While both options can be quite beneficial,  you should weigh both sides before making a decision.

Let’s face it, a successful digital marketing campaign is a financial investment in your business,  resources, and abilities to effectively use your time well.

Quality V Quantity

You might wonder why you should pay someone outside your business when you can use an  in-house team and spend  a certain amount of hours each week for your marketing strategy.  By all rights, this makes perfect sense, but step back and consider what a digital marketing plan consists of:

There are many factors involved in digital marketing including, social media, SEO, PR, content management, channel management, PPC, and web development to name only a few.  An agency, on the other hand, is not made up of just one person working on all avenues of a digital marketing plan.  The agency is made up of a team of highly qualified, talented people who work as a team and come up with excellent ideas to develop the perfect solution that will benefit your campaign.

When there is an entire team in place, solutions can be found much more quickly than just a few people spreading themselves way too thin in order to cover all aspects of your marketing plan.  You should stick with what you are good at and have others deal with things you are not good at.  Keep in mind, it is not easy to find and hire the perfect candidate to head your digital marketing department.  This person must have a commitment to push your campaign forward creatively, and must have the experience to analyse the collected data.  This person must have good writing skills to cover all aspects of your copy, such as your blog content, SEO content, social content, outreach content, web content, etc..  Overall, they must have the talent and ability to manage every single digital marketing issue that will arise on a daily basis.

There are many other questions your head of marketing must be able to address as well.  Do they know how to set up a merchant center data feed?  Do they know how to implement a UA code on the backend of your website in order for Google Analytics to track properly and at full volume?  This person will also need to have the skills to find the correct targeted audience and engage them on a daily basis through social media.  Adding to this list, they must have the experience to get the right webmasters and negotiate the price and terms for outreach content placement.

You must ask yourself if you have the resources to get all of the above done correctly and successfully in order to justify your investment.  When you use an agency for your digital marketing plan, you can assess how their service has worked for you and decide whether to continue with them at the end of their contract or not.  Keep in mind, with an in-house staff, you have a responsibility to them which means if changes must be made, you will have to provide further training which is another investment.  Also, this training and support is probably going to be outsourced to an agency anyway!  Therefore, unless this was in your plan to begin with, it could take a very long time before you see the results of you are looking for.

Diversity Of Skills

Online marketers, as a general rule, have specific skills  that they excel with.  Some are excellent for paid research while another is skilled in social media, content marketing or conversion rate optimization.  The bottom line, someone might be perfect in one area of digital advertising, but an online market plan is too complex for one person to do on their own because no one is an expert in all fields. You could hire someone in a specific field but realize your competition is getting greater results in another field, so now you have to hire someone with those skills.  The problem is, most companies do not have endless money to throw around for their campaigns.

Keeping your marketing diversified is very hard to do.  You must find the perfect team of in-house marketers for your campaign challenges.  Investing in any new marketing avenue can be risky and what if you hire someone whose skills don’t fit what you need?  This leads to getting bogged down with only one marketing avenue and will probably not be the right strategy you should be using.

By narrowing your marketing to one area, such as web designing, might give you fantastic pages, but your ads are not getting the results you are looking for.  You’re bringing in the wrong traffic which means you are not going to get the results you need.  Your web designer probably does not have the specific skills to turn that around.  A good designer probably does not have the proper skills on their staff to get the online marketing results you are looking for.

In-House vs An Agency

Your company probably does not have the resources to hire a web designer, a PPC expert, a testing genius, etc.  This is where a good marketing agency comes into play.  It really is important and makes perfect sense to hire a team with highly diversified skills for your online marketing.  We organize our account managers into marketing teams with a wide range of specialties.  This includes, site testing, designing, Facebook, Adwords, etc.  Each member of our team has the specific skills that are required for each avenue and area of marketing.  These specialists are able to adapt to the various needs of each client they are working and thereby provides a higher value than any one person is not capable of doing.

Each team member is actively working on a number of accounts allowing them the depth and breadth of experience to apply to a new campaign quickly and easily.  So, you might ask yourself if diversity comes with a high price tag?  Let’s face it, if you cannot hire more people, in-house, for diversity, can you afford to pay an agency to do it for you?  In order to answer this question, you need to take a closer look at the situation.  Most companies do not need a full-time designer, Facebook manager or AdWords expert, but they benefit from these services.

For in-house, hiring experts in any of these fields who are willing to work only a few hours a week is going to be very tough to do.  On the other hand, agencies have experts to take care of multiple accounts, providing them with enough work to justify their full-time status.  In turn, their given skills will provide you with a variety of high-level experts without having them on your payroll  full-time.  Not only does this make common sense but is a great deal more economical for you and your business.  In the long run, it’s a question of an agency vs in-house and which is the better choice for your business?  Large companies have the resources to hire in-house teams for diversity in their marketing plans.  Therefore, the question is, do you have the resources to hire in-house?

