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Direct Mail – 5 Reasons Why It Is Still So Effective

admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:51:15 +0000

So many people underestimate the power of traditional marketing methods, and in this post, I’m going to tell you why Direct Mail is still high up in the efficiency ranks for marketing.

Direct Mail is great for several reasons, and I’m going to write a few short bullet points explaining why Direct Mail is so effective.

Time Spent – I’m not talking about the amount of time you spent designing, implementing and sending your direct mail, I’m talking about the amount of time your reader spends looking at your marketing. If you think about it, when someone looks at an advert online, if they aren’t interested, they will simply click off. Whereas in Direct Mail, if they aren’t interested, chances are they will just put it down somewhere in their house; and then they look at it again later.
Precision – Instead of a ‘hit and hope’ method, with Direct Mail, you can pinpoint the people who fit your psychographic, demographic, and geographic profile, meaning much more targeted eyes are reading; therefore, you will get a higher ROI (Return On Investment)
Immediate Responses – Once you send out your direct mail, it doesn’t take long to get a response. Within one or two weeks you’ll receive around 80-90% of all those who are going to respond. If your campaign works, you’ll know about it quickly. If it doesn’t, you will know that quickly as well.
Simple – It is so simple to create a direct mail campaign; all you need to do is design your leaflet/brochure/letter, and then print multiple copies. You can then send these out, and all you’ve had to do was spend maybe an hour designing it.
Cost Efficiency – For the purpose of this point, let’s say that a single letter to a single house costs 50p. You sell your services at say £20 a pop. Therefore, you can send out 40 letters, and as long as you receive one response, you’ve lost no money! You need to work out how much it will cost each household, and how much one response will earn you, as a minimum. Once you know this, you will know how cost-effective Direct Mail can be for you!

So there you have it; just a few brief points as to why I think Direct Mail is still one of the most efficient ways of marketing. Let me know what you think in the comments below; I’m looking forward to a discussion!

Why You Need An Accountant

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:11:41 +0000

By law, you don’t need an Accountant, but in this post, I am going to tell you why you need an Accountant to support your business.

When people think of Accountants, the normal image that comes into their heads is someone sat at a desk behind a pile of paper, completing Tax Returns. However, while that may have been true in the past, a new age is upon us.

People are no longer looking for the bog-standard Accountant; they want one that can help, not only support, but grow their business as well. So; here are some reasons why you need an Accountant.

Pre-start-up business advice – An Accountant, or at least one with experience, can give you expert advice on all areas of starting a new business, from Tax advice, to how to kick-start your company, as well as forecasting your finances.
Give advice on raising finance – The way in which you finance your business has an important effect on profitability. An Accountant can advise you on such things as whether new equipment should be leased or purchased, whether it would be best to issue more shares, take out a loan or increase your overdraft, and how to invest any spare cash.
Give advice on running and managing a business – This is especially useful if you are a recently started business, or you are thinking of starting one. An Accountant can advise you on what would work best for you in your current situation, drawing on previous experience with clients in a similar position to yourself.
Look after the finances and tax – Good record keeping is an essential requirement for monitoring the financial health of your business. An Accountant will suggest the most efficient and practical way for you to keep your financial records in order. An Accountant will also do for you;

VAT Returns (If you’re registered for VAT)

Year-end Accounts, calculate how much tax & NI is owed

Minimise your business tax by making full use of your allowable expenses.

Handle any enquiries with HMRC on your behalf

Planning and managing growth – An Accountant will be able to help you grow your business, whilst cutting back on expenses. They can look at your financial records, and pinpoint exactly where you are spending too much money. Most Accountants would stop here, but if you find a really good one, they will also advise you how you can use this extra financing to grow your business.
Undertake annual audits – If your annual turnover is more than £5.6m, you are, by law, required to have a formal audit of your company finances. If your turnover is significant, but below this threshold, you may wish to enquire into what auditing services your Accountant offers; it can be beneficial to have a formal, independent, and un-biased review of your business.

14 Questions you should ask your Accountant Part 2

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:42:46 +0000

Hopefully you all enjoyed Part 1, but for those who haven’t read it yet, Part 1 of 14 Questions you should ask your Accountant

So; let’s carry on!

Question 8 → Do you have specialist knowledge of areas which are important to me, or do you have in-house specialists?

