Category: LinkedIn

The 7Ps that make a great marketing strategy

Posted on By Andy Poulton

Back in the early 80s, when I was undertaking quite a bit of management training I became familiar with 7Ps. Proper Preparation & Planning Prevents Pretty Poor Performance*.

When I moved from IT Support Engineer and Consultant in to Internet Marketing I learned about a different 7Ps, the 7Ps of Marketing:

Hand pressing a quality button - yu MUST have quality in your marketing
  • Product/Service
  • Price
  • Place
  • People
  • Process
  • Physical Evidence
  • Promotion



Sometimes, when I introduce myself as a marketing professional, some conclude that I work with “advertising”. As you’ll see as you read on, you’ll see that advertising is just one part of marketing communications, which is one of the 7 Ps of marketing.  

I’ve touched really briefly on the various elements of the marketing mix – but please get in touch if I can help you work through anything in particular, email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk or give me a call on 01793 238020.

This is just a snapshot of the breakdown of marketing.  But it is good to sit back from your business and challenge yourself with some of these questions.

Product/Service: 

  • Is there a market for what you do? How do you know?
  • Why should people buy what you offer at all and why should they buy from you?
  • What makes you different from your competition?
  • Who is your competition – when did you last do a competitive SWOT?
  • What are the overall growth trends in your sector?
  • What is your sales pattern? What area of your sales is strongest and why and can you harness this strength elsewhere?
  • And what area is weakest? What are you doing about it?
  • How well do you treat your customers?
  • Which profitable customers can you win from whom? Who? How? Why? Where? When?

Price

  • Have you built value into your pricing?
  • Are you competitive?
  • Is your cost enough for you to work with profit?
  • How do you set your price?
  • Will you discount?
  • How will you avoid being always known for discounting?
  • What do your competitors do?
  • Keep It simple

Place

  • How easy/convenient is it for your customers to buy from you?
  • Where and how are you currently selling your products and services?
  • What are the opportunities to extend these?

If you are selling a service on the web, are you supporting with testimonials and case studies?

People

  • Are your people one of your main strengths of your business?
  • Or are you the bottle neck in your company? Are you better than everyone else and does everything have to come through you first?
  • What type of leader are you?
  • What is the path for your team to voice their concerns other than coming through you?
  • Are your people your best ambassadors or are they whinging about you/the business as soon as they are out of the door?
  • Are they as well trained as they can possibly be?
  • Did you involve your team when you last undertook a company SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) –really powerful.

Process

One of the vital Ps but often overlooked and often designed for the company’s benefit rather than the customer’s. Ask yourself:

  • Can your team deliver a consistent level of service to all customers and at all times?
  • Customer retention is critical.. how failsafe is your process to ensure you don’t lose any?
  • How effective is your sales process?
  • What processes have you in place for telephone answering/billing/communication with your clients/recommendations/operations/

Physical Evidence (Brand)

Your brand is defined as

  • Signs by which you are known and remembered
  • A bundle of explicit/implicit promises
  • A reflection of personality
  • A statement of position.

Have you thought about/discussed what does your company stand for? What’s its personality and philosophy? What’s your one key brand promise to your customers?

Your brand is so much more than your logo.  Think about a new visitor’s journey to your web site – does this reflect the look and feel of any communication they have had from you hitherto?  Will they recognise this as being part of the same business?  Have you had your website made mobile friendly?  Really important.

A few hours spent on this are far from fluffy nonsense. 

Promotion (Communication)

Just a few from the hundreds of options

  • Off line
    • Face to face
    • Word of Mouth referral
    • Networking
    • Telesales as part of a process
    • PR
    • Exhibitions and events
    • Direct marketing and sales letters with appropriate follow up driving to the web
    • Postcards
    • Events and seminars
    • Advertising but think carefully before you embark here. One off random ads are a waste of time and money! Is it the right target market?  Don’t be dazzled by offers…

On line

  • Website and how are you pushing your web? Does your copy talk about ‘you’, ie the reader?  Are you  making regular blog posts and updates?  Have you considered more SEO, more PPC,  back links, etc
  • Online videos on YouTube – how to/ about/testimonials – so many options.
  • Social media – which platforms should you invest time in?
  • Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest advertising.
  • Email news and updates

So then, back to the management version:
Just think how powerful your marketing strategy will be when you combine the planning from my original 7Ps with the focus provided by the 7Ps of marketing.

Combining your marketing knowledge to create a good strategy/plan using the 7Ps of Marketing coupled with the the 7Ps of Management managing implementation will surely lead to improved business performance.