If you have the resources and your marketing needs are significant to justify hiring your own team of experts that will give you great results on a  full-time basis then go for it.  However, if your company doesn’t have the financial ability to make this happen, you will get a great deal more diversity, for less, by hiring an agency.

Keep in mind, online marketers are extremely creative but this trait makes them terrified of boredom!  At some point, you must take the side of the marketers!  Can you possibly image looking at the same keywords over and over, day after day and being expected to make them interesting?  How boring does that get?  This is why many mid-level to junior  marketers change jobs every few years.  Even though this is not a good outcome for a business, the marketers are looking to move on to more creative avenues!

At EDOT3 web design Newcastle we have experienced clients leaving to form their own in-house team, only to turn around and come back because their marketers are leaving. That said, the turnover of online marketers within an agency isn’t that bad.  Our online marketers are working on a variety of projects that keep them challenged and allows them to increase their creativity. With a good agency, even if your direct contact does leave, you will still have a number of people involved with your account.  The bottom line, your online marketing plan will not feel the effects of waiting for someone else to come on board and replace your contact.

With an agency vs an in-house team, you do not have to worry about the turnover of online marketers or even spending countless hours trying to hire a team of markets.  Large businesses also experience this kind of turnover and face many challenges but they provide opportunities for employees to stick around.   Smaller businesses do not have that luxury and therefore experience higher levels of employees leaving.  In some cases, employees are looking for better compensation and various benefits that smaller businesses cannot provide.  Oldest story in the book, do not put all your eggs into one basket it’s just not good business sense.  In all reality, you are better off hiring an agency to ensure your online marketing plan goes forward without a glitch.

The majority of businesses don’t spend enough money on advertising in order to gain attention

Even businesses that spend over £200,000 a year on AdWords might not show up on Google’s radar!  Ad agencies manage millions of dollars on a monthly basis from ads spent on Goggle AdWords, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Bing Ads, and the list goes on.  That said, these advertising avenues (such as Facebook)  have a vested interest in the success of an agency and are more than willing to help agencies deliver the very best results to clients.  Let’s face it, if we decided that AdWords was a waste of time and money, we would advise our clients to stop doing it.  Google would have a great deal to lose and obviously does not want our clients to walk away.

This is why ad agencies will often get many great perks that businesses are not offered but the agency can pass these perks on to their clients.  Here are some of the perks you will get working with an agency:

Great support and faster response.  You know if you have ever attempted to talk with someone at Google or Facebook, it’s like talking to a wall.  An agency can immediately get people on the phone to help with problems with an account, policy concerns, and any number of support requirements.

Agencies also provide higher levels of account supervision.

Again, all these ad platforms (Google, Facebook) want agencies to succeed. To make this happen, they will provide their own top people to watch over an agency managing accounts to ensure the accounts are getting the correct amount of attention.  Also, these representatives will provide their own insight and ideas they get from internal data that is not available to the general public.

These perks are barely scratching the surface as good agencies have many advantages that the general public will not get.  In turn, these perks can give you a leg up on your competition.  Adding to these perks, online marketing agencies often have partnerships with other marketing companies, allowing them to provide additional premium services and discounts to their clients that otherwise they may not have access to.

Unless you are Amazon, you probably will not get the same level of attention that ad agencies receive from the various platforms.  That is not to say you won’t be successful, it just won’t be easy.  What it comes down to is how really important these perks can be to your company and the competitive edge they can bring you.

If you are a marketing manager within your business, you must be a specialists within your industry and have a great deal of knowledge regarding your products and services.  Agencies have a great deal of experience across a wide range of industries and have excellent exposure to the latest techniques in marketing.  This extensive knowledge and experience allows them to challenge you strategically at the beginning of your project. Agencies have the ability to advise you what has or has not worked for their clients.  This is very valuable when there are major changes or when bringing in a new kind of campaign.

The Cost For A Marketing Campaign

The average salary for a graphic designer or web developer is approximately £25,000-35,000 per year, depending on where you live in the UK.  This might seem reasonable to you for a full-time employee, but you could spend a great deal less with an agency.  You would not have to find a replacement during the holidays or if your employee has called in sick. You would be able to scale up or down without worrying about internal implications.  An agency will give you the flexibility to invest in what you need, when you need it.  One critical aspect you should never overlook is the specialist’s knowledge!

When hiring in-house, it’s better to hire someone year round, especially if you have a small team.  The problem is, it’s virtually impossible to get someone who has all the skills you will need throughout the entire marketing year.  Using an agency will give you access to specialists with years of experience in graphic designing, web designers, copywriters, web developers, SEO experts, and strategists to name only a few.

Also, using an agency, you will have reduced lead time compared to an in-house approach.  You will have the scale and quality of resources that only agencies have available to them.  Agencies also are able to think outside the box and push many boundaries that will not happen in-house.  They come prepared with fresh eyes and bring in a level of creativity that might not be possible otherwise.  It will be a great deal less expensive than developing and maintaining an in-house team to create a strategic and purposeful marketing campaign.  You will have access to a huge range of specialists who will give you creative, outside the box thinking.

