It was with more than a little sadness we heard on Wednesday of the decision to stop publishing The Gloucestershire Echo and Gloucester Citizen as daily newspapers and instead to publish them as a weekly paper. Now to put this into context I am of a generation that I still recall as a child rushing […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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?)
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 for a TV advert for Specsavers.
February
Google stopped showing adverts on the right hand side of search results.
March
21st March Twitter celebrated its 10th birthday.
April
Facebook announced major news feed algorithm changes.
May
The Content Marketing Association unveiled a forecast that UK businesses spend on Content Marketing will increase by 179% to £349m by 2020.
June
27th June – England vs Iceland – The most tweeted about TV event of the year with 2.1 million tweets
July
13th July – Pokemon Go was first released in the UK and high street brands were quick to try and make the most of the phenomenon.
August
The domain .blog first became available.
September
8th September – Chrome announces that from January 2017 it will start to mark websites that are not https as insecure.
October
Tesco and Unilever have their very public spat over pricing that saw Marmite come out as the big PR winners.
November
11th November Buster became a household name, featuring in the John Lewis Christmas advert for 2016.
December
Amazon launches its own food label brand – Wickedly Prime.
Here at Prestbury Marketing we have always been firm believers that businesses should play an active role in supporting their local communities. This belief is not just based upon a gut feel that it is the right thing to do, but more the fact that we believe that “doing good is good for business”. The proof in the pudding is that several of our clients have come to us through a mutual involvement in supporting a charity or cause. We also find that the support we give boosts our profile significantly.
One of the causes that we support at this time of year is Hamper Scamper, a gift and food hamper collection and distribution appeal organised by our charity client County Community Projects (CCP). The appeal has gone from strength to strength. The origins of Hamper Scamper go back to 2007 when Zurich, a charity partner of CCP asked them for their help in organising a food donation collection amongst staff to give to local disadvantaged people. They collected enough food for 10 hampers that CCP distributed for Zurich. Fast forward to 2016 and CCP collected hundreds of gifts for children in the county that might not otherwise have received a Christmas present. They also collected enough food to make up hampers for over 1,100 families or individuals who in one way or another are struggling.
Thanks to amazing support from The Regents Arcade and Cheltenham Borough Council, the home for this year’s appeal was the former BHS store in the arcade. The venue was ideal, not least because of the increased visibility it gave to the appeal but also the large area it offered to work in. The Prestbury Marketing team were fortunate enough to be invited along to help for half a day this week, joining our clients Officeworx and Smart Computers. It was a hard working, non stop morning of filling large Hamper Scamper boxes with food items, to keep up with the constant stream of volunteers and community groups, calling in to collect their hampers for distribution to the disadvantaged. It was also incredibly rewarding and satisfying to see the sheer scale of generosity of individuals, organisations and businesses that had donated food items. We were delighted to have donated a car load of items that we purchased for the appeal as well as a collection from our recent business breakfast that all the attendees generously contributed to.
We were also delighted to see many of our clients supporting the appeal. We have already mentioned Officeworx and Smart Computers, but we also know that Printwaste Recycling and Shredding, Circle 2 Success, Questline and The Royal Oak to name just a few, also got behind the appeal.
Hamper Scamper is a great way to support your local community and the team behind it, ably led by CCP’s Chris Knight deserve huge praise. We only hope they get the sense of satisfaction of a job well done – they deserve it. It is great to know that this Christmas for over a thousand families, will be a brighter and happier one as a result of Hamper Scamper.
If your business is looking to get involved in your community or to adopt a charitable cause, we can help guide you through the process, to make it as easy as possible and to maximise the benefit of the arrangement for both parties. You can find out more about this service here.
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 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 […]
When two mega brands like Unilever and Tesco clash, it is always going to be interesting and this week was no exception. Both brands hit the headlines this week, prompted by an attempt by Unilever to raise the wholesale prices it charges Tesco by about 10% of some of its household name brands (Hellmans Mayonnaise, […]
With over one billion users worldwide and continuous updates to its core features, LinkedIn remains the go-to platform for professionals looking to connect, learn, and grow their businesses. Long gone are the days when it was just a platform to find your next job. But with ever-evolving algorithm updates and shifts in user behaviour, making […]