But there are few quick wins when it comes to marketing, the more you work at it, the better it becomes. So, remember to take time away from working IN your business, (doing the business stuff) to work ON your business, doing the stuff that makes your business better. Set aside time on a weekly basis – little and often on a regular basis.

Remember though, I’m an Internet Marketing specialist although I’ll be more than happy to talk over other elements of your marketing activities and help where I can, Digital Marketing is where my skill set lies. If you have any questions, call me on 01793 238020, email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk or just search Chief SEO Officer

*Oh, and of course we didn’t learn “pretty poor performance” we used a far more pithy term than “pretty”

Google Ads, Vs Facebook Ads Vs LinkedIn Ads – which one would you choose

Posted on By Andy Poulton
Google Ads, Vs Facebook Ads Vs LinkedIn Ads – which one would you choose

Advertising of the Pay per Click (PPC) type has been with us for a while now. Yahoo was one of the first to offer it, quickly followed by Google and Google is now probably the most well-known provider with its Google Ads product (formerly known as Adwords).

You can read more about PPC on my website but here’s a quick overview.

How does Pay-per-Click work?

The overview is pretty simple.

A typical Google Ad with a headline and a couple of lines of description
A typical Google Ad with a headline and a couple of lines of description
  • You (the advertiser) design an Ad to fit the constraints of your chosen platform.
  • You agree to pay the host platform, whether Google, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. a certain amount of money every time your Ad is clicked on. This is your bid.
  • You pay (an agreed) fee per click (every time someone clicks on your Ad). Because of the way that the bidding works, this is unlikely to be the full amount of the amount that you have bid

The amount that you have to bid is in your hands, the amount that you have to bid varies depending on whether you want to be at the top of the first page, the bottom of the first page, or elsewhere in Google search. Other variables that impact the cost you’ll have to pay include the number of companies competing with you AND the amount of profit in a particular sale. The more profit there is, the more you can afford to pay per click

I’ve worked on campaigns where we’ve paid a few pence per click and on others where the clicks have cost many pounds

The top three PPC platforms are Google, Facebook, and Linkedin, but which is the best?

They all work in pretty much the same way. You decide how much you are willing to pay every time someone clicks on your Ad and you set a maximum daily/monthly budget so that you have total control over costs.

There are no minimum campaign lengths and no minimum spends. Allied to the ability to start, pause, and stop your campaigns whenever you want/need to, your budget is totally under your control.

Where should I spend my advertising pounds, which is the best?

The reality is that there isn’t a “best” platform per se, the best is the one that most effectively reaches your target market.

If you are a Business to Business (B2B) supplier then Linkedin will be worth considering and if you are in the Business to Consumer (B2C) sector then Facebook would probably be your platform of choice

However, if you have a limited budget then the most effective option is probably Google Ads – and a quick look at the numbers demonstrates why

In 2019 93% of the UK had access to the internet. With an adult population of 52.5 million, this equates to a total internet reach of 48.82 million people.

Facebook has 32m active users in the UK and LinkedIn 27m. These are fantastic numbers. And you get to choose who your Ads are shown to. You can choose from a wide range of demographics to ensure that your Ads are properly targetted.

  • where they live/work geographically
  • their interests (Facebook)
  • the ages you want to target
  • the genders you want to target
  • job descriptions (LinkedIn)
  • job titles
  • and more

However, there is no way of knowing who in your targeted audience is actually looking for the things you sell or the services you deliver but you are only paying when someone clicks on your Ad – so that’s OK then, isn’t it?

Are you Missing out?

As we have seen, the Social Media reach of Linkedin and Facebook is fantastic, as are the advertising controls, ensuring that your Ads are only displayed to those in your target demographic groups. But you ARE missing out.

Google is used by around 95% of the UK’s internet users, so that’s around 47m people, 15m more (nearly 50% more ) than Facebook and 20m (74%) more than LinkedIn,

And your Ad is only shown by people who are searching for the things you sell or the services you deliver.

Which makes Google Ads, in my opinion, the best place to spend your advertising money.

You might say that I am biassed but I actually manage campaigns across all 3 platforms and the results demonstrate that Google does provide a better return, provided your campaigns are properly managed.

Burning cash
Burning Cash

And that’s the crux of the matter. Without effective management, you may as well simply send Google a cheque every month or just burn your cash because your campaign will just not work

With attention and careful management, however, you should be able to make a Google Ads campaign deliver a plentiful supply of new customers to your website.

But your website MUST be good at converting these new opportunities into leads, inquiries, opportunities, and sales.