If you have complex problems, ensure that there is someone in the company who specialises in dealing with them. It’s no good employing an Accountant to help you simplify your financial matters if they don’t know what to do about them either!

Question 9 → What is your fee structure?

Accountancy can be split into two different types of work. The first is compliance; work like filling out a tax return, which can usually be done by someone quite junior. The second is giving more sophisticated advice, which can only come from an experienced partner. If you want the latter, you shouldn’t have to pay them high rates for merely filling out a tax return for you, which a junior could do. Therefore, check that the work is handled, from your point of view, cost effectively.

You want your costs to be as controlled as possible, so find out if a fixed fee is available for compliance work, as the more sophisticated advice will more likely be charged by the hour.

Question 10 → How far does your advice extend when it comes to investment?

By law, an Accountant can only give you a certain amount of investment advice unless they are registered with the FSA(Financial Services Authority) as an IFA (Independent Financial Adviser). However, your Accountant should either have an IFA in-house, or be able to recommend one.

Question 11 → How pro-active are you?

Ask for some examples of how your prospective accountant has made pro-active suggestions to Clients, beyond the routine requirements of what was asked for. You want an Accountant who’s going to walk that extra mile, not sit and wait for a bus.

Question 12 → How accessible are you?

Ask how long it usually takes for your Accountant to respond to emails, telephone messages, a letter, etc. If you need urgent help suddenly, having your Accountant available on a mobile or via email can be essential. Ask if this is available – but find out if you will be charged for having a short conversation or reading an email.

Question 13 → I am thinking of starting a business, can you help me?

A good Accountant should be like a business adviser; analysing problems and offering solutions, helping with advice on financial management, cashflow forecasting, etc. They should always be on the look-out for new ideas and innovations that can grow your business.

Question 14 → How many Clients do you have?

While they may not tell you the exact number, it is important to have a rough knowledge. The reason being for this is that if you ever urgently need help, or your tax return is going to be late, in a big company, your work could be near the bottom of the pile. In a smaller company, however, there will be less work, and therefore should be completed quicker.

I hope you found this two-part post useful, if you would like to add a question, leave a comment, and I’ll add it in.

14 Questions you Should ask Your Accountant Part 1

admin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:33:43 +0000

Trying to compare anything can be difficult, but when it comes to your personal finances, you need to make sure that you have made the right choice.

An Accountant can save you a lot of time and money, which you may needlessly spend on the Taxman. But, more than that, a good Accountant can oblige you, for your own benefit, to face up to issues which you may otherwise have been tempted to ignore. That’s another reason to find one you like.

Whatever you do, ensure that you interview several. You can start by asking family, friends or colleagues if they know of a good Accountant. Failing this, you will also find lots of ads on the Internet, in Yellow Pages, or in your local newspaper. Never forget though; a personal recommendation from someone you trust carries a lot more weight than an ad from someone you’ve never heard of.

It is vital that your Accountant understands all of your goals; short, medium and long-term, so outline any ideas or dreams you have for the future. For example, if you are planning to buy new office premises, or set up a new company in the near future, make sure you say so. The reason for this is that your Accountant may be able to save you a lot of money. They may also have good advice to offer based on previous experiences of other clients.

So; let’s get to the point of this post; I want to help you choose your Accountant, and to do that, I am going to give you 10 questions that you should ask before you hire.

Question 1 → What are your professional qualifications?

Astonishingly, anyone can call themselves an Accountant. Accountancy is not like being a Doctor; to call yourself an Accountant, you do not have to have any qualifications. Only consider an Accountant with a recognised professional qualification, such as the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, or a Chartered Tax Adviser. At the very least, this gives you some protection or an avenue for complaints if needed.

Question 2 → Can I speak to a couple of your Clients about you?

Ask the Accountant if you can speak to someone in a similar position to yourself. When you speak to this Client, you want to know things like how reliable, prompt and proactive your potential Accountant has been; whether they explain things clearly, seem good value for money, and have produced any good ideas. Keep in mind though; you are only likely to get the names of friendly Clients!

Question 3 → Who will be my point of contact?

Make sure you meet the person who will be dealing with your work. It is important to ensure that you can establish a good working relationship, as you will be in contact with them regularly. If more than one person will be involved with you, ask to meet the others,

Question 4 → Can I visit your office?

