1)Keep your posts relatively short. Having researched blogging to a great degree – then 500-800 words seems to be a good benchmark.
2) Keep your posts varied. Have some posts that are very factual – drawing on information that will help the users, for example our post focus on the company formation sector. Make some light and humorous so that the user understands that whilst you know your stuff, you’re not taking life too seriously. And they get an insight to your personality. Make some posts a little controversial or challenging the user – to stimulate conversation.
3) Always watch your spellings. Poor spelling really does hinder credibility.
4) Use images in a post to break up the text and add some relevant interest. Check out www.flickr.com or www.istockphoto.com or www.fotolia.co.uk for some cheap yet very good quality shots.
5) Create interesting headings. Write the headline imagining that the user won’t even see the article. So the headline has to grab attention and tell the story.
6) Use keywords where you can – in headers and throughout the content of the article.
7) Keep it going. Stick to a tight publishing schedule. Blogging pays off over time – it’s a marathon rather than a sprint and it takes time to build up relevant and optimised content.  
Insert a call to action such as Subscribe to Blog on the site so that users can easily subscribe. Try www.feedblitz.com but there are many others www.feedburner.com is popular too.
9) Claim your blog on Technorati – Google Blogsearch and Technorati are the two main ways that people search for blogs. That way others can find your blog.
10) Promote links to your blog on your website and in email footers, business cards and other off and online relevant marketing materials.
11) Get your blog noticed by publishing links on social media vehicles such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Linked In (all social spaces relevant to your industry).
12) Try and provide one piece of practical ‘how to’ advice in each blog post. That way the user will learn that you are always going to provide something useful.
13) Don’t focus your posts around selling your products – users will switch off to this. What you should be focusing on is positioning yourself as someone, or a business, that is able to share advice, news and information which will prove useful to your readers. Remember, blogging is not about directly ‘selling’ your services – it’s a platform where you can advise and share information and knowledge about your products, services or expertise.  Perfect ‘conversational’ marketing.
14) Be creative with where you procure your content – if you have published materials offline, then recreate them online.  Duplicate content is a spider’s web of uncertainly but what is clear is that you can post links to your site – and encourage the user to read the entire post via your site.  (Hence why a great attention grabbing headline is necessary!).  Top 10, 20 lists are good (hey, we’re practising what we preach) – but keep your posts mixed, don’t make every post a list!  (Back to point 2 above).
15) Write short excerpts of your blog post – not duplicating the content – but summarising what your post and blog is about.  Creating a short excerpt which is unique content each time, is a good tactic for giving users a taste of what the blog post is about, enables you to use keywords within the excerpt – and you can post this to social media sites to share news about your blog in a safe (non duplicate content way).
16) Follow the leader – if you find a respected and popular blogger/expert who focuses on areas you are interested in, your business area, subject etc – then write a post commenting on their post.  Always cite the name of the author and provide the url directly back to the post you are talking about.  This way you are joining ‘high volume’ and relevant and targeted conversations.  And if you’re views matter – then they will be picked up on by others reading the ‘leaders’ blog. 
17) As well as having a formal call to action – such as subscribe to blog, always ensure you include a link at the bottom of your blog post encouraging the user to subscribe and citing your blog’s URL. PS. (don’t forget to use the http:// before the www. url to ensure it links).
18) Be prepared to review lots of blogs, see what’s working for others and learn about blogging the hands on way.
19) Join relevant forums and start joining in conversations.
20)  Always keep the user in mind.  Remember, people are more interested in what you can do for them than what you do – so add value via your blog posts – and they will come and keep coming…

In yesterday’s post we looked into the way successful brands use market research too inform not only their company formation, but future decisions. We investigated the way in which OKC – The Organic Kids Company – strategically uses market research to make customers feel part of the brand, therefore securing customer loyalty. In today’s post we look at various methods of market research and how they can be used cost-effectively.