Thanks for reading and remember, if you have any questions about PPC, need help with your PPC campaign or want help launching and managing one all you have to do is get in touch. I’ll be only too happy to answer any questions that you might have

Find me:         https://www.seo.enterprise-oms.uk/  |  andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk
Follow me:     Twitter ¦ Linkedin
Phone me:      01793 238020 ¦ 07966 547146

A day in the life of a search engine optimiser

Posted on By Andy Poulton

In these corona virus times I thought I would share a typical day with you. Because of the nature of my work, I am able to continue providing search engine optimisation and other digital marketing services which means that I continue to support to my clients – those who are still trading anyway.

My day typically starts at 8am which is when I get to my desk, boot the PC, switch on the radio (Nick Ferrari’s morning show on LBC) and go and make that essential first coffee of the day.

The first task of the day

Paper pad and pen - a To Do list

The 1st task of the day is to open my dairy to see what appointments are upcoming, what preparations are required and how any meetings are taking place – a physical meeting, a phone catch-up, a video meeting etc.

Next, it’s a look at my To-Do list to see what’s on the agenda for the day.

The hunt for content

Then it’s time for a look at the news to see whether there are any IT/Marketing/SEO/IT Security stories worth sharing and then I start my proper hunt for content for Social Media.

Tools that I use include Drumup.io, Google Alerts, Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Land.

  • Drumup is like a search engine for articles. I save some keywords and it finds relevant news articles for me to share. I only use the free account
  • Google Alerts, another free tool, carries out the same process on Google. I save some keywords and Google emails me a list of new content that includes my saved terms.
  • Search Engine Watch is a website dedicated to search engines and search engine optimisation. It was where I learned a lot of my craft in the early days. It was started by Danny Sullivan who went on to found
  • Search Engine Land and now has a pretty high flying job with Google. With both sites, I look for interesting/helpful articles to share

I open each story or article from all sources in a new browser tab. I’ll simply hold the CTRL key down as I click – which forces my browser to open the clicked link in a fresh tab. Then I scan thorough each article to check quality and relevance before using another free tool, Buffer, to add the stories to my social media posting queue. This means that I can easily and quickly build a content list that will be shared by Buffer at a time of my setting.

I may also look at one of my pre-written “Top 10” hints and tips lists. Update the publishing dates, ensure the content is up to date and then upload the spreadsheet to Hootsuite where the platform will share the tips to the platforms of my choice at the times I have set.

Then I’ll repeat the exercise for those clients for whom I manage their Social Media activity.

Email Time

Now it’s Email time. I open Outlook and work through my emails. Spam gets deleted, urgent mail is responded to, acted on or added to my “To-Do” list – which is on paper. Even though I love my technology, and have tried numerous digital To-Do applications I still find that pen and paper works the best for me.

The To-Do list

To Do list and pen

Now it’s time for me to look at the top items on my To-Do list and start working through the day’s tasks.

Number one task every day is to log in to ManageWP where I have registered all the WordPress sites that I am responsible for. ManageWP has them all stored in a dashboard and reports which sites have plug-ins that need updating or whether any particular site needs attention.

Once any updates have been applied it’s now time for my second coffee and logging on to a site to start on the required search engine optimisation activity.

This could include a fresh scan of competitor websites to see whether there’s anything different that I should be targeting, another round of keyword research to make sure that I am targeting key words and phrases used by prospects and making sure that all the elements of the site are well optimised, particularly where the client has access to the site and may have added fresh content or swapped out images and a hunt for opportunities to build more backlinks

Second look at Emails

Before lunch I’ll take another look at my emails, delete all the junk, act on urgent ones and “To Do list” those that need action but which are less urgent.

It’s probably about 1pm by now and time for lunch. A poached egg on toast, a two egg omelette, a sandwich perhaps another coffee or glass of water, and a walk in the fields, weather permitting

After that I may turn to content creation, writing a blog post or an email or finding topics for my clients to write about that i can then provide an SEO “polish” to for optimum search engine responses.

I’ll look at the Google Ads, and other PPC accounts that I’m managing on behalf of clients. Making sure that the Ads are performing, that the key words are relevant and that the campaign is as well optimised as possible.

If I’ve written a marketing email I’ll get it approved by the client, upload it to MailChimp (my email platform of choice), make sure the address lists are up to date, create an email and send a draft to my client for approval.

Once signed off, I’ll schedule the sending, Early afternoon, middle of the week, for business clients and early evening, possible on a weekend, for retail clients. Timings determined by the optimum open rates.