This should help you judge the quality, nature and scope of the Accountant’s practice. Be wary of an Accountant working from serviced offices or their offices are very run-down. Then again, you should enquire closely about the fees of someone with conspicuously lavish premises!

Question 5 → How long have you been in business?

Unless your affairs are very simple, you need someone with experience. Don’t just take their word for it; make sure you ask for evidence.

Question 6 → How many partners are there in your practice? And other employees?

If you employ a one-man band, there will obviously be problems when illness occurs or they take holiday at a time when you need help. Also, there could be problems at the busiest times of the year, like January, when many Self Assessment returns have to be submitted. Check if there are other people around to help. Solo operators may also lack easy access to expertise in specialist areas, such as VAT, PAYE, Capital Gains Tax and Inheritance Tax planning, if that’s what you need.

Question 7 → Can I see a portfolio of your work for Clients?

An Accountant can not give you detailed information on other Clients for confidentiality reasons. If you ask in advance, however, it’s not difficult for them to prepare a case study, but black out the confidential details as well. You should be looking for someone who is regularly dealing with other Clients that are in the same position as yourself. This is important because you want to make sure that they are accustomed and experienced in dealing with someone like yourself. For instance, there is a big difference in the sort of work the Accountant needs to do for an actor, with fluctuating income, and an employee, with a steady, constant income, or a retiree who is living off their pension and investments. Finding an Accountant who already works with Clients in a similar position will save you a lot of explanation and should stop your Accountant having to learn at your expense.

1 Obvious, Yet Often Overlooked Way To Increase Traffic Hugely!

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:35:58 +0000

Traffic is as important to your website as water is to fish; without it, it would cease to exist. In this post, I want to outline one very simple, yet mostly overlooked, way to increase your traffic immensely. Read on!

It’s so simple that people often overlook it, sub-consciously thinking ‘Too easy – Won’t make that much difference’. The fact of the matter is that this method can easily double the traffic you receive.

I am talking about buttons. The ‘Tweet This’ button, the ‘Digg This’ button, the ‘Share on Facebook’ button, etc. If you include these buttons at the end of every post, your readers are so much more likely to Tweet it or Digg it, or share it on Facebook. Do you know what this means? It means that when you have tweeted to your followers that you have a new blog post, they can then read it, and if they like it, they would re-tweet or share it or Digg it, resulting in more views, resulting in more sharing, and so-on.

This method would be better described with a quick picture;

You are at the top; you write a blog post, and share it on all the Social Media sites you use. Your followers, or fans, or connections, then read it, like it, and re-share your content to their followers. This then happens again and again. What’s more is that if you tested this method, and then removed the toolbar, you would still have more traffic than you have now; simply because you have got your blog in front of all those people’s screens, and some of them will enjoy it enough to come back again and again.

This little button toolbar really can make a huge difference to your blog, and could even be used with a website; you just have to get past thinking that it’s too easy to be true.

I hope that you found this post helpful, let me know in the comments if you would like to add anything.

The Answer to your Email Marketing Problems – A/B Split Testing

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:07:30 +0000

A lot of people, including myself, have had problems with their email marketing. It could be that either their open rates aren’t living up to their expectations, or the click-through rates are poor. This is why I have written this post; to tell you about a method I tried which solved these problems for me.

This method is called A/B testing.

By the name, you can pretty much guess where I’m going with this!

The idea is that you split your emailing list into two, and then design two different emails, and monitor the results. Always keep one as your control, however, so that you have stats to compare.

The control should be the design that you have been using so far. It wouldn’t be as accurate if you used stats from the past, because as you know, the stats vary slightly, whether it’s because some of your list aren’t at the office, or because they haven’t checked their emails. So, for the purpose of this post, we will call your control email A.

So, let’s get on to what we should be changing in email B.

Firstly, subject lines. You should try two different formats of subject lines, depending on your industry; one formal, one informal (not too informal!). You will then get an idea of what subject lines trigger curiosity in your reader’s minds. You could also try using questions as your subject lines, but make sure that the subject line is always relative to the content inside the email; if it isn’t, you are breaking the law.

Next, we could change how you present your links. If you use normal links, try using pictures as links. Also, change the wording of your links. Is it a polite call to action, such as please click here, or is it a more direct one, such as for more info, click here?

