For most small businesses, budget is not the biggest challenge, focus is. When money is tight, every decision matters more. The goal is not to do more marketing, but to do the right marketing, consistently and deliberately. Here are the principles I use for my clients to keep costs low while still investing in what actually drives results: Be selective with advertising You do not need to be everywhere. Paid advertising should be intentional, targeted and constantly questioned. Before spending anything, ask: Who exactly is this for? What result do we realistically expect? Is this driving leads, learning, or just noise? Focusing on niche, relevant audiences almost always outperforms broad reach when budgets are limited. Keep the tools and subscriptions simple…

Investment in styling your products has never been so important.  When discussing content plans with clients it is natural to talk about themes and words before imagery but imagery is key and has been so important to our client Wipe Easy Tablecloths. Wipe Easy Tablecloths sell a large range of oilcloths and display all the designs in detail but it is the styling of those designs that help the buyer visualise the design in their homes.  You can see how this styled Christmas table setting image has helped to sell this design and has been a well worth investment. "For interiors it's all about the styled image" The styled image has appeared in many forms in a newsletter, on social…

SEO requires a medium to long-term approach, especially in a competitive marketplace. We work with a number of brands which compete online with major high street retailers, helping to achieve Google page 1 organic search results and better conversions from their online traffic. For these clients, we've applied sound online marketing and SEO techniques on a consistent basis over many months, targeting less competitive search terms to bring in short-term revenue while continuing to work for those high value but difficult search terms over the long-term. It's not easy, but the results are worth it.  Three of our SME clients now appear for key, high volume search terms above the likes of John Lewis on the search engine results page,…

The much anticipated rollout of Google's Penguin 4.0 arrived on 23rd September and we're already seeing the big changes in search results. Previous Penguin updates have taken place intermittently whereas this update is in real-time.  This means that if your site is properly optimised and well managed, you'll see the benefit more quickly.  You'll also see that penalties can be lifted more quickly. Of course, if there's a problem with your site, or you've got some poor quality links coming to it, you'll feel the pinch straight away.  (As always, Google is keen on clamping down on link spam with its latest Penguin update. It's likely that Google collects data from disavow information in order to automatically detect spam sites…

Norcott Technologies is one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of printed circuit boards.  The company is highly innovative and its products are used in a wide variety of applications, including the multi-billion pound Human Brain Project. We have been appointed to help spread the word about Norcott’s work through the creation of high quality content for their website, their customer newsletter and their company’s LinkedIn profile, as well as regional and industry media titles. The hope is that a consistent flow of good news stories will help to demonstrate Norcott’s commitment to quality, service and innovation, helping to reach new customers and bolster the workforce by attracting skilled employees. We work directly with Norcott’s senior management team to develop content…