by Birch Marketing | Sep 7, 2016 | News
Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on communicating valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience, and to drive profitable action. Content marketing is critical because people care about their own problems much more than they care about your products and services. When you are able to communicate your company’s expertise in a way that brings value to your prospects and helps them do their jobs, then you are likely to gain attention. With research suggesting that average B2B buyers are 57% through the decision making process before they contact you, the content you communicate is critical to business success. With this in mind, there are some important considerations: Clearly define your content marketing objectives and prioritise. Is this about building brand awareness, cross-selling or up-selling, generating new sales leads or engaging with all influencers? Define and understand your target audience. Once you have defined your target segments, you will want to research the key decision makers and influencers at your prospects, and create marketing persona to reflect these. Understanding the issues that these people face and what is important to each of them is imperative before starting to create content. Create content that your target audience wants and is useful to them. Content should build trust and move a prospect to the next stage of the buying journey, using AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) or alternative buying stages if you prefer. Information about your product and service, is important in the early stages, particularly why what you offer is different to your competitors and how this brings them value. Create a...
by Birch Marketing | Aug 16, 2016 | News
Case studies are one of the best ways to demonstrate the benefits that your product or service brings, through the voice of an existing customer. The most valuable ones will be aligned with your target market segments and clearly demonstrate why you have a differentiated offer and the benefits that you bring. Bearing in mind that case studies are one of the most compelling types of content, it is surprising that they are often not well written, so here are some top tips to consider: Prepare for the customer interview. Make sure you have all the background information on the customer and the story that you want to tell, and have decided on key questions that you want to ask. Record the interview. While you may want to note down key points, it is useful to be able to focus on the conversation without having to frantically scribble things down, knowing that you can revisit details later. Make sure your case studies are compelling. Very long case studies, with lots of background detail, can lose the reader early on, so keep to the key points and make it interesting. Make sure that the title highlights the most compelling accomplishment. A storytelling format works well, starting with the problem the customer was facing, then moving on to their evaluation process to solve the problem, the solution they chose and the benefits that it delivered. Highlight benefits and quantify where possible. Ask your customer to focus on the specific benefits that your product or service brought, and what this meant to him and his business. Did you save them or make...
by Birch Marketing | Jul 14, 2016 | News
Having been fortunate enough to have received marketing training from several blue-chip companies, and a well-respected business school, developing and agreeing the marketing strategy has always been my top business priority. However, in recent years it seems the discipline around this traditional approach may be being lost. Marketing strategy is identifying where we will play and how we win in business. It requires market research and customer insight, allowing segmentation of the market, so we can decide which areas to pursue, and how to position our brand and product/ service offer for optimum success. Once this is complete, clear objectives can be devised for each segment, with measures of success. Only once this is done, is the tactical plan created, with the specific tools that may be employed, and the timescale for execution. There are a multitude of possibilities to be considered, from printed materials and PR to award entries and public speaking. What is important, is that the tools selected are used in an integrated way, to communicate to the target audience. The increase in the number of digital tools and techniques over the past decade, together with the increased splitting of marketing into separate digital, PR, social media and events roles, can result in overly tactical managers. They have selected the tools they will use long before any research or strategy work has been carried out, because these are the ones that their job description includes! In smaller companies with stand-alone marketing managers, the same trend seems often to exist. The marketing manager tends to focus on the tactics that they believe are their strengths, without clearly...
by Birch Marketing | Nov 26, 2015 | News
Some Birch Marketing clients refer to us as their virtual marketing director, whilst other people ask whether this means that we don’t actually exist! Whatever you like to call us, part-time marketing directors provide an excellent solution for ambitious small and mid-sized business looking for growth. They normally have proven performance in high performing, blue-chip organisations and have gone on to work with smaller businesses, where they get the satisfaction of making a real difference. Strong strategic and tactical skills, combined with a commercial focus, result in impactful results. Being able to develop a strategy and implement it ensures continuity and the best results for the client. Experienced professionals are able to hit the ground running and should be happy rolling up their sleeves to get things done. Virtual marketing directors are focused on delivering results and look at every company from the view of the potential customer when planning and implementing an effective strategy for the future. This is likely to include work on the value proposition, brand building and messaging, as well as a review of the return from marketing activities currently in place. The part-time approach delivers great value. The individuals work directly with business owners and directors as part of the senior management team on an ongoing basis, typically 1 day per week. They deliver real impact, at a fraction of the cost of full-time resource of the same calibre and it is a low risk solution, with no lengthy tie-ins or retainers. You simply pay for the support that you require, when you need it, with no additional costs such as recruitment, national insurance...
by Birch Marketing | Oct 30, 2015 | News
Most business people today have a LinkedIn profile, and many utilise it to promote their skills and experience with their next job in mind. Far fewer use it to effectively promote and grow their own business, or the company they work for, which is a missed opportunity with so many decision makers using this social network on a daily basis. Here are a few tips to help you use LinkedIn to promote your business. LinkedIn is great for people and businesses wishing to build stronger brands. You can associate your personal profile with your company page and share images, videos, links and presentations, to make the pages more interesting and informative. Ensure that your personal profile contains a professional headshot and including your company logo will help to build visual awareness of your brand and what it stands for. You can also post informative articles, which can be seen by other users, helping you to engage in conversations around your areas of expertise and further strengthen your brand and its proposition. Clear, well written, LinkedIn profiles that concisely describe your skills, expertise, and the value proposition of your business are important to give viewers that all-important first impression. Clear calls to action and contact details are equally important to ensure that interested people are easily able to reach you. The summary section is particularly important as it allows you to speak directly to your audience and tell them about you, your skills and your company. The use of keywords in profiles helps you rank higher in search results, making it more likely that you will be found by prospective clients...
by Birch Marketing | Jun 15, 2015 | News
The identification and selection of market segments is one of the most important strategic decisions facing industrial, technology and service based B2B companies. The choice of market segment(s) to pursue is the key starting point for developing overall strategies and business plans but I believe it is often not done well. A market segment should be a group of clients or users who have similar requirements, who will respond in a similar way to a given offer. The present and future needs of the segment allow you to appraise your company’s capabilities or strengths and weaknesses, and compare your offer against competitive suppliers. This will then enable you to tailor your business proposition to the specific needs of the clients in the segment, if you decide to pursue it. Unfortunately, market segmentation is frequently not performed well. • Companies often do not have all the facts about the needs of the market segments and future trends. This can lead to assumptions which result in them missing opportunities or being caught off base by unexpected developments. • Salespeople tend to segment based on the size of existing customers, classing the largest as key accounts, irrespective of their requirements, growth or profitability. • Product and manufacturing driven companies often find it difficult to think in terms of market segments, as they are so focussed on their product’s composition, manufacturing method and technical features. Product lines get grouped into “segments”, rather than focussing on the external market and the benefits that their product can bring. • There is a danger in thinking too broad or too narrow. Large companies often segment too broadly, so the needs...