What do you want to know?
Like any marketing spend, research must deliver on your objectives. Therefore, establishing them is an integral part of the process. “Know what you want to find out, ensure that you don’t already know it and then ask the question.” Says Jo Brothers OKC’s brand director.
“For example, while we use some element of market research to inform all of our product decisions, when we were approached by a major fast food company to stock our products it was vital we established what our consumer’s reaction would be. For many of our existing customer base, they felt that we were establishing a partnership with a large corporation that was the antithesis of our brand identity and ethical stance. It was important that we knew the extent our decision may damage our brand and the results of the market research we carried out were invaluable to our eventual decision .This information empowered us and enabled us to control any negative perceptions.”
While OKC, conducted their own market research on this issue via their website and an email and point of sale marketing campaign, they felt it was important that they got a broader understanding of consumer behaviour nationally. Consequently, a third party was brought in to conduct some independent research.
“The agency we used, took a wider approach and look at overall consumer behaviour and perception of our brand. Their findings were, on the whole, positive and the areas where they weren’t, allowed us to focus and take a strategic approach to improving them.”
Ultimately, it would seem that the advice is clear; always define your objectives, do as much of your own research as possible and only bring in a third party when you have a specific project for them to work on.
Different Models
In the current climate budgets are tight and small businesses may be faced with the dilemma of wanting to grow but not having enough knowledge of their sector to know which path to take. In these circumstances, market research is vital and there are several low-cost options available.
According to Brothers, market research is one of the only marketing activities which can be carried out on an extremely low budget. “When we first formed the company money was tight, so we had to be creative. We held impromptu tasting and events. This not only helped us develop a personal relationship with our consumers, it also allowed us to build our brand.”
“Online is also a unique and effective marketing platform for market research. Blogs and social media encourage conversation and allow you to have an open dialogue with people buying your products. This is an extremely powerful thing.”

In yesterday’s post we investigated if corporate hospitability plays -and will continue to play- a significant role in the growth strategy of any small business, as the recession continues to take hold. Today we speak to Peter Walker, founder and CEO of legal recruitment firm, Law Professional Direct. We ask him if corporate hospitality played a role in his marketing strategy from the point of company formation, if it helped grow his company and if he feels if it will continues to play a role in the current context of the credit crunch.
“Entertaining clients has always played a key role in our business, right from the start up phase. If you are supplying candidates for a person’s legal firm, your client must be confident in your credibility. Similarly, our industry is based on reputation and I was always aware that if I wanted the company to grow, one of our main strategies must be client retention and personal relationships.”
For Walker corporate hospitality is conducive to business growth. “It is a fundamental part of our brand, and while it would be easy to concentrate on the intangible benefits of entertaining a client ‘for the relationship’ our main priority is making sure the return on investment is measured and works. Never has that been more important than in the current economic climate.”
Walker’s spend ‘v’ result equation is simple, and seems to work. “Ultimately, for every £1,000 we spend on an individual client we like to see well over half of that back, in an increase to what they are currently spending with us.”

Law Professionals Direct has been running a tennis tournament every year from when the company first formed in 2001. The day consists of a competition between all of the top legal firms in the south east, an awards evening where the winning firm gets presented with a trophy, and lunch the next day. From the tennis balls to the complementary champagne for the winning team, the whole day is branded as LPD recruitment and, according to Walker, the success has been exponential.
Alongside the annual LPD Tennis Tournament, Walker has ensured that he has established a correlation between LPD and major dates in the industry’s calendar. For example, LPD has box at Ascot every year and takes clients to major events such as Wimbledon. “Obviously, it is extremely costly; however, I honestly believe it has been the main contributing factor to our continued success. In the sector we are in, competitors, even those offering cheaper rates, can never hope to steal our market share because we have invested time and money on our relationships with clients and established their loyalty to our brand.”

Yesterday, we considered how – as a consequence of reduced recessionary rates – exhibitions are increasingly becoming part of the overall marketing mix. As discussed, exhibitions provide a unique platform from which to raise brand awareness of your company formation, if planned strategically. However, like all marketing activity it must be quantifiable, in today’s post we give you practical guidance on how to make the most of your stand and crucially, how to follow up the leads you generated.
You are your brand

As we have explained previously, the culture of consumerism is changing – customers and clients alike are no longer motivated merely by price, they look for brands that offer reassurance and with whom they relate to on a personal level.

Exhibitions offer companies the opportunity to develop a personal relationship with their customers. Below are our top three tips on how to interact on your stand:

- Look and be approachable.

- Be passionate and excited about your brand but don’t attempt ‘hard sell’ strategies

- Offer enticing giveaways, for example chocolate or water branded with your company logo. These will attract people to your stand an also function as walking advertisements for your stand around the rest of the exhibition
Make the most of your stand

Despite the fact that exhibitions are currently offering reduced rates, they are still costly and therefore you must ensure that every square foot you are paying for is working for your brand.

Regardless of the fact that, if you followed yesterday’s post, you will have planned and executed an effective pre-exhibition promotional strategy, it is still vital you maximise footfall to your stand for the people your promotion may have missed.

