Kick start your marketing with government support

Posted on May 23, 2020 by Andy Poulton

Take advantage of a Bounce Back Loan

Posted on May 23, 2020

It looks as if we are looking not at the beginning of the end but at least at the end of the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK. The government has slightly relaxed lock-down and hopefully will further relax things as the infection rate and number of deaths continues to fall.

There is no doubt that the UK government has thrown a vast sum of money at supporting businesses with the aim of helping them survive corona virus and ensure that they are able to restart and ramp up.

However, nobody knows how the economy will recover. There’s been talk of a quick return to business normality in a V shaped recovery.

Other wise minds think it could be a U shape return with the economy bobbing along the bottom until things pick up, a W shaped return might be the outcome should there be another peak of infection and even an L shaped recovery is possible, which would be no recovery at all.

A graph representing an increasing economy

With over 20 years of supporting small businesses I have been through a number of recessions and know that businesses that really WANT to trade, and even increase their market, can do so provided their business is fit and well and ready to return to the fray.

And I also know that there will a lot of companies hunting for new business but a lot of them will just re-open and hope that what worked before lock-down will work post lock-down.

Pull ahead of your competition

Use this as a golden opportunity to pull ahead of your competition

And it’s not difficult. You can take advantage of one of the government support packages to give your marketing activity a boost. The coronavirus Bounce Back loan is perfect for this.

If you are a small to medium sized business that has been affected by the pandemic then it is highly likely that you will be eligible. You must be

is based in the UK
established before 1 March 2020
adversely impacted by the coronavirus

And that’s it. The loan is 100% backed by the government and so the ultimate risk to lenders is negligible.*

You can borrow between £2,000 and 25% of your turnover, to a maximum loan of £50,000

And here come the best bits

There is nothing to pay for 12 months, and during the fist year the loan attracts no interest either.

Then you pay the balance back over up to 5 years at an extremely attractive interest rate of just 2.5%

You could use the loan

to fund a completely new website
to fund some training
to pay for professional support and consultancy
to pay for your SEO
to fund a Pay per Click campaign such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads etc
to fund a complete rebrand
for printing of marketing collateral
for running a mail shot campaign
etc.

You could could mix and match any from the above – as the following example demonstrates

New website – £3,000
12 months SEO support – £2,160
Google Ads campaign – £500/month -£6,000 for a year
12 months Social Media management – £2,880
12 months email marketing support – £2,160
Total £16,200 + VAT

You would pay nothing for the first 12 months

Then just £303.75 per month for 60 months bringing your total borrowing in at £17,229.38 – a loan cost of just £1,029.38*

That’s just £14.30 in interest per month, over the lifetime of the loan

If you wanted/needed less, here’s what £10,000 and £5,000 loans look like

£10,000 loan

Monthly Cost – £187.50
Total Cost – £10,635.42
Total Interest – £635.42
Monthly interest equivalent – £8.83

£5,000 loan

Monthly Cost – £93.75
Total Cost £5,317.71
Total Interest £317.71
Monthly interest equivalent £4.41

Don’t delay, start today

But I wouldn’t put it off. Only the government knows when the loans will end and your competitors may already be seizing this opportunity. And as more companies take advantage the waiting list for your chosen professionals will be growing

Note that you are only eligible for one Bounce Back Loan so please make sure you have every eventuality covered.

Shameless Self-Promotion

I am yet to hit peak capacity but I’ve already had a couple of client take advantage of the Bounce Back Loan and have asked me to ramp up the marketing and coaching work that I do for them

So, don’t miss out – plan what you want to do. Get in touch for a quote, apply for your loan and then we can get started

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

*I am not a financial adviser and you should take expert advice from your accountant, business adviser or other professional before proceeding. My figures come from the Lloyds Bank Bounce Back Loan Calculator

Enterprise Online Marketing Solutions accept no responsibility for any action that you might take after reading this post.

Can Twitter help your SEO?

Posted on May 13, 2020 by Andy Poulton

SEO, Email and Social Media marketing banner image

I am frequently asked whether Twitter can help with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and my answer is usually a pretty vague “it depends”.

Your Twitter account DOES NOT have an impact on your ranking (the position your website comes up in the Google Search Engine Results Pages – SERPS) but it DOES have an impact on your visibility. Although this sounds contradictory, I hope the following adds a little clarity

Try this – carry out a Google search for your brand, for your key competitor brands as well, and see what shows up. For this example we’ll assume that my brand is my name simply because @AndyPoulton is my Twitter handle and this is what Google shows – my 3 most recent posts

Google’s Twitter Carousel

Back in 2015 Google did a deal with Twitter which gave Google access to the whole Twitter news-feed. The result is that where an account is active, and regularly posts content, Google will find this and display it as part of their search results.

By frequently sharing relevant, interesting content, Google will be keeping an eye on your Twitter account. Share little and Google will quickly lose interest.