In Conclusion

There are literally thousands of small aspects and details involved in digital marketing.  Without the training or experience needed, it can be very difficult to comprehend and foresee what must be done.  That’s not to say that hiring an in-house team is a bad idea if your business is doing well and you wish to have an assistant in a specific area and could also work with an agency serving as the middle guy.  For a SME, this could be expensive and time consuming with less than great results, lacking in creativity and the knowledge needed to implement various ideas from beginning to end.  All aspects will be reflected in the end result of the digital marketing plan and the ongoing ROI.

If you have a large marketing team, you might wish to keep your strategic planning in-house  while using the creative services of an agency.  On the other hand, if you are a managing director of a small company or start up, you might want to use an agency for all aspects of your marketing plan from the beginning.  At some point, as your business grows, you might want to hire an in-house team.

One aspect you must consider is your time.  How much time will have to be committed to work with a marketing agency on a day by day basis for approving documents and collaborating with the agency.  Then ask how much time it will take to hire, train, and manage an in-house team or individual?  There are agencies available for all types and sizes of businesses if you wish to use them for all or a portion of your marketing.  It is not difficult to find an agency that will be a perfect match for your business and marketing plan.

There are many reasons for either choosing an agency to work with or implementing an in-house team.  Whichever avenue you choose will depend on what your priorities are.  If you are looking for high-end skills, diversity, dependability, and partner perks, you should use an agency to help your business grow.

Now it’s time for you to ask yourself important questions:

Do you prefer to use an agency or do it yourself in-house?
What are your main reasons for your decision?
Are there advantages and disadvantages for using an agency?

Just like all major business decisions, you should explore all avenues then weigh the good and the bad before making your final decision.

The post Should You Hire An Agency or do DIY Marketing in 2026? appeared first on Web Design Newcastle, Digital Design Agency Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1SG. UK.

When spending on a website, spend because you see it as a medium to get more business back, not because it’s just an expense you cannot avoid.

Treating your website like an expense makes it difficult to get the best out of it and it drains you with little to show for it.

Conversely, treating your website as an investment helps you measure the returns. When you compare the returns to the costs, it tells you how much of a sound business move you have made.

Why do you need a website?

Perhaps, we should talk about the importance of a website to help see why it is an investment. A website is not just a necessity – which is what many business owners see it as. Instead, they are essential tools in attracting more customers and leads in from further afield. Websites take your brand message and offer closer to these people in the comfort of their homes. They see you, what you do, and how you can help them.

In simple words, we can call your website a mix of a shop window, marketing platform, customer service outlet, and your PR medium. Yes, your website is that important. Let’s discuss some specific uses of a website.

It helps to generate leads and sales.

If you are wondering why you need a website, consider it a proven means of generating inquiries, leads, and sales. How? Below are proven ways your website can deliver these for your business:

• The live chat feature on your website is an avenue to engage site visitors or customers.
• Your website is an avenue to offer great content for free or in exchange for the details of your site visitors.
• Visitors and potential customers can make inquiries directly from your website.
• Visitors and potential customers can place an order for your products or services from your website.

You can push these leads and sales into your CRM system to create excellent sales funnels.

New or existing customers can easily access and purchase your products or services from your website. This is why you should build a simple and user-friendly website that gets the job done with no fuss. For best results, create an online checkout, or introduce a contact form. Whichever method you prefer, ensure that it helps clients to complete transactions conveniently whenever and wherever.

The ideal business website must have a good user interface (UI), easy-to-read and comprehend copy, and straightforward navigation that makes it easy for visitors to use your website. Note that visitors are easily discouraged by a complicated website, which may push them to your competitors.

It helps to reach a wider audience.

There is a limit to how far you can reach through traditional advertisement methods, including print and local adverts and media. But with a business website, you can reach a wider audience faster and easier.

You can leverage the global reach of search engines, social media, emails, and online paid advertisements to get your brand messages and offers to the face of the right people. With more people learning about your business and how it can help them, you are positioned to attract more clients.

Note that this does not come easily or automatically; you may need to put in some work.

It helps to serve people exactly what they need.

Often, the purchasing decision of customers is made after researching briefly or extensively on the products or services. What better way to provide your potential clients with this vital information than your business website?

You can convince them they are making an informed decision by helping them learn more about what you offer and how it can help them. Rather than just push them through a sales funnel, help them understand why they need your services and provide answers to all questions they might have, even before they ask them.

Customers are easily swayed by a brand’s efforts at helping them find what they are looking for.

It helps to build your brand.

Another way your website helps is in brand building. Your website provides you with a great opportunity to talk more about yourself and what to do. You can leverage this complete freedom of expression to build your brand.