Also, while we are talking about links, is it wrapped by text explaining why they should click on the link? If not, try it in B, and monitor your results.

Design. Try changing around your design a bit. Move a few things about, and see how the audience responds to this; did it improve your CTR? Also, move the links that you want them to click higher up in the email, but at the same time, repeat those links in your signature box. This way, you should get more people clicking these links, but if you want them to be targeted, then keep them at the bottom of your email only. The reason for this is that if someone has been interested enough to read all of your email, they are a lot more likely to be interested in finding out more about you.

As a last note, don’t forget that there is no limit to how many splits you can do; you could do 10, but it would be more difficult to analyze the results, which is why I suggest you start out just doing the A/B split, and not changing too much at one time.

I hope you found this helpful, and good luck improving your email stats!!

My Top 5 Free Twitter Productivity Tools

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:04:29 +0000

Every single analyst, ‘social media expert’ and pundit is telling you that it’s imperative that you develop your Twitter presence. I would absolutely agree; but what tools are the best to use for this reason? In this post, I’m going to list my Top 5 Twitter Tools, and explain a little bit about them.

#5 Geofollow

Uses: Finding local Twitter users

Strengths: Bulk Follow, you can list yourself for free

Weaknesses: Will not include every single Twitter user

If you are a business, and you are on Twitter to meet new people, or prospects, then Geofollow is a great tool. As you may have guessed by the name, Geofollow allows you to enter a city or town name, and find Tweeps that live in or near that city. This is great for establishing a local following.

#4 Tweepular

Uses: Following/Unfollowing users that are/are not following you

Strengths: Tweepularity Ranking (how popular you are on Twitter), suggests new users to follow

Weaknesses: Long loading time

Tweepular is a great tool for managing your followers. You can see who isn’t following you back, who is following you but you’re not following them back, and also allows you to ‘build your tweepularity’, in which it suggest Twitter users for you to follow.

#3 Twitter Analyzer

Uses: Access to stats concerning your Twitter network

Strengths: Real-time stats, tells you how many of your followers are online, who RT’d you the most, and lots of other interesting stats

Weaknesses: Anyone can access anyone’s stats, as you don’t need a password to access them

With Twitter Analyzer, you can look up pretty much any stats you may like to know. The graphs are also updated in real-time. This tool is #3 because I use it to track my Twitter goals and objectives, and I find it very useful.

#2 SocialOomph (Formerly TweetLater)

Uses: Schedule Tweets and Auto-DMs

Strengths: You can schedule a large amount of Tweets at any one time

Weaknesses: To get the full potential out of this service, you need to upgrade to the Professional package

SocialOomph is the busy man’s dream come true. With SocialOomph, you can schedule Tweets to be posted throughout the day, and can even set Tweets weeks in advance! You can also set up a Keyword Alert email, so when someone uses a keyword you specified, you receive an email containing what they said, and when.

My #1 Twitter Tool has got to be TweetDeck

Uses: Stay on top of Twitter

Strengths: You can do anything in TweetDeck that you could do on the Twitter website, and more!

Weaknesses: To be honest, I can’t think of many, except that it cuts off more often than the Twitter webpage does.

Ever since I started out on Twitter, I have used TweetDeck. I think that this product is fantastic, and best of all, it’s free! With TweetDeck, you can keep on top of your Facebook and LinkedIn as well as Twitter! You can also create colums that update in real-time including any keywords you have specified. In my opinion, TweetDeck is the best Twitter Tool available for free, hence why it is number 1 in this list.

I hope you found this post helpful; until next time!

Common Problem – Email Click Through Rates

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:02:14 +0000

A lot of businesses have been using email marketing for a while now, and others are just starting out. No matter where you are, we have all had problems with our email click through rates, racking our brains as to why people just aren’t clicking that link! Which is why I have published this post; to give you a few ways to overcome this, and improve the click-throughs.

Over the past few weeks, I have had a lot of emails asking me how to overcome this; and the majority of them asked if they should make pictures in their emails links. My answer to that would be yes. Wherever you can put a link, put one in. (With certain limits of course!)

Pictures can be a great way to get more people clicking your links. As long as your viewer knows it’s a link, great.

