Henmore Marketing is Social Media speaker at Business Peak District event

Henmore is very proud to be speaking at the upcoming Business Peak District event:

An Introduction to Social Media

Please note, this event by Business Peak District is only available for businesses located or trading within the wider Peak District.

This seminar is designed for any small and medium-sized Peak District businesses wanting to develop online marketing who would benefit from an overview of social media to find out how it can help grow a business. No technical knowledge is required.

This seminar is presented in a jargon-free, easy-to-understand format and includes presentations from companies that are using social media in a successful way.

Network Events organised by Business Peak District

Wednesday 19th September (10 am - 12 noon)

The Royal Hotel Hayfield

'Marketing - bringing your website alive and keeping your customers happy'

details

Wednesday 26th September (10 am - 12.30 pm)

Bakewell Business & Agricultural Centre

Bakewell, DE45 1AH

'Social Media - an introduction'

booking online

Wednesday 10th October (10 am - 12 noon)

Buxton TBA

'Celebrating local food and drink supply and distribution'

Tuesday 27th November (10 am - 1 pm)

Beechenhill Farm, Ilam

'Renewable Technologies - all you need to know and planning out business risks, a survival kit'

Positive comments - a lovely way to start the week!

I gave a talk on Social Media recently to a tourism group.  It was very difficult to know how much detail I should go into because I am mindful that a proportion of the delegates were probably never going to engage with many of the tools of social media. Twitter was a 'marmite' subject to that audience. Half of the delegates were more likely to be consumers of social media than contributors, probably unwittingly at that. So with this in mind I added into my social media talk a small plea. Would everyone please make one small change to their browsing habits? After reading, leave a comment. It matters to small business owners, in particular, to receive feedback. So why do readers hold back? Does is matter so much to travel the web incognito?


Here is this morning's reminder of my plea to the tourism group. I am running a small workshop on Thursday about blogging. This morning I was very encouraged to receive a Facebook comment from Joy, one of the registrants on the course. She wrote: "Very much looking forward to Blogging on Thursday. Can really recommend Catherine's Workshops @dovefarm as they are informative and helpful but at the same time friendly and relaxed."


I am very grateful to Joy for her testimonial.  How lovely to receive positive feedback and what a great way to start the week.  I am prepping the workshop with extra enthusiasm as a result. 


So how about it?  When browsing the web today could you spare a second to leave a comment... even if you would never, ever describe yourself as a social media user?

Analytics and marketing maths

Clients know that I am a bit of a nag about testing and measuring, especially web stats.  Checking your web site analytics tool in an effective way is a vital piece of marketing house-keeping.  So why do so few SMBs actually do this?

Do you need our help to understand and interpret your web stats?

I am reminded of this because I just took a call from an online directory saleswoman regarding a business whose online advertising we manage.  With a sales script that centred on the amount of quality traffic her directory sends to the website in question she felt confident that she was on safe ground, not realising she was talking to a marketing agency.  Armed by the stats that I manage for this business, I knew she was blagging.  Checking referral traffic from paid sources is a no brainer.  We've put in place a sales tracking system which is rigorously followed.  It is our job to keep an eye on what is working and what is not. Poor telesales lady! She finished up trying to suggest the client should pay for the directory entry out of loyalty; such a desperate attempt to play on the emotions was wasted on my role. My job is to take this pressure away from the client. Looking at the stats I am certain the client would think re-booking this entry was not best use of a tight marketing budget so I politely thanked the caller and suggested she contact us again in 6 months.

Sales calls to clients are directed to us precisely because we can make informed decisions and not be bamboozled by telesales claims about Google rankings and quality traffic etc.  But clearly those sales tactics work or they wouldn't be so prevalent.  (By the way, I am not against paid directory entries - far from it, if they work it is great.)

So, please, check your stats.  Check them and use the information!  If you don't know what all those numbers mean and how to interpret them we can train you.  If you can't bear doing this sort of work then for a small fee we'll do it for you.  Either way, it is time or money well spent because the information should improve your marketing focus and maybe cut some unnecessary spend.