A responsive, content-rich, and easy-to-use website will reflect greatly on your brand and business. It portrays your brand as one that cares for its customers. The compelling copy echoes your brand ideals and helps your clients see you the way you want to be seen.

Building a brand website is a continuous process.

Building a good website is half the job – the other half is putting in the time, effort, and money to get the best out of it. You cannot continue to reduce the cost of your website and expect it to bring in more businesses. Your website is an important segment of your business, helping you reach a wider audience than your physical office or store does.

So, you must respect your website and always work hard to keep it in the best shape. You will always find things you can improve on to improve the returns and make your investment more worthwhile in the long run. Remember, like any other investment, what you put into your website determines what you get out of it.

Finally…

There is a lot you can do with your website. The multifaceted nature of this important business platform makes it a crucial part of everything – marketing, branding, customer service, sales, and more. Therefore, you should treat your website as an investment in money and time, and then work hard to see maximum outputs in terms of increased leads, sales, and more loyal customers.

Put your all into it – it’s the only way to get unlimited rewards.

–

Check out; automotive marketing strategy : 12 Ways to Highlight Your Car Selling Offerings

The post Your Website – An Investment Or An Expense? appeared first on Web Design Newcastle, Digital Design Agency Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1SG. UK.

They were expecting much more and are extremely disappointed.  Take an honest look at how you are promoting your product or service.  Is your marketing exciting and satisfying, or do your potential customers walk away unimpressed?

Spices offer a creative way to view marketing.  The new trend in nutrition is to add more spices to foods–for example, adding chipotle to chocolate–not just for the taste, but for increased health and improved well-being. Did you know that chipotle, a smoke-dried jalapeno pepper, is proving  to be a weapon against certain cancers, diabetes and heart disease?

If this makes you seriously consider adding spices to your diet, then you should also explore how spicing up your marketing could change the way customers you are targeting respond to your advertising. There is a three-fold parallel that marketers should act upon. Just as spices add Heat, Health and Happiness to eating pleasure, smart marketing can do the same for your business.

• Heat:  This is the pleasurable “kick” that your taste buds experience when just the right spices are blended into your food.  You come away from that meal with memories that linger and, most likely, you will want that meal again.  Marketing that has a pleasurable “kick” will make your prospects enthusiastic about what you are selling.  It will prep them to buy, and could have them coming back for more.
• Health:  Spices produce amazing health benefits, such as lowering blood pressure, reducing the risk of heart attack and improving digestion.  If your product or service can make people’s lives better, more comfortable or more productive, then your marketing needs to express that boldly and clearly.  Once customers realise that what you are offering can make a positive difference in their lives, they will get excited and respond to your calls to action.
• Happiness:  A meal prepared with tantalising spices leaves diners not only full but satisfied.  Moreover, they are happy with their experience.  When your marketing meets a specific need that your prospect is trying to fill, you not only satisfy him in the short run, but pave the way for that prospect to become a happy and loyal customer.

How can you “Spice Up” your Marketing?

Too often, businesses attempt to copy advertising that is already out there.  You might want to take this strategy with a grain of salt–no pun intended.  Copying the methods of other companies often results in bland, ineffectual marketing.  Customers grow weary from being approached the same way over and over again.  They tend to tune out these ads.  Hence, the expense that you invest in imitating what everyone else is doing will probably not get you the ROI you were anticipating.

Instead, brainstorm with your team to see how you can “spice up” your marketing.  This does not mean having “in your face” hard sell ads or trashing competitors.  It does mean keeping the “Three H’s” in mind.

Heat.

Start by integrating compelling action verbs, creative imagery and memorable phrases into your marketing to describe what your company’s product or service can do for your customers.  Highly visual and interactive web marketing “heats up” their senses.  YouTube videos and mini webinars are great venues for your marketing arsenal.  Use them to demonstrate how one of your products works or simply to provide free helpful information to potential customers.  By doing so, you immediately activate their thinking on multiple levels;

1. You demonstrate that you care about their particular situation.
2. You prove that you can solve a problem that they might have.
3. You introduce your company/product/service in an intriguing and engaging way.
4. You start building their trust by being straightforward and honest about your services.

The more senses and emotions that you trigger with your marketing, the more likely prospects will make the decision to buy.  One caution, however:  The purpose of marketing with “heat” is far more than simply trying to grab customer attention.  Rather, like spices, your marketing should create an irresistible joy in your prospects that prompts them to respond enthusiastically to what you are offering.

Health.

It is critical that you focus on knowing your potential customer’s needs and explain through your marketing how you can meet those needs.  In order to accomplish this, you must first find a way to get them to talk about the problem they need solved.  If your marketing is interactive, you can probe with key questions and get honest feedback from your prospects.  Assuming that you have isolated the demographics of your target customers, start reaching out to them personally with online questionnaires, email queries or phone and post card surveys.  Encourage their cooperation by offering a sample or coupon upon submission of their responses.  Your investment of time and money into this is well worth it because the answers you receive will enable you to fine-tune your marketing to meet the specific needs that they have expressed.

