fan and what I have in common with most of my friends is that they are too. If I wanted to sell some football memorabilia using Depop and promote it using my social networks, then it is likely one of my friends or one of their friends might be interested.

A simple 'share' or maybe a 'retweet' can spread the fact someone selling something and potentially get me a customer willing to check out the goods I have for sale. This is probably the best thing about Depop. It only takes one person with a few hundred followers to spread the word, or maybe out of those few hundred a certain portion of those numbers, could actually become buyers. It could even mean that the buyers could follow you on these social networks and that means there is always scope for repeat buyers.

Check it out on the Play Store. Depop



Thanks For Reading!


Comment/Share and Follow me @Allenbusiness on Twitter

The Men Who Made Us Spend Ep 2 HD - Video Dailymotion

The Men Who Made Us Spend Ep 2 HD - Video Dailymotion



The second part to the intriguing video. Comment, discuss and share!

▶ The Men Who Made Us Spend Ep 1 HD - Video Dailymotion

▶ The Men Who Made Us Spend Ep 1 HD - Video Dailymotion

Click on the link above to watch this documentary. Very interesting and some very good talking points. Feel free to discuss some points with me. Personally I feel this documentary is amazing!!