Influencing Google’s Twitter Carousel

Grab the attention of new audiences by regularly posting (I post at least 4 times a day although I do use some tools and automation to manage this and make it a less time consuming task). And this is NEW posts, not replies or re-Tweets. Have a look at my “6 Steps to Social Media Success” to learn how I manage to do this,

6 Steps to Social Media Success from Andrew Poulton

Find interesting, relevant and timely topics to discuss, try to make them engaging to encourage people to “Like”, “Comment” and Retweet. Where possible you should reference your sources – they might Like and Retweet your content too – making sure that it reaches a wider audience. Use relevant #HashTags – TrendsMap shows you #Tags from around the world.

Promoting or over sharing

Twitter is like a waterfall. If a boat goes over a waterfall whilst you are looking, you get to see it. However, if the boat went over before you arrived, you’ll only find out about it if you go hunting for information about it (searching), or if you overhear someone talking about it (retweet) or if someone has filmed it. This means that the more times you share your news the more people will actually see it.

So, if you have created some great content, don’t share it just the once, share and share again. This is where tools such as Hootsuite and Buffer make things easier.

Make your Twitter Bio interesting

When someone is searching, it’s probable that your Twitter Bio will come up on Page one of Google. For maximum engagement make sure that your profile is descriptive, accurate, interesting, relevant and engaging.

Andy Poulton’s Twitter profile

In Summary

Google uses more than 200 different “signals” when reviewing your website and where it deserves to appear in their search results. We’ll NEVER know what they all are so we can only work with those that Google tell us about and those which have been discovered through empirical research.

Your job, as a website owner, Search Engine Optimiser or Digital Marketing Professional is to understand everything you can and leverage every single opportunity that comes your way.

Remember, just like the two hunters faced with a hungry bear*, you don’t have to be perfect, just better than your competitions

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

*Two hunters were in the woods when they saw an angry bear rushing towards them. One of the hunters said that the bear was running faster than either of them could run.

The other hunter said that it wasn’t a problem, he only had to run faster than his mate to get away

Why marketing is like the space race

Posted on May 1, 2020 by Andy Poulton

It seems that every week I am asked whether “X” would be a good thing to do, or perhaps “Y”. “What do you think Andy?”, “which path would you take?”

The reality is that even after 20 years of experience, I don’t know with any great certainty. All I can do is reflect on past experiences and understand how a particular course of historical action could be overlaid on contemporary actions and offer some thoughts and guidance.

The key question, though, is this. When it comes to most forms of marketing, how do we know what works and what doesn’t?

The reality is that we don’t – until we give it a try.

But before you try any form of new marketing activity you need to really understand your expectations. What do you want it to do and what do you NEED it to do. You should approach it with a plan in mind, the 6 Ws.

The 6 Ws

Who, What, Why, When, Where and hoW. There are loads of variations on a theme but here’s a simple example as to how the six Ws can help with the initial planning of your new campaign. And to use a cliche – “fail to plan, plan to fail”.

Who are you looking to reach (personas can really help identity and visualise your target market
What are you looking to sell to them
Why would they choose you as their supplier rather than your competition
When will they be ready to buy
Where will the marketing be posted/published?
How will the sale take place & delivery occur. How will you measure the performance.

You should always have a goal because, as the cliche says, “without a goal, how will you know when you have arrived”

The 6Ps could also apply – Proper Preparation Prevents Pretty Poor Performance

OK, I’m done with cliches, for now, back on topic.

I have worked with many people who strive for perfection. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the focus on perfection has a time and place. From a marketing perspective they

– have an idea
– create an outline,
– add flesh to the outline
– review it
– ask others to review their plan
– make changes to reflect people’s comments
– and go around the circle again & again

A camel is a horse designed by committee

Seeking absolute perfection can be a trap, the danger being that you want a horse but end up with a camel.

This often means that the plan at the end looks nothing like the initial plan, that the initial goals have become forgotten and the time taken to refine and finesse the plan means that key opportunities are missed or have made it likely that the plan will never be executed.

My preferred approach is to come up with the campaign aims, agree them with my client and quickly work back from there to understand the target market, which platforms they are likely to use and to understand the best ways to put my client in front of them.

I sometimes get it wrong. I’ll have explained my plans to the client and explained the risk. If a plan is going to fail I like it to fail fast. I accept that it’s OK for a plan to fail, it really is. However, this approach will only work with goals that are understood and research to understand why the goals were not met.

From there, you can take the learning, update and improve the campaign and go again.

So, Why IS marketing like the Space Race

NASA would follow the route to perfection. Testing each individual component of the Apollo program (for example) then they’d put some components in to a module and test the module. Then they’d put some modules together in to an assembly and test the assembly.

Then they’d put some assemblies together in to a stage and test the stage. Then they’d test the stages, assemble them in to a 365 ft tall tower of power and launch the rocket.

And even after all this testing there were still problems – look at Apollo 13, and the two Space Shuttle disasters for evidence.

Elon Musk and Space X take a different approach. Elon came up with the idea of a reusable rocket. It was designed, a rocket was launched – it failed. The reasons for failure were designed out of the next iteration. There was a different failure. The reasons were investigated and designed out and now launching, AND landing, Space X Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets is as near normal as you will find and progress continues.

At the time of writing Space X are planning on returning US Astronauts to the International Space Station using an American rocket for the first time since the Space Shuttle was withdrawn from service.

Technology and Digital Marketing

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Monthly Archives: May 2020