Businesses that pay close attention this way to the “health” of their prospects are rewarded with repeat customers and positive referrals.

Happiness.

Happiness is a state of mind that stems  from reduced anxiety and increased self-esteem.  It is a sign of contentment and well-being. How do you reduce prospect anxiety about trying your product or service?  Offer both emotional and logical reasons to trust your company.  Reduce purchasing anxiety by providing stellar customer service from your very first contact with your target customers.  Create marketing that opens your prospects’ eyes to your top-quality merchandise and personalised service, share testimonies from satisfied clients, give your prospects iron-clad money-back guarantees, and, through specials and coupons, allow them to experience what you are offering.  As prospects interact with your marketing and your company, at some point they will realize that they have enough information to  make an informed decision.  The more control they feel they have, the higher their self-esteem, and the more likely they will buy. They experience happiness when they purchase your product and discover that it is exactly what they were looking for.

By spicing up your marketing with these “Three H’s,” you will get the attention of your prospective buyers by immediately involving them through their senses.  This makes them more receptive as you demonstrate how you are the “go to” company to solve their problem.  Best of all, “spiced up” marketing tends to motivate prospects to buy, resulting in a base of happy customers who keep coming back for more.

References:
organicfacts.net/health-benefits/herbs-and-spices/health-benefits-of-chipotle.html
nutrition-and-you.com/healthy_spices.html

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This handy infographic  was created by Branching Out Europe to help you understand the power of LinkedIn in 2015 and how you can drive your business’s success with it.

The post Infographic – How to use LinkedIn for lead generation. appeared first on Web Design Newcastle, Digital Design Agency Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1SG. UK.

Although a flood of unique sales may initially help to steady nerves, a small business has to develop a realistic customer engagement strategy to secure its financial future.

The Problems with a Sales-Only Strategy

1. Short-term blindness:

Also known as the ‘Fighting-a-Losing-Battle strategy’. A sales-only strategy is one which results in minimal reward for maximum effort. By expending all efforts on attracting new customers a small business is only seeing short-term business development.

2. Breaking the bank:

Studies have shown it’s far more expensive to find a new customer than encourage repeat business from an existing customer. Bringing in new business involves marketing and a marketing campaign is rarely cheap. If a business does nothing but focus on new customers when does the marketing end? For a small business with limited resources the cost of a continuous marketing campaign may not be sustainable.

3. Pyrrhic profits:

A Pyrrhic victory is a “victory with such a devastating cost that it is tantamount to defeat” (Wikipedia). Chasing new sales costs money and the profits will barely cover the costs (there may even be a deficit). A loss-leading campaign is only a successful measure if a business can capitalize by encouraging customer loyalty. If the financial burden of a marketing campaign (including a discounted price strategy) does not encourage repeat sales – through customer engagement -then the business strategy is flawed.

Curing Short-Term Tunnel Vision

Play the long game:

There is no denying sales are the number one factor for business prosperity. But to ensure continuous, stable sales a business must look beyond new customer attraction. Surviving the early days of business development is probably the toughest stage of creating a successful small business and many owners become obsessed with sales, sales, and more sales. It’s important to not only have a long-term development plan but also a strategy for turning new customers into promotional advocates and repeat sales prospects.

Engage and conquer:

A small business, especially a start-up, will receive new customers by using an effective marketing strategy. But the business has to focus on customer retention as well as unique sales. Encouraging customer loyalty is the backbone of a successful small enterprise and can be achieved through product quality, excellent service, and smart marketing strategy. Once a small business starts to develop a loyal customer base it will see a steady flow of continuous sales and an increase in new sales (as a by-product of satisfied customer referrals).

Build it and they will come:

The ‘it’ in this case refers to business reputation. The impact of a positive business reputation cannot be underestimated. Small businesses are often unable to compete with larger rivals on price or product range so different tactics are required to increase market share. Quality of service and customer experience have long been associated with small business and it’s a proven fact that consumers will pay higher prices and remain loyal to a small business that excels in customer satisfaction. Business reputation is earned through quality products supplied with exemplary service. Offer both and a great business reputation will come from positive customer reviews, referrals, and loyalty.

Do’s and Don’ts of Customer Engagement

• Do create a positive online presence through a business website and social media profiles.
• Don’t create online resources and then fail to keep them updated. Customers may assume you’ve stopped trading or are simply not interested in customer engagement.
• Do use loss-leading promotions, such as: discounts, loyalty cards, and free gifts to encourage repeat custom and customer retention.
• Don’t use loss-leading marketing if you’re only looking at increasing unique sales. A loss-leading strategy must be used in conjunction with a customer retention strategy.
• Do encourage customers to sign up for online newsletters or even postal contact. Use this opportunity to advise customers of new products and money-off offers, for example.
• Don’t abuse the customer trust in giving personal contact details by overwhelming them with a barrage of emails or post. Hard sell techniques do not result in repeat customers.