The hunt for content continues

Time for an afternoon coffee and a swing back through various news sites, this time tech platforms such as

For tech related articles and Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Land again, just to see if anything new has been posted

Back to the Search Engine Optimisation

As we enter the middle part of the afternoon I’ll look another client website and look to repeat the SEO activities for them.

If I’ve received any enquiries for quotations or new proposals I’ll look to pull my thoughts together and send my proposal for consideration.

As the working day draws to a close I’ll take a 3rd look at my emails and respond to anything that can’t wait until the following morning.

I might email clients with ideas to improve their websites, carry out some more SEO on a site, perhaps register a client website with some web based directories and see whether there’s anything I can do to my own website to improve performance

Finally, I’ll update my To-Do list in preparation for the coming day, shut down my PC and have a quick tidy-round.

If you want any help with your digital marketing please don’t hesitate to get in touch for an informal chat by email (andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk) by phone (01793 238020) or ask me on Social Media – Linkedin or Twitter and I’ll be only too happy to talk.Thanks for reading and I hope you stay well

Ring Me:      01793 238020      07966 547146
Email Me:    andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk
Find Me:      Linkedin     Twitter
Visit Me:      Bowman House, Whitehill Lane, Royal Wootton Bassett, Wilts, SN4 7DB

You’re thinking of PPC Advertising – but where should you place your money?

Posted on By Andy Poulton
Screen Shot of Bing Ads, PPC

In my experience, when thinking about advertising on the the web, most people think of Google and Facebook Ads and that’s about it but there’s a wide range of Pay per Click (PPC) opportunities available and the key to success is deciding which are the platforms most likely to deliver the best results.

In this post I’ll be looking the top 8 platforms that you should think about,

  • Bing Ads
  • Facebook Ads
  • Google Ads
  • Linkedin Ads
  • Pinterest Ads
  • Twitter Ads
  • Yahoo Ads

Bing Ads

Run by Microsoft, Bing is the search engine that seems to be forgotten but is in daily use by millions of people. My experience is that clicks are cheaper than those from Google and frequently of better quality. It gets better because if you have a Google Ads campaign, Bing Ads have a tool that will import all of your campaigns at the click of a button.

Bing also powers the Yahoo Ad network so you’ll have the added benefit of your Ads appearing across Yahoo too.

Look hard and you’ll also be able to take advantage of £100.00 credit to get you going (there are terms, of course but essentially, it’s free advertising)

Facebook Ads

Facebook, largest Social Media platform on the internet. 2.2Bn users worldwide and about 32m in the UK so why wouldn’t you want to advertise here. Well, if you have something to sell to consumers then you should give it some thought. You can have image ads, text ads, video ads, sponsored updates and much much more. 

Not only that but you can target specific audiences and markets through the demographic data that Facebook hold, making it a far more targeted campaign than other platforms.

However, if you are in the Business to Business market, Facebook may not be the ideal platform for your ads.

Google Ads

Not the longest running Ad platform but certainly the most well established, the most popular and the one with the greatest reach, with more than 3.5Bn searches taking place on Google every day!

Google ads can be placed on Google, YouTube, the Content Network as well as Google Search Partners.

You can have simple text ads, image ads as well as responsive ads targeted at mobile phone users.

Google Ads is also a great way to waste money if you don’t think carefully about where your Ads are displayed, to whom they are targeted and the way your search words are formatted and used. Campaign management (either in-house or outsourced) is essential to get the most from your Ads investment.

Linkedin Ads

Linkedin is home to over 520m professionals and so if your business is focussed on selling things to, or providing services to, a business market place than Linkedin is the natural home for your ads.

You can focus your ads on almost any of the demographic metrics that Linkedin collects, whether geographically, job title, seniority, job role and much more.

Traditional ads are shown on the right hand side on your Linkedin home page and across the top whilst promoted posts appear in the newsfeed and hate works best are hints, tips and white papers.

Pinterest Ads

Pinterest is quite new to the paid advertising market but is rapidly catching up, as demonstrated by it’s initial valuation before going public on the 18th April 2019 at $19/share valuing the company at $12.7Bn.

With more than 200m active, monthly, users who are researching trends, looking for ideas and inspiration it’s an ideal place to sell “things” – especially if your target market matches the key Pinterest demographic with 70% of Pinterest users being women and 40% earning more than $100,000 or more

Twitter Ads

Twitter is used by 330m people every month and is recognised as a key source of breaking news. 

