The Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK defines marketing as follows:

"The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably (or efficiently)."

Marketing isn’t, as many often wrongly assume, just about selling your products to customers. It's far more complex and interesting than that. Marketing is about efficiently attracting and retaining a loyal customer base who buy your products and services regularly and who therefore have a high value. It's about separating unprofitable customers from profitable ones and building longterm strategies to retain them.

Marketing therefore is not simply focused around what your promotional brochure and business cards look like. That’s just one part of your marketing communications, or 'marcomms', and is only a small tactical element of your over-arching marketing strategy. Marketing means being 'customer focused' and relates to all aspects of your business.

But how do you go about that?

As a full service design and marketing agency, we can help you develop a focused marketing strategy with an integrated approach backed up by eyectaching design.

Call us to see how we can help you develop effective marketing communications strategy for your business: 01982 551963

Initially, marketers used to stress the importance of the '4 Ps' for business success. Now, we talk of the 7 Ps – what does it all mean though?

No matter what your product or service, there are specific aspects to consider when planning your marketing activity. So, when devising your plan, you need to carefully consider the following:

• Product (what is it, what's unique or special about it)

• Price (base cost to manufacturer, provide or perform / retail price to customers)

• Place (where it will be sold)

• Promotion (how will you promote it – see 'the marketing mix' below)

• People (types of customer / competitors / manpower involved to sell or deliver it)

• Physical presence (physical location, style and presence of venue or outlet)

• Process (speed, efficiency, quality and professionalism of your service)

We can help you analyse and plan your business strategy – call us to discuss how: 01982 551963

We often say that great marketing is 'SMART' marketing.

When planning any business and marketing activity you need to clearly define the objectives and goals of that activity, thereby allowing you to measure its success. Otherwise what's the point of doing it? By applying this wonderful little model to all your business and marketing objectives, you will help maintain focus and direction but will also reap greater rewards:

S = Specific

M = Measurable

A = Actionable

R = Realistic

T = Timing

It's easy to get daunted by the terms 'logo', 'business identity' and 'brand', or think they only apply to big, corporate companies and whopping multi-nationals, but developing a brand and a business identity is just as important to a local plumber, hairdresser, hotel, flooring firm, massage therapist, or any other sole trader or small business if they want to get noticed and trusted.

But what is a brand, what's involved, and how do you build one? There are many things to consider such as brand values, mission statement, colour palette, logo usage, typeface, strapline, visual messaging, verbal messaging, tone of voice, brand experience, customer journey...

Before you get started though, you need to do your competitor research. You may have a business name in mind, or a logo idea, but you must first check to see if other people and companies in your industry are already trading under that name or with your logo idea. You don't want to infringe on any trademark laws. And although we never copy anyone else's design or knowingly design something similar, it's not our responsibility to check all your competitor's business names, logos or branding before working on your creative brief.

As a professional design studio, we understand how all the pieces fit together and can develop a brand and business identity that will get you noticed and help you build business credibility - call us to discuss how: 01982 551963

	Click here to see all our logo design and brand design services that will help you develop a striking business identity.

We love the written word and clever writing - it's one of our passions. We place great importance on the use of words, text, and typefaces in marketing communications, and we often refer to 'tone of voice'.

We can't stress enough the importance of what you say, how you say it, and how it looks, as it's through the medium of 'verbal messaging' and the 'tone' you take that you convey a sense of you, your values, and the type and quality of customer experience you provide.

Sadly, this is often the one area that’s considered a bit of a ‘no-brainer’ and where people invest the least amount of real effort. After all, it’s easy – everyone can read and write, and it’s just words, right? Not so.

All too often business owners focus on the message they want to tell, rather than what message and benefits the consumer is interested in hearing. You always need to put the customer first, and communicate the benefits of your service. And there’s nothing more unforgivable than spelling mistakes, bad grammar, and in truth, a really badly chosen typeface. You can lose people’s attention and trust extremely easily through such seemingly trivial little errors.

Consider the words of a Chinese emperor who, 4,000 years ago, said, “A picture paints a thousand words”. Words also paint pictures. Imagine you are the consumer with no prior knowledge about you, your business, your professionalism, your credentials, your lovely products, or your quality service, then critically look at the picture your communications are painting.

Don’t let ill-chosen visual and verbal messaging paint a bad picture of you and your business before a client or customer even gets through your door.

We can help you write engaging copy that will best sell you and your business – call us to discuss how: 01982 551963

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Every part of your marketing activity is an entry point for a potential customer or client to interact with you and your business, and at whatever point they enter that experience you then have a duty to manage their expectations and provide them with a quality experience.

The experience is vitally important to retaining their interest and building loyalty and repeat business, therefore it must be consistent at every point and every time they interact with your business. So from business card to flashy website, brochure to beautifully packaged and delivered product, a waitresses welcome to therapist's treatment, a customer is experiencing the business and its values.

You are taking the customer on a journey: With you, your business and, in turn, are hopefully building a long-term relationship, so make sure it's always a good journey and a good experience.

Don't forget, positive word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools, so a bad experience could prove detrimental to your success. This is even more pertinenent with the advent of social networking such as Facebook, blogs and Twitter.

The internet is perhaps the greatest marketing tool, but it is also heaviliy populated and competition is high. To succeed, all businesses must now have a website that is integrated with the rest of their marketing activity. It can be one single page to let people know you exist, or a complete online department store, either way though, you must not rely purely on its existence – a website must be one part of your marketing strategy.

A common mistake when building a website is information overload, and burying your core message, product or service (i.e. the actual thing you're trying to sell) in the middle of a encyclopaedic mass of pages. You don't need reams of pages. You need to identify your core message and cleverly construct your messaging and customer journey so you turn interest into action.

It's also important to understand that, just because you have a website it does not mean you will instantly conquer the world, or automatically and instantly rank at the top of a Google web search. You still need to market your website's existence and rely on other forms of marketing activity. Plus, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a complex process. Building your ranking and internet awareness takes time and effor, and high ranking is also not guaranteed, unless you spend additional budget buying Sponsored Links or AdWords as provided by Search Engines like Google. Although this seems like an easy option it can prove expensive if you can't convert those clicks to actual paying customers.

For informed, experienced and effective website design and development, call us to get your message online effectively: 01982 551963

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When you think of PR, images of Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley swigging champagne in 'Absolutely Fabulous' may spring to mind! But PR, or Public Relations, is an integral part of your marketing activity. Every business can, and should, do it to some degree.

PR (Public Relations) is not actually about dealing with the public directly. The Institute of Public Relations (IPR) defines PR as:

"...the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain good-will and understanding between and organisation and its publics."

There are many elements and intricacies to PR but, for the most part, you need to at least consider 'Media Relations' as part of your marketing and communications strategy. This involves liaising with local media, papers, magazines and radio to help build awareness to their audiences about your services and products through well-written and crafted news releases.

The difference to advertising, however, is that a news release is not a hard sell. You need to have a story to communicate that will be of interest to the publication's readers. If you send a news release to a local paper saying that you're offering 10% discount on a product range it will be ignored, or you will get a call from the advertising team asking if you'd like to buy some ad space!

There are agencies and practitioner's who specialise purely on PR due to its complexity. We're not a specialist PR agency, but we are good at helping you identify stories that may be of interest, and writing and crafting effective news releases to bolster your communications within your local media or industry. Although, it is important to state that getting your story printed in the local paper, or every outlet you send it to, is not guaranteed. This depends on timing and the relevance of the story.

Call us to see how we can help you integrate PR into your marketing activity: 01982 551963