A small business has to attract new customers in order to receive the sales which cover start-up costs. But to become a profitable, successful enterprise a business has to encourage new customers to make repeat purchases and positive referrals. A loyal customer base is the key to business prosperity and customer engagement strategy that promotes consumer satisfaction and appreciation will result in an increased customer retention rate.

The post Why a Small Business Needs a Customer Engagement Strategy appeared first on Web Design Newcastle, Digital Design Agency Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1SG. UK.

In marketing, storytelling has the power to engage target audiences on an emotional level like never before. In an online environment, where audiences are bombarded with information from all directions, it is no longer about breaking through “the noise” of your competitors. Instead, modern marketing aims to give consumers what they want, namely drama, in the form of a brand story.

Storytelling is the communication of human experiences in words, images, and sounds. From its origins around the camp fire, to modern-day literature and film, storytelling has continually evolved as a tool for communicating experiences and traditions from one generation to the next.

Here is how to create your own brand story.

Be original and specific.
Think of a unique story to share with your audience, and use detail to make your story more believable. Believability is important for a brand story. The best marketing storytelling combines emotion with logic.

Use multiple perspectives.
Tell your story from multiple angles. There is more to your brand story than your own point of view. Use customers and supplier testimonials as part of building your story. Tell the story of one of your employees. Find a human face that audiences can connect with.

Tell it well.
Stick to the essence of your story by choosing precise, descriptive words to tell it. Evoke all the senses in your descriptions, or use video material where you can. Tell the story like it is. Resist the urge to over-embellish or add too much detail. Just the right amount of detail is necessary for believability, but don’t overload your story with unnecessary complications.

Storytelling gives businesses the chance to share their personal story with their audience. In this way, a business can emphasize the values that are at its core, as well as humanizing business-customer relationships. It is important, however, to leave out a distinct marketing message altogether, or audiences will see right through your story.

The post Brand Marketing Storytelling Tips appeared first on Web Design Newcastle, Digital Design Agency Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1SG. UK.

This is the real question: who developed these products in the first place?  Who first discovered their potential?  Who first made money from them?  How and why?  The real jewel is in discovering the psychology behind why these things work for some business owners and not for others.  Even having a Facebook following in the four or five digits is no guarantee you will make money on anything.  There are as many ‘looky loos’ ready to copy you as there are potential clients. The key isn’t in copying, it is in converting.

Make the Main Message the Main Message

One thing that doesn’t change is, if you have a product to launch or a service to supply, you will need to get the message out there to those who need to hear it.  That means looking for ways to have your message cross paths with your potential supporters.  Don’t fall into the trap of following the list of rules others will sell you though.  What works for one product, service or entrepreneur will not necessarily work for another in exactly the same way.  Today “unique” is in style.  If you are creative, don’t let any supposed marketing expert tell you that you need to conform to a list of dos and don’ts.  If you have fresh new ideas about how to get your message across, go for it!  The world is waiting for the next great discovery which may seem a little weird, whacky or difficult to understand on the surface, but just might raise a ruckus worth noting.

Focus on Your Solution

As always, focus on how your product or service will provide a solution to a need a person with a little cash on hand has.  Don’t focus on how wonderful you and your business degrees and years of experience are.  People rarely care about that at first glance.  They are more interested to hear how they will enjoy what you are about to offer.  They want to know how what you’re selling will relieve them of a problem they have or prevent them from having a problem in the future.

Sell Your Expertise

Another group of people you might profit from aren’t necessarily looking for a solution to a big problem.  They’re looking for an affiliation.  These individuals might desire to be seen as peers rather than expect you to be some mentor that towers over them.  They may want to rely less on your counsel than they do on your applause.  Maybe their problem is more in the lines of needing momentum or inspiration.  Sometimes they are just looking for someone, something or some group that they can bond with that will help them achieve their own goals.  Simply put, they might merely want to rub shoulders with you and pay you to do so.

Some people may feel their own reputation will be given a boost if they can ride on your notoriety.  People try to do it all the time for free.  Are there ways they can pay you for that pleasure?  If not, is there something they can do for you in fair exchange like mention you in their blog or refer customers to you?

Package Your Skills

These types of affiliations offer new potential everywhere, but you won’t have time to be friends with or mentor everybody who shows interest.  Today is an information hungry age, however.  This information sharing niche provides new ways to grow a business both vertically and horizontally.  For instance, perhaps you’ve been doing well in selling to customers for years and have ongoing new product launches.  Outsiders want to know how you’ve done it.   Selling your products is vertical growth, but teaching your peers how you’ve done it is horizontal growth.  Why not package your skills and experience into seminars or create and sell online downloadable products that will teach and inspire others?