Unlike a lot of the platforms mentioned here, Twitter ads stay on Twitter and so can be particularly effective and remain fully under your control. Your ads can be simple text but photos work better and videos are event more effective.

Yahoo

Yahoo was one of the original sellers of search ads and was the model that Google based Adwords on. Yahoo still stumbles on as part of the Oath network (Yahoo, AOL, Huff Post and Tumblr). 

Yahoo has a partnership agreement with Bing which means that your Bing Ads will also be displayed on the Yahoo network (and vice versa) and your ads can be simple text, images, video and any other supported media across the network

Conclusion

There are numerous Ad networks fighting for your advertising spend. My advice is to start small, test AND measure. If, after a couple of months, it seems that one of the platforms isn’t working for you then stop and switch to a different one until you find the right platform for your business.

And, if you need any help, I’ve been doing this since 2003 so give me a call on 01793 238020 or email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk for a free, initial chat to see whether I can improve your existing campaigns or help you launch something new.

Microsoft and Linkedin, a purchase made in heaven – or the Cloud at least

Posted on By Andy Poulton

Linkedin LogoMicrosoft LogoI’ve been a Linkedin member since August 2005, apparently was one of the first million subscribers and have found it an invaluable tool for network building, staying up to date with, and in contact with, my Connections and even generating enquiries.

Linkedin History
Linkedin was started in 2002 by Reid Hoffman with money from his stake in PayPal when it was sold to eBay. From that small beginning Linkedin has become the No.1 business networking site, a Facebook for business if you like and now has more than 440m subscribers.

In 2011, Linkedin went public (IPO) at $45 per share, raising $350m and valuing the company at $9bn, making it one of the most successful public offerings since Google in 2004.

Linkedin’s share price very quickly doubled and continued to rise, peaking at $269 in early 2015. After that it’s been a bit up and down and fears of a downturn earlier this year saw share prices falling to $101 in February after which there was a recovery to $135 in May

Then, to everyone’s surprise, in June 2016, Linkedin was bought by Microsoft for $26.2 billion (a significant $61 premium on the share price), in an all cash deal, making it Microsoft’s largest acquisition by a long way

Why did Microsoft buy Linkedin, where did it see the value and what will it do with this highly respected business networking site?~
Although Microsoft and LinkedIn don’t, at first glance, appear natural partners, they are closer than you might think. Under Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, there has been a strong move away from consumer software and operating systems (Windows) to business and cloud subscription services such as Office 365, enterprise solutions like Microsoft Dynamics and cloud storage – Onedrive and it’s possible that this, allied to the fact that Linkedin has over 440m active users, helped in the decision making process, that’s just over $59.54 per user.

The addition of Skype (Microsoft owned) to LinkedIn could make the platform even more attractive, allowing voice and video conversations to take place within Linkedin (possibly limited to Linkedin subscribers).

Potential Benefits
Linkedin already has some really basic Customer Relationship Management tools built in to ‘My Network’ which enables you to add Tags to your Connections so that you can search by your own custom categories as well as directly Message groups of contacts.

Now, imagine how much more powerful this would be if there were full CRM functionality.

  • Send emails to your Connections with a click with the contents held in the Client account

  • Have incoming emails automatically added to client records rather than a simple folder in Outlook.

  • Grouping sent and received emails together, in your Contact records

  • Click to call via Skype

  • Click to Video call via Skype

  • Click to open pre-templated documents through Office 365 and have them stored in Contact records

The reality is that the world is their oyster – with a little thought, good programming and over 430m pre-existing accounts there’s a great deal for Microsoft to leverage..

Lynda.com an Outstanding Resource for Learning
It’s also easy to forget that Linkedin owns lynda.com. An online education provider with more than 3,000 online learning video courses, created by industry experts and covering topics across business and leadership, creative and technology.

A service that was described as “an outstanding resource for video based learning” by PCmag

What happens Now
Although the deal has been approved by both boards and is expected to be finalised by the end of this year it still needs approval from a number of regulatory bodies

Microsoft have said that “Linkedin will retain its distinct brand, culture and independence” which is good news for fans and users, although analysts at Credit Suisse have said “We recognise that Microsoft will be able to realise several strategic synergies”

A side effect of the sale has pushed Twitter shares 5.5% higher on speculation that it will be next to go, perhaps to Google – which has expressed interest on several occasions in the previous 4 years.

What actually happens is still to be decided but I’ll keep you up to date as, and when more news becomes available.

In the meantime, if you need help with Linkedin and want to learn how it can really help you grow your business just get in touch for a free chat, give me a call on 01793 238020 or drop me an email at andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk