Entries by Darren Stevens

Come and see us at the Gloucestershire Business Show

The countdown is well and truly on for this year’s Gloucestershire Business Show on the 17th and 18th May at The Centaur, Cheltenham Racecourse – 9.30am-4pm each day. This has got to be the biggest and best business event in the county now in its third year – with over 140 exhibitors, a number of special themed areas, workshops, seminars and a number of networking opportunities.

You can book free delegate tickets here. A full programme for the event can be viewed here.

We will be exhibiting at the show and you will find us on stand GD4. Why should you come and visit us at the show?

A great opportunity to meet the team.
Bring your Marketing or PR questions or problems for FREE advice on the stand.
Take our 20 point Marketing healthcheck to see how fit for purpose your marketing is. To avoid disappointment, please book your slot in advance through the Contact Us form on this website specifying a preferred date and time.
Enter our FREE Business Card Draw to win either a FREE half day of Marketing Consultancy or a Hamper packed full of Gloucestershire food and drink items – celebrating the county’s rich heritage in this sector.
Pick up a FREE Prestbury Marketing pad and FREE Chocolate Orange bar (well our brand is orange!)

Did you know?

Prestbury Marketing came up with the idea for the Gloucestershire Business Show due to a growing annoyance amongst its business to business clients that to attend a business exhibition, they either had to to go Swindon, Bristol or even further afield. Having planted the seed of the idea with Pete Allison at a Circle 2 Success event at The Daffodil, he picked up on the idea and ran with it.

Come and see us

So what are you waiting for? Book your place and call in and see us on stand GD4.

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What to do when Marketing goes wrong ……

In the ideal world, everything you ever do on the Marketing front will be a rip roaring success. But from time to time things can go wrong for even the best marketers – but then is the time for a calm head and to ask yourself some questions (or ask somebody like us), to help […]

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You have a website, so what …………. next?

Our top 10 tips for making sure you make the most out of your website and what it can do for your business. The chances are that if you are reading this and you either work in a business or run a business yourself, then that business will have a website. The possible exceptions might […]

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Our Marketing predictions for 2017

As we approach 2017, here are our 12 predictions for the Marketing industry in 2017.

1. The percentage share of Marketing budgets devoted to some form of digital marketing will increase.

2. There will be a rush to make website https as Chrome rolls out its planned changes to mark non secure websites as insecure.

3. The importance of social media will increase, but the market will also become more fragmented, with the dominance of the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin becoming increasingly challenged (very much a continuation of 2016).

4. More and more businesses will adopt content marketing as they strive to increase traffic to their websites.

5. Demand for experienced Marketing staff will climb, outstripping supply and leading to more firms to “grow their own”.

6. Integrated marketing, will become the norm – with less and less businesses running marketing or campaigns in silos.

7. Businesses will devote more time and energy to their full digital presence, not just their website and will strive for a more consistent brand image.

8. Economic uncertainty will prevail driving businesses to source suppliers locally.

9. Customer expectations will continue to climb and the gulf between expectations and reality will grow wider. This will drive more firms to measure customer experience and invest in training and technology to improve results.

10. Pressure on marketing budgets will increase the focus on customer retention, cross selling and improving conversion rates on new enquiries.

11. Businesses will place an increased importance on customer and prospect data. Ensuring it is up-to-date, complete and increasingly segmented.

12. Growing numbers of businesses will turn to outsourced providers to supplement existing resources or skills (well you would expect us to say that wouldn’t you?)

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2016 – a month by month guide to what happened

In a year of such major political events, it is all too easy to overlook some of the main events in the world of marketing. We list here a light hearted look at twelve marketing things that happened in 2016 – one for each month of the year. January John Cleese returned as Basil Fawlty […]

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The power of Social Media

Social media isn’t just there to grow your brand and connect with old friends, when done correctly, the big platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Instagram can play a key role in creating new business leads and attracting new customers.

Let’s take a look at how Trumps triumphant yet surprising win in the USA presidency last week has been marked as ‘the first true social media election’ of all time. We know that social media is forever growing in users; since the USA election in 2012, Facebook now boasts more than 60% monthly active users along with Twitter’s influx of more than 185 million users. This substantial increase in active users made social media the obvious option for reaching voters and creating global conversation. The Wall Street Journal summed the situation up nicely when it said the “traditional media” and the Democratic and Republican parties have lost “dominance” of public opinion to the “digital revolution.”

Trump and Clinton succeeded by getting people to talk both about and with them. Both candidates had an on-going relay in campaign messaging, barely missing a day without updating Twitter. The power of social media has had a similarly positive impact on helping businesses create leads and reach new consumers, just like Trump and Clinton searching for voters. We see typically between 5% and 15% of our clients web traffic coming from social media to see whether you are achieving this you do of course have to monitor the evaluation tools of each form of social media and google analytics.

Some of the key features on social media can allow businesses to create free engaging content, set up paid for adverts, upload 360 degree imagery and post live footage in order to potentially reach thousands and thousands of people.

We’ve listed a few pointers to help your business shine on social media:

1. Keep content regular – It is important that you’re constantly posting on social media, we don’t mean every minute of everyday but enough to ensure your business is being seen and your content is fresh in users mind.