Sure, you can use all the traditional methods to get your message out there in order to grow you business, but don’t limit yourself.  Don’t spend valuable time working on something you know will have little results.  Let your creativity out.  Be bold and try new things.  Even falling on your face is a lesson someone will want to know about and is valuable information (remember they want to buy things that will prevent them from having a problem in the future).  Be creative and try something new and see if you can’t become the latest trendsetter.

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Online marketing is, metaphorically speaking, a doorway. It is a portal to the homes of millions of potential customers and everyone that they know. Marketing online is a totally different concept than community marketing. There are a few basic necessities that you should know when entering into this new realm of promotion. The main way to start is getting a business website up and going.

Not just any website will do. There are many websites out there that are sub-domains. For example, your business website will get far more business if it is, “yourbusiness.com.” However, if it is a sub-domain such as “yourbusiness.nocostwebsites.com,” then you are missing the larger majority of your customers. Search engines tend to avoid the sub-domains and focus on the .com domains.

Next, make the business website a mirror of the business. If your store colors are, for example, green and red, use these colors on the website as well. The same goes with your store logo. You will want this to be the first thing that the potential customer sees when he or she enters your website. This is part of a process called branding. To put it in simple terms, when people see that logo, you want your business name to pop into their minds even if the name is not on the logo.

Once you have a good web design, it’s time to move on to promoting it. Websites are not automatically listed on the first page of search engines. On the contrary, they will generally be closer to the last. However, with proper marketing, you can build it up on the list and, inevitably, attain front page status. This is done with web marketing and search engine optimisation.

Search engine optimisation is the process of making your website easily accessible to search engines. You are literally optimising the site to make it search engine friendly. This involves using keywords related to your business and/or products a certain amount of times. On that same note, you don’t want to use the keywords too many times as it will appear that your only concern is search engine notice and not the attention of the customer.

Once you have made your site search engine friendly, you will want to move on to the concept of cross-linking or backlinks. This is the act of getting your site name and address on other relevant sites around the web. You can do this by a number of methods. You can merely ask other sites to swap site links with you. Also, you can write articles about your product or services and give them away on several article sites around the web, with the condition that your backlink be left on the article. That way, every time someone uses the article, you will get a backlink.

Once you get all this done, you will begin to see a steady rise in your customers. Your business will grow constantly, if you go about this in the correct manner. If you aren’t technically-oriented, there are several businesses out there that do web design and web marketing for affordable prices. If you want your business to grow beyond what your local community can provide, online advertising and marketing is the route for you.

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Graphic designers now need to be knowledgeable advertisers aside from creative artists. Fortunately, this fusion of artistry and advertisement may be easier achieved than you would think.

There is art in the science of marketing. Through using concepts of an established art style, graphic artists and Web designers can be marketer in part, as their common tasks entail. Minimalism is one such style the concepts of which would apply effectively in marketing.

Minimalism Applied to Marketing
Minimalism is a post-modern art style embracing simplicity and advocating clean, straightforward designs. “Less is more” is the artistic dogma of minimalists, and minimal designs in interior decor, art, and graphics – when done with sufficient acuity – are a pleasure to behold. But beyond just employing minimalist art in ad design, using its very concepts in advertising can help make today’s artist-contractor become a marketer.

Minimalism Concept 1: Less is More
A sound minimalist practice calls for breaking the design. This entails subtracting elements from a design until it breaks or can no longer deliver what or how it was supposed to. Through breaking the design, you effectively take out superfluous elements and retain essential ones. This concept can be applied not just to design, but also to sales pitches and ideas. The main goal is the same: communicating through a succinct medium. In design, the medium is a collage of graphics and art, in a tagline or sales pitch, the medium is the culmination of ideas presented by words.

Want to say your lifestyle diet supplement can provide the slim and supple female form your female demographic craves? Don’t go verbatim. Connect your diet supplement to sexiness.

Obviously, you need to mention your product. You also need to mention the end result which is practically the unique selling proposition (USP) of your pitch. What’s important is that there are as few elements, or in this case words and concepts, between your product and USP:

‘A sexy figure from healthy eating: insert supplement name here.’

You started with the USP, which is what your demographic wants, therefore maximizing your pitch’s impact. You ended with your product after building suspense with a simple break offered by a colon. Placing your product name at the end of a short pitch ensures a reader doesn’t look away before finishing reading. It also increases recall as the last thing a reader sees is your product’s name. You took what you wanted to say, decided on three elements to include in your pitch (your USP, your brand, and what bridges them), and left out the rest.

Minimalist Concept 2: Negative Space
Negative or white space in minimalist design pertains to blank areas in a design canvas. For print design, anywhere without print is negative space. The initial reaction to negative space is that it’s a waste of money. After all, you’re paying for all that space, why not use as much of it as you can?

Negative space helps bring design elements into more prominence. It also keeps the overall design uncluttered. The marketing lessons therefore translate to
1. Draw more attention to advertisement elements that need attention, and
2. Promote a cleaner, more professional corporate image (branding).