Another way would be putting links into your signature box at the end of the email. You want to put this under where you say goodbye, and personally, I make them picture links. While you won’t get as many clicks from these links as you would links in the body of your email, the people clicking these links are a lot more interested in knowing more about you or your product/service. The reason for this is that they have gone all the way to the bottom of the email. You may or may not be surprised, but a lot of your database probably doesn’t make it to the bottom of your email; and this is a great way to test that.

Layout. Where your links are is very important. If you introduce links too early, the reader will think that that is the sole purpose for you emailing them; just to get them to go to a certain site. Try and incorporate links into your text, replacing certain words with links, like I’ve just done.

This one might sound a bit obvious, but a lot of people don’t do it; just tell them. A lot of businesses sending out emails don’t tell the reader what action they want them to take, and this is essential. Don’t be timid about telling them what to click, and don’t ask either. Tell them, and if you can, include a benefit for them clicking that link, such as ‘Click the link at the bottom of this email for a free e-book’ or something like that. Also, if it’s an important link you want to redirect them to, write a few paragraphs about it, and include the link between paragraphs. I’ve found that, for me, 3 is the magic number.

Try and use a more tag as well. This one is great for re-directing to a blog, or if you have a blog on your website. Not a lot of explaining needed, literally just take an excerpt of a post, put it in the email, and then place a more link at the end,

The last little tip I’m going to leave you pondering about is to make your headers links. This way, if the reader finds that specific article interesting, he/she will click on the header for some more information. As with the picture links, though, you need to make sure that they know the headers are links.

Thanks for reading, I hope you found this post helpful; let me know in a comment.

What is e-marketing?

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:00:59 +0000

I have written a lot of posts about e-marketing, and I realised; I haven’t actually wrote a post about what e-marketing actually is.

So, off we go;

E-marketing (Electronic Marketing) originated in 1995, but has only really taken off this decade. The idea of e-marketing is that you can market your products/services to potential customers over the internet.

Specialists at CESCO came up with a definition of e-marketing;

eMarketing is a generic term utilized for a wide range of activities – advertising, customer communications, branding, fidelity programs etc. – using the internet. More than the simple development of a website, eMarketing focuses on online communications, direct dialog with consumers who thus participate to the creation of new products, finding efficient methods to win customer’s fidelity and ease their business-making process. eMarketing is the sum of activities a company makes with the purpose of finding, attracting, winning and retaining customers.

So; that’s what e-marketing is.

It could be Twitter, where you interact with your potential customers, or using emails, which is again interacting with your prospects, but also advertising to them.

So, there you have it; a brief explanation as to what e-marketing is. Have a look here and here for some examples of e-marketing, and some tips for implementing them.

Twitter Tips – How to get ReTweeted

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:00:10 +0000

Twitter Tips – How to get ReTweeted

2 12 2009

Previously, I wrote about what a Retweet was, and what the benefits of it were. As I promised, here are the tips on getting yourself retweeted.

I’m going to start off with a really easy and obvious one. Ask them. Say you were posting a link to your blog. The tweet would look a bit like this;

‘New blog post! 10 tips to ……… Please RT!’

Simple and easy, but not the most effective way to get your tweets retweeted.

The second one is if you are posting a link, try to include numbered lists. Everyone loves a numbered list, for example, same as I said above

‘New blog post! 10 tips to ………’

This one works sometimes, but don’t do it all them time. It’s probably best off if it’s only a one-off actually. Just post the link. You know how curious you get when you see a link all on it’s own; ‘Oooooooh wonder what that is?’ Other people will be just as curious. The reason I said not to do this too much is that you may start to lose the trust of your followers.

Say thank you. Anyone who retweets one of your tweets, either thank them with a DM, or a tweet would be better, because then your followers will see their profile link. Or you could retweet one of their tweets.

Research the Twitter bots. Some people might look upon this as cheating a bit, but as long as you don’t do it too much, don’t feel bad! Research what bots are on Twitter, such as the Facebook one for example; they will retweet most things you say, as long as they include a specific hashtag.

Curiosity. Curiosity is the last tip I’m going to give you today. Imagine you are reading your tweet. How would it have to sound for you to be interested enough to click it?

I hope you found these helpful. If anyone would like to share any more tips they may have, please leave a comment.