It can take a little while for you to build social media followers, it never happens in an instant but the more engaging content you upload the more interaction you are likely to receive thus driving website traffic and increasing likes, comments, click through’s and shares. Focus also on growing a relevant audience and not just chasing numbers for numbers sake.

What level of frequency should you aim for? We suggest you begin sharing up to two Facebook posts, 10 – 30 tweets and 3 – 5 Instagram posts a week.

2. Be engaging – The most engaging content on social media requires images, videos, links and graphics to be uploaded with your posts. This will increase the chances of your content being seen as users are more likely to interact and click play to watch short videos than they are to engage with words on there own.

3. Do your research – These days you’ll find the majority of businesses are using social media and moving their marketing budget towards digital and social media advertising but we are a big believers in doing research first, then testing and evaluating..

We recommend you distinguish where your audience is online, what platforms do they use? What is their daily routine, the times when they are online? Can you find key hashtags being used in your industry? Are there any popular conversations or weekly Twitter chats you can join in on?

4. Stay connected and honest – As well as posting your own content and driving traffic to your website, the key to creating new business leads on social media is to keep up to date with users in your industry, stay connected, follow competitors and find the top influencers that can help your content be seen by others.

Building an honest and positive brand reputation online is crucial. Once your live on social media pretty much all your content can be seen, reviews can be read and follower stats can be found. Consumers look at social media accounts when deciding on a purchase, make sure you are delivering content that says what’s exactly on the tin. Also finally, don’t forget the value and benefit of watching social media, it is not just enough to post and share, you need to respond to and interact with your customers.

We offer various levels of social media management as well as social media training, so if your social media marketing could do with a boost please get in touch.

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HTTPS – Is the answer for you – Yes, No or When?

Last month Chrome came out and announced that all websites that are not HTTPS, will from January next year start to be flagged by them as not secure if the sites either require passwords or take credit card details. The move has been designed to “encourage” firms with HTTP sites to turn them into HTTPS ones.

The motivation for this announcement was to quote Chrome to “help users browse the web safely” and part of “a long-term plan to mark all HTTP sites as non-secure.” So in time this will affect all HTTP sites and not just those that take passwords or credit card details. Below is how Chrome will eventually flag up all HTTP pages.

So exactly what is the difference between a HTTPS or HTTP site? If a website is not HTTPS, it is not secured and it is possible for someone else to interfere with the website before you see it. For a long time, only websites with serious security concerns bothered to get a certificate (which is what sits behind a HTTPS website) – for example businesses taking payments or banks allowing people to log into their accounts, but HTTPS sites have become increasingly common.

From enquiries we have been making to web companies on behalf of clients, changing your site from an HTTP site to become HTTPS is nowhere near as big a deal as it was for example to make a non mobile site, mobile friendly. It is an additional cost however and yet another thing to add to your growing “to do list”.

Is it worthwhile making it the change? We think so. No-one yet knows how the general public will react to these changes, but it is likely to put many users off and that cannot be a good thing for your website. If that were not reason enough it is a widely held view in the Search Engine Optimisation community that making your website HTTPS will give it a google ranking boost as well. So all in all, it probably is really a question not of yes or no but when.

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When Adidas compares TV advertising to the fax – should we all listen?

Marketing Week Magazine has this week reported on the fact that the snappily titled Adidas “global head of digital ecosystem design” David Greenfield, has compared TV advertising to the fax. Clearly a damming and unwelcome comparison for TV advertising, but is it a viewpoint that all marketers should listen to?

According to Thinkbox (the marketing body for commercial TV in the UK), TV advertising revenue in the UK totalled £5.27 billion in 2015, up 7.4% on 2014. This is the sixth consecutive year that TV advertising revenue has grown in the UK. Forecasts suggest however that digital advertising will overtake TV advertising for the first time in 2017.

TV viewing figures are also on the up, with first half of 2016 figures showing that commercial TV viewing on TV sets had increased for individuals, ABC1 adults and 16-34s.

Yes, the TV market and the way in which we consume media means that audiences are fragmented, but this has also brought TV advertising into the reach of many brands that could not have otherwise considered it. The fragmentation has enabled talented media types to really focus targeting on the desired audience and technological innovation means personalised ads are becoming a reality.

David Greenfield though didn’t hold back with his views – “Of course TV still has a place but the fax machine still has a place too and I’m not about to create a fax machine marketing strategy. Digital is the most relevant channel for our audience.” This viewpoint led the brand to concentrate its spend on social media marketing rather than TV.

Does TV advertising still have a place? I would suggest the answer to this is yes, but it will have to continue fight a rearguard action and innovate to mimic further the targeting and measurement capabilities of digital marketing. TV can be great for brand awareness and direct response, but will always be innaccessible for many and struggle to match the flexibility and speed of movement possible with digital marketing.

We live in interesting times when it comes to the options available to businesses and their marketing budgets. The basic fundamentals do not change though. Any Marketing will struggle unless you are clear on who is your target audience and what your proposition is. Businesses can also improve the chances of making the right choices by making sure that they have the measurements in place to understand where business is coming from. Anyone in need of a fax marketing strategy? Perhaps not.

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