12 conclusions from 2010

It’s always useful to review what you’ve been doing so that you can see what’s worked well and where you could make some improvements. I’ve had a look back over the last 12 months, and have noticed that each project has a learning point or conclusion.

As luck would have it, I’ve come up with 12 conclusions (12 days of Christmas … or one for each month maybe?) and I thought I’d share them with you:

In the first quarter of the year, I was involved in a series of presentations and workshops about using social media for small business. This proved to be a very popular topic and through those events I met many people who I now have regular contact with .

Conclusion 1: Doing presentations is a great way of making new business contacts and building your profile

At the beginning of the year, I got stuck into a new project, helping a retail software provider build up their presence in the electronic point of sale market through a series of case studies and press releases. I also created a new website to help them establish a professional, credible online profile with regularly updated news items.

Conclusion 2: Case studies are a fantastic way of getting across what you do in a way that your customers can relate to.

Last year I started working with a professional golf tournament to generate awareness of the tour, and this continued when the 2010 season started. The project requires regular contact with the relevant trade press to publicise the events and the growing success of the tour.

Conclusion 3: Press releases need to be well written and reader focused (rather than a sales pitch) if they’re going to get published.

This year I set up a facebook page for regular client The Rosevine – a gorgeous family bolthole in south west Cornwall. If you love Cornwall and fancy a peek behind the scenes of running a family business, “like” their page at www.facebook.com/therosevine. They are also on twitter @therosevine

Conclusion 4: Social media is an excellent way to build up a community around your business

In the second quarter, together with WizontheWeb I created a couple of websites for small businesses. I plan the website content, write the copy and manage the project while WizontheWeb do the technical wizardry!

Conclusion 5: Small business websites don’t have to be fancy or expensive but they do need to be effective. It’s important to ensure that you can update the content yourself if you need to, and that your website is optimised for search engines. Most of the ones that come free with your domain name aren’t.

As well as continuing with social media presentations and workshops, I started doing one-to-ones for facebook, showing people how to set up a business page and how to manage it, providing ideas for content and updates. Although facebook is a free tool, it takes time and commitment to manage and run a business page well, and each business has its own needs and communication style. The one-to-ones proved very effective for focused learning.

Conclusion 6: Be flexible in the products and services that you offer. Think about whether you can provide something different or more suitable to your customers’ needs.

A will-writing company needed help with their marketing materials which consisted of a series of leaflets and flyers, all in slightly different styles and sizes with variations on the logo and typeface. I revised the content of all their written materials and worked with Paul Mitchell Design to create a new look and feel that can be easily carried across all of their documents.

Conclusion 7: Even if you can’t afford a designer to create your documents, make sure they are consistent with the same typeface, colour-scheme and layout each time.

In the second half of the year, I started working with a commercial kitchen servicing company who have some extremely prestigious clients. (I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to tell you exactly who!)  They wanted some marketing materials that explained what they do, but in an understated way. We devised a series of interview-style case studies that looked at the person behind the job, and their relationships with the people they deal with in the company. These reflected the importance of the relationship and highlighted the personal service and reliability.

Conclusion 8: If you can inject your business personality into your marketing materials, your customers will be able to relate to you.

Together with WizNewsletters, ran an email marketing workshop, showing small businesses how to create effective newsletters.  We demonstrated the email newsletter system and showed them how to plan and write engaging and useful content as well as talking through the legal requirements.

Conclusion 9: Email newsletters are a brilliant way of keeping in touch with your customers, and complement social media very well.

In the summer, I was contacted by an ex-colleague who has started up a new business, providing an online booking tool for the meetings market. He needed help to create a marketing plan to launch this product, as well as some initial marketing materials to show the key benefits of the product.

Conclusion 10: Keep in touch with your ex-colleagues – you never know where they’re going to end up and it’s easier to work with someone you know and trust than to engage a stranger.

Received a referral from someone who had been on one of my workshops 2 years ago. We had consequently done some further work together, but not seen each other for some time. This referral resulted in a large piece of business with a London-based publishing company who needed some help in establishing marketing practices in their sales-driven business.

Conclusion 11: When you meet someone who has the same values as you, keep in contact as you may find an opportunity to work together in the future.

I have continued to use social media and I find that facebook, twitter and LinkedIn suit my needs. There are lots of others you can try – for example YouTube is growing as a business tool. I have made many successful connections and collaborations online and found new suppliers, partners and colleagues.

Conclusion 12: Using social media can help you develop offline relationships, especially if you focus on what you want to achieve.