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July 2, 2010

Work experience day 5

by MZ

in Local

Today is my final day of working for Marketing Zone, and it is with some sadness that I have to say, this will be my final blog post. This week has been excellent in terms of getting experience and enjoying working. My favourite task of the week has to be making viral ads with Louis; I had such a good time filming and editing them. There hasn’t been one task I’ve gone into and thought oh god this is going to be boring, I got a great sense of satisfaction and pride from completing all of the tasks set.

This week has shown me just how a marketing agency works and I hope to take these skills with me into later life when I hope to have a company similar to Marketing Zone.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Mark Ganellin, Dee Twomey and everyone at Marketing Zone for giving me a thoroughly enjoyable and very insightful look into working life.

Thank you and goodbye!

December 31, 2009

Top Twitter tips and terms!

by MZ

in Online marketing

Customers want to communicate with businesses in new and different ways. It’s not that brochures and flyers aren’t effective. And it’s not that customers won’t use their phones to call customer service centres or see and appreciate an ad. But there are new tools emerging from the social marketing sphere that can and do have an impact on customers and their purchasing decisions.

Twitter is a microblogging platform that gives businesses new ways to connect with their customers and their potential customers. And, it gives customers a way to talk to and about the businesses they know and use. For example, a recent guest at a restaurant tweeted about how long they had to wait for a table – in spite of having made a reservation. The restaurant found the tweet as part of a regular morning search using the name of the restaurant as a key word. The restaurant was able to send a direct tweet to the annoyed customer and offer them a free meal. The result: a happy customer who then proceeded to tweet about how well they had been treated and how satisfied they were. Twitter is another tool that can help a business build relationships that are important to its success.

Twitter can be used to listen to what customers are saying or to let them know about a new product or discount. Like all social media tools, it has its own terminology.  Here’s a list of some of the most common terms.

Twitter terms

Profile: A short description of you or your business. It should cover the who, what and where of what you do.

Tweet: A 140 character entry. It could be a statement, a comment, a question, an exclamation or a URL.

Twitter Name: This is a username, the one your followers will see. You could make it your name, the name of a company or even the name of a product. Each name is unique, so choose yours with your customers in mind. What will they be looking for?

Follower: A user who subscribes to your tweets.

Follow: To follow other twitter users, click on the follow button of their profile. You’ll get an email letting you know if someone decides to follow you. 

Follow Back: Following someone who is already following you.

Reply: A public message sent to a specific user. The user is designated with an @ followed by the user’s name.

Direct Message or DM: A private message sent from one user to another. Just click the “message” link or put a D followed by space in front of the user name.

Twitter Stream: A list of a users’ tweets on their profile page.

Hashtag: The hashtag is used before a topic that’s particularly interesting to a group or community. For example #Jaguar sales.

Retweet or RT: A repeat of someone’s tweet. Just type RT before you tweet it. Or just hover over it with your mouse and click retweet.

Favourite: To mark someone’s last tweet as your favourite, just insert FAV username. It will show up in your favourites tab.

Lists: Dividing your contacts into lists lets you decide to listen and communicate with different groups separately.  Perfect when you learn more about your customers.

An introduction to Twitter terms can help, but it’s certainly not the whole story. Twitter needs to connect with people, but it also needs to connect with other aspects of a wider marketing plan or strategy.

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November 27, 2009

Blogging for business

by MZ

in Online marketing, Social media

Organise and develop your content before you start
It’s no good having a blog with no content. In fact, there’s no such thing as a blog with no content. Sit down with the team or part of you business that’s going to be responsible for the blog. In this instance, the more people who get involved, the better. Have a brainstorming session where each person can suggest ideas for postings – including photos, videos and podcasts as well as writing. Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. Blogs are less formal, more about personality. Is someone doing a charity run? That’s worth mentioning. Is there a new team, or someone who’s just started the development of a new product. Does someone have a great suggestion for a contest? Get all you ideas in a list.

Assigning the work
Ideally, your blog isn’t created by one person, but by a team of people. The goal is to interact with people, not lecture or badger. This is definitely easier if there’s more than one person creating content. At the next meeting or through an email round robin, start assigning ideas and deadlines. And don’t forget to use the keywords connected with your site or service areas. Remind everyone that posts shouldn’t be full of jargon. You’re talking to customers after all. Assign someone the task of proofreading everything, and make sure you’ve developed a sign off procedure. Is there a camera in the business? Can you borrow one? Pictures make a difference.

Thinking agency
For many businesses, it’s more practical and effective to hire an external agency to manage and develop a blog. And it’s easy to see why. Blogs need to be regularly updated and the need time from the development perspective, too. So sit down with your team and decide on a wish list. What do you want your blog to achieve? How is it part of your wider marketing strategy? What do you think is most important about connecting with your customers right now? How far does the blog have to reach? UK customers? International?

If you need help with a blog, or developing the strategy that will help you get started in social media, get in touch with us at Marketing Zone. We’re always interested in new conversations.

November 20, 2009

Why should a business blog?

by MZ

in Online marketing, Social media

A simple question. Marketing agencies like ours often assume that clients need and want blogs. We forget that they might not be comfortable creating content and might not even be sure they have content they want to share. So, when we have a client that stops and asks us a simple question like, “why should my business have a blog?” it’s a good time to stop and get back to some basics.

For starters, blogs are not another way to get your carefully crafted messages out to unsuspecting customers. That’s what ads, brochures and a lot of other communications materials can and should be doing for you. People want to see sales messages where they expect to be presented with them. And that seems only fair.

Blogs are where you can start conversations with your customers and your customers can start conversations with you. It’s a less formal and often less rigidly branded or business-like setting. For example, you could put up a picture and a short paragraph talking about a recent event you went to, and the things you learned about your industry at that event. Your colleagues, customers and competitors can join in by talking about what happened to them at the same event or even ask why you weren’t at a different better event. Or, you could talk about an innovation that’s changing one of your products. You might include graphs, photos or links to another site that’s working with your business. At least once a week you should post content. You could even, with his or her permission, post a letter, comments or a review from a customer. Whatever your business does, it has an audience that’s interested in it and that’s who your blog should aim to talk to.

Blogs can give your business some personality and they’re a great way of getting other members of your team or people from other parts of the business involved in something new – something that different groups and department can all use.

Blogs are evolving and many businesses are using them to support their Search Engine Optimisation efforts. They can also be linked to twitter and a range of other social sites. Over the next weeks, Marketing Zone will be offering regular tips on business blogs. Our goal will be to share some of our experiences, and find out what you think.

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