Wisely used white space is not wasteful.

Minimalist Concept 3: Fewer Colors
Minimalism advocates the use of fewer colors in design. For advertising, this works brilliantly in tandem with using the psychological associations of color. The fewer the colors, the better a design can communicate the subtle and psychological influences of the colors used. The most important color considerations are the background and foreground colors, or the predominant background color and the text color.

Background colors, taking up a lot of space, can subconsciously set the mood of an advertisement. Foreground colors, on the other hand, promote cognition and recall, both of which are important in marketing.

Stick to a single color background, if possible, and one that sets an appropriate mood for your advertisement – a passionate shade of red for energetic ads or a sunny yellow for bright ones. For foreground colors, use high contrast colors that work well with the background color or image. High contrast colors stimulate cognition better, especially when in good contrast with its background. Avoid any color pitfalls like using red when talking about money (a negative financial connotation) and blue when talking about food (unappetizing).

Advantages of Minimalist Marketing
Aside from inherent advantages of minimalist marketing in practice, there are other consequential advantages that you can benefit from in using this approach:

Improved brevity and impact for a more modern sales pitch – In a world consumed with keeping pace, people are not only used to tuning out useless advertisements, they also don’t have the time to puzzle through advertisement designs and cryptic sales pitches. A minimalist approach to marketing from design to sales pitch gives your advertisement a brevity- and impact boost suitable for a modern age of hustle and bustle.

Decreased risk of overwhelming your target market – Choice paralysis is the ironic phenomenon where consumers tend not to choose any of a plethora of options when made readily available. Too many choices end up confusing them. This is also true in design. Too many graphical and attention-grabbing elements that clash with each other can overwhelm your target market. Instead of increasing recall for your product or service, your advertisement backfires.

Application of neuro-marketing – Minimalism’s concepts can help infuse your advertising campaign with effective neuro-marketing. Proper use of negative space in getting attention and assisting branding and the use of background and foreground colors to affect mood, cognition, and recall are some examples. Better yet, a minimalist approach to marketing lets you employ neuro-marketing in a straightforward manner.

Cost-effective and practical – Being minimal in all aspects of advertising and design, you tend to save on marketing campaign costs. You can save money from not using too many ink colors in your ads and time from not taking too long to design and tweak layer after layer of graphics.

Graphic and Web artists, a great number of them independent contractors, need marketing skill sets required by most of their clients. Owners of small and medium businesses usually hire Web designers, graphic artists, Web masters, and content providers when setting up their websites. They discuss what they need and expect it done with a degree of professional prowess. Not a lot of people hire ‘artists’ per se; they hire ‘designers’ who know how to design to sell. Requisites for a graphic and Web designer’s success now include advertising know how and marketing prowess aside from artistic skill and creative talent. For the multitudes of graphic designers-cum-marketers out there, a minimalist approach to marketing just might work perfectly.

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Your prospects must follow a process that will lead them to purchasing your products in the end, as if this was an obvious conclusion.

You have to touch their emotions with your words. You cannot simply present your products’ features. Focus on the benefits your prospects will get when using these products. Understand their feelings, eliminate their fears. Make them feel that you know what they need.

Write as if you are addressing only one person, so that your words will communicate in a personal way. Your words must trigger the necessary emotions that will persuade your reader to take action. However, your attempt to induce him or her to do what you want must be hidden. This way, your reader will believe that he/she has concluded that you have offered the best solution for his problem, or that you will give him the necessary tools to achieve his goals.

Your position must seem to be neutral and informative, but all the while you will be gradually leading your prospect to take the action you desire, without it being a ‘hard sell’. Your reader should not feel that you are selling him something, but that he is very lucky because he has found a very smart solution that will really change his life.

Your headlines in ads and sales letters are very important. They must incite curiosity and promise great satisfaction. At the same time, they have to be very clear. For example: ‘Carefree Low Calorie Diet – Healthy and Tasty Recipes’. With this headline you are painlessly solving a problem. At the same time, you are explaining very clearly to your reader that your solution for losing weight is a series of healthy recipes, which are tasty. By showing him/her that this is a happy experience, and not a painful one, you immediately eliminate all fears. You are also explaining that this is a diet based on healthy recipes with low calories. He/she will lose weight by eating only low-fat foods. This will be a painless experience though, because your recipes are tasty.

When writing sales letters you should use one of the most successful copywriting techniques, based on telling a story to the reader. This story must be very personal, and related to the reader’s psychology. Always use the word “you”, as it intimately relates to the reader. Show great concern about your reader’s problem or ambition. Your mission is to give the reader the satisfaction they are searching for without imposing your points of view, and yet invisibly influencing their decisions.

Copywriting must necessarily be part of your marketing strategies. You will surely make money online if you implement very persuasive copywriting techniques. They will help you improve your ads and sales letters, thus generating a high conversion rate.

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