SVA Forum

[1503angela]

When I first started the VA Star 8 week course, Caroline sent me a piece of homework to come up with 10 new marketing streams. I sent her the below which I had been looking back at and decided to try to use as a checklist for my business development and marketing plan for the coming months:

1) Press releases
2) Free one hour trial of service
3) Word of mouth recommendations
4) Links on my site to other sites and visa versa
5) Networking
6) Cold calling
7) Leaflets
8) Twitter/ Facebook profile
9) Adverts in industry publications
10) Newsletters

The first thing I am going to do in terms of local marketing is a mail-shot on which I was planning to offer a free trial use of Clear Support so that combines number 2 and number 7 on my list. I do have some reservations about this so I would like to try and build in some protection so I was planning to phrase it as 'We are offering a free trial use of our services, please contact Clear Support to discuss'. Is there anything I should be stating explicitly on here so that I am better protected? My worry is that someone who is legally savvy approaches me and tells me that as I didn't state the length of the free trial I have to honour any request or something crazy like that!

I have some experience of press releases so I have a good idea how am I going to approach that, the only worry I have around a press release is that there is no 'event' as such for it to focus on just the general launch of my business but I think I will need to just try it out and see what feedback I get from journalists first.

Word of mouth recommendations will hopefully start happen once I'm a little further down the line.

Links to and from my website I'm told can be quite important and as I really don't know very much about this I was hoping for some steer? Sally from Stonetext I wondered if you might have some guidance on this since you are offering web design package for business start-up and I thought this might be in the same area of expertise?

I don't really need to say anything about networking- think we all aware it a necessary evil!

Social media marketing: I haven't done much with this as yet but I plan to within the coming months. Does anyone have an opinion of social media marketing with regard to B2B marketing and whether it is as relevant for us as it is for B2C marketing?

Advertising I know can be very expensive and difficult to measure so any advertising I do will be planned very carefully. I have been offered an advert in the local chamber of commerce monthly magazine for a discounted rate of £295 and I am quite tempted but not sure how much business this would actually generate. Does anyone have any advice on this?

Finally item 10 on my list is sending out newsletters to customers which I am putting on the back burner for now as a possibility in the future depending on the value I think it can offer.

If anyone has any general marketing/ business development tips I would love to hear them!

Bye for now, Angela

[Rachel Brett]

That is a very long list Angela and I would concentrate on 3 maybe 4 of them.

1. Networking. I find it easier to do this as I enjoy talking to people. There are costs involved and is it a slow burn. It took me about 5 months to start getting work from Networking and now it is growing at a steady rate.

2. Twitter and Fanbook(Facebook). Both these are free and need planning. If you have a personal twitter and facebook account, you will need to have a separate business one. Again this is a slow burn, but advantages are that it is free and you can link information from you website into twitter. I use a program called Hootsuite as it makes it easy to compress web addresses as well as keep in touch with all the various followers and tweets you have to manage

Fanbook is the business version of facebook and it a good way to introduce articles and referrals

LinkedIn is also a useful option for free marketing

3. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Once this is set up and you have your keywords in the website, this is a good way to get clients to look at you. linked updated information from your website to Twitter also helps and pushes it further up the Browser listings.

Make sure you are added to all the free directories you can find. They will all want the same thing so have some blurb ready and these can also be useful with helping you go further up the Browser listings

4. Press Release. Writing a good press release is key and knowing who to send it to as well. If you have a group of small publications that are local to the area that is good as well since they could use your article in two or three of them for you.

There are of course the others on the list you can do, but it is better to focus your time on 3 or 4 options rather than try and do the lot, especially if you are working. This way, if you find after a time one of the options is working for you, you can replace it with another and see how that goes.

Good luck with everything
_________________
Rachel Brett
Arbor Virtual Services
Tel: 07747 024607
www.arborvs.co.uk

[caroline]

Couple of ideas sparked from your list:

Advertising
Could you offer the Chamber of Commerce a prize for their members rather than paying for an advert? I HATE paying for advertising - as a former Ad Girl I know what the results are likely to be, I kind of object to it.

Free trial
The only thing I can suggest is making it limited to 1 hour free and excluding existing customers... Generally people don't take the mickey.

Press release stuff
Think about what the readers would want to know about - so if this is a local paper they may well be prepared to do a "Local girl done good" type story, especially if you have some hi-res pics to send them and are able to talk about local employment issues or needs. If you are trying to get into Widget News with a "New company targets the widget industry" angle, they probably aren't going to be that interested because:
a) they'll have other people paying to advertise to their readers, so why would they give you what is effectively a freebie advert and annoy the people who are paying their wages?
and b) it's not really a story
If say you tweaked it to become "Top Admin Tips For Widget Makers" or something similar they may well print it...
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[VaSussex]

Hi Angela,

I read your post with interest. Your para about the Chamber of Commerce particularly caught my attention.