The best way of doing this is to carry out large scale off stand promotion. Send staff in branded outfits around the rest of the exhibition handing out giveaways, devise a prize draw to win a free trial of your product, if visitors to your stand give their business cards. But crucially, keep all promotional emphasis on your products and services.

Conversion and follow up
The fundamental objective of any exhibition is the generation of leads and converting these leads into clients or customers. You and your team must never lose sight of this.

One of the best ways of doing this is to record each visitors contact details, brief explanation of interest and suggested follow up tactic. Once you get back to office, create a database of all the leads you generated, send out a mass email, thanking them for their interest and a brief, generic explanation of how you found the exhibition. Then, review your database and begin to market to your leads on a more bespoke basis, i.e. if a visitor expressed a certain interest in one particular product give them a 5% discount voucher.

The quicker all of these leads can be actioned the better.

On the one hand exhibitions offer a recent company formation or small business a powerful marketing platform; ultimately, it is the only time you can talk to prospective clients and demonstrate or comprehensively explain your product or service, when they are already engaged in your brand. One the other hand, exhibitions are extremely expensive and hard to quantify. In today’s post we offer you some practical guidance on how to prepare for an exhibition to ensure you get heard above the noise.
Tip One

Clarify what you want to achieve

Exhibitions offer you the chance to communicate your brand proposition face to face with prospective clients. However, like all marketing activity, you need to establish your objectives, how you plan to achieve them and what you define as a scaleable return on investment.

Exhibitions can potentially offer your company some great opportunities, such as the ones below:
• Comprehensive information about potential clients.
• A chance to get direct customer feedback about your product or service
• Journalist interest and PR exposure
• Increased interest in your brand
• A chance to review the competitions proposition and future plans
Tip Two
Prior Publicity
For many companies the success of an exhibition is completely contingent on the promotional activity they carry out prior to the event.

While one of the fundamental objectives of an exhibition is to attract new customers or clients, they also provide a chance for you to touch base with existing clients and offer you a unique opportunity to market to them. A great way let all of your existing customers know you are exhibiting is an email marketing campaign, a subsidised ticket price or even something a simple as putting in a leaflet with every purchase.

You should also take advantage of any promotion the exhibition organisers are doing or see if you can be a speaker at the event.
Tip 3

Choose your team
As we have previously discussed on this blog, all external communication of your brand should be consistent and visually communicate your brand’s identity and personality, this extends to your presence at an exhibition.
Regardless of whether you choose to ask your team to wear corporate t-shirts or just name badges, they are your brand ambassadors and should be easily identified as such. Each member should be briefed on what you hope the exhibition will achieve for the future of the company and at the end of each day you should conduct a ‘post mortem’ of how you felt the day went and if they felt the initial objectives were met, exceeded or not.

In yesterday’s post we considered how important it is for a recent company formation to differentiate their brand’s positioning, if they are to compete with bigger brands in the same market. We concluded that, if your proposition is compelling and your communication creative, success is possible. In today’s post we talk to Graham Cox, the CEO of online glasses e-tailer Glasses 4 U, who formed his company in the context of overwhelming competition and yet has emerged with a substantial market share. Here, he gives his top tips on how his strategy can work for you.
Change the consumer’s perception
“Historically, consumers purchased glasses from two places; their local opticians or one of the well established high street retailers. However, a couple of years ago the market changed. Customers, while still caring about their eye health, started to feel they weren’t getting good value for money and – as a consequence, the market became more competitive as all of the leading Opticians embarked on aggressive marketing campaigns. This market context compounded by the impact of the recession motivated me to take the optical retail market to the next step – and Glasses 4 U was formed.”
“As a start up brand in a sector dominated by well known and established brands, the main challenge was creating a brand that encouraged the consumer to change their perception of how to buy glasses. We were never going to be able to capture some elements of the market so we decided not to direct a huge amount of resource into trying. Instead, we began to segment the market and target our advertising to the demographic we felt we would most appeal to and began communicating with them via a media they understood – online”
Be selective
“Very early on in the start up phase, we knew that we could never hope to target the mass market. Therefore we made the strategic decision to only advertise via mediums we could dominate and online provided us with that platform.”
“While we did concentrate on Google Ad words, we also embraced viral marketing and ventured into Face book applications.”
Be resilient
“Though the start up phase was difficult, nothing compared to the challenge of actually bringing my product and proposition to market.” Says Cox
“I gave up my job and the security of the steady income that came with it and in that context rejection was difficult to take. I would say that the fundamental reason for our success is the total and utter belief we had from the point of company formation that our brand would be a success. That confidence allowed us to bridge that massive gap between us and our larger competitors.”