I joined our Chamber almost a year ago and have since gained new customers and fair interest. I atttend all the meetings I can, to network and meet all the local members. I have also done a couple of mailshots to fellow members, resulting in new clients on both occasions. I have even recently decided to joint the committe, as I thought this would help to raise my profile.

I agree with the last post about advertising in the Chamber mag - yes it's expensive, and experience tells me they don't work well, if at all. I have also tried ads in little local parish mags, with no interest at all. I always ask people who enquire, where they heard about me, that seems the best way. So far a 'Google' search is proving the best to get customers, so I guess putting as much on the net as possible to advertise youself is key.

Sorry if I rambled on too long, but hope it helps.
_________________
Sue Edwards
Virtual Assistant Sussex
www.virtualassistantsussex.co.uk
vasussex@btinternet.com
(01825) 761890

[AlexTrapnell]

Greetings and Salutations Angela!

Just popped in prompted by Caroline's Newsletter, to catch up on what you've been up to of late and I see that as ever, you have been a busy bee.

Newsletters
Actually, that's interesting and relevant here isn't it, in that Caroline's 'call to action' in her Newsletter worked. Maybe Newsletters aren't top of your list at the moment, but I certainly recommend this as a project for the future for you - use MailChimp and it's free if your distribution list is under 500 - read me prattle on about it here on my Blog : http://alextrapnell.wordpress.com/, even if just food for thought for now, or sign up to receive a copy of mine - I don't mind at all : http://www.virtual-assistant-help.co.uk/virtual-assistant-news.php.

If Caroline's call to action worked on me, it says something about how this might be a very useful marketing tool for you also

Advertising
As regards advertising, I tend to agree with Caroline on this one. What I will say though, is that targetted advertising/marketing is key. Instead of putting an ad together that focuses on the many and varied services that you offer, your marketing can be much more succesful if you groom your target down with a fine tooth comb and maybe just focus on 1 or 2 services, in absolutely the right media vehicle.

I am the Secretary and Membership Secretary for the Tetbury Chambers myself and if thinking of advertising would certainly be after a much better price than that quoted to you. I would also want to know who and how many would receive a copy of the leaflet or magazine to make sure it was aimed at my target market and was going to be worth investing in.

Free Trial
Reference the free trial, I agree and would ensure that you are specific about how long the free trial is for (i.e. 1 hour) wherever you market this offer and ensure also that the prospect understands what they will be charged after the first free hour is up i.e. what rate and in what increments i.e. minimum of an hour followed by 15 minute increments etc.

And finally, with your experience of all things 'Press Release', it sounds as though you could be tutoring us

Have a good month!

Alex


Alex Trapnell | Virtual Assistant
www.alexandratrapnell.co.uk
alex@alexandratrapnell.co.uk
01666 840244

[Sally@Stonetext]

Hi Angela,

Re: Links

Think quality, not quantity and IN not OUT.

A few good quality inward links are worth infinitely more than squads of irrelevant IN and OUT links. Outward links (as far as I understand) are worth nothing to your ranking.

Another thing to consider is the ranking of the business linking to you. Having lots of 0/10 people linking to your 4/10 site will tend to drag you down.

When creating the links, try to be creative - i.e. Typing services in Berkshire (non techies - with a hyperlink to your site/page "behind" this) rather than a link that says Clear Support or Email me at Clear Support because that is less relevant to your keywords which should include Typing and Berkshire etc. Sorry, when I was typing this the vision of Clear Support was of invisible undergarments!! Cheered me up no end.

There are lots of free directories that are desperate for all and sundry to have their details on (usually requiring you to have a prominent link to them). Why? Because having squillions of people with links to their site boosts their traffic; which means they can get good advertising revenue. (Note: This may seem like a contradition with my earlier point but in this instance it is a case of sheer numbers.) I'm not saying don't put yourself on them, just consider which ones you use carefully. Also - they will ask you to link to their home page (which gets the good ranking) the link to your website is from page 752, which has a ranking of 0/10. Cynical, moi?

The whole business of links, SEO, ranking, blah blah blah is pretty huge and can get a bit mind boggling but this should give you some food for thought to be going on with.
_________________
Sally
Stonetext Online Admin Services www.stonetext.co.uk
Spida Web & Graphic Design www.spidawebdesign.co.uk

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