Some essential pieces of advice include:

• Choose a communicable domain name – try to avoid anything that requires spelling or explanation to be understood.
• Consider using a keyword in the domain name – potential clients may not know to search for your brand or company name, and will just search for the product type e.g. “wedding invitations”.
• Diarise the renewal date for your domain name – if you forget to renew, the hosting of your site may lapse leaving your page blank, effectively rendering your site useless. One strategy is to register long term where possible.
• Ensure any updated documents are uploaded to the same address for consistency – for instance if you update your company profile (previously found at http//www.yourdomain.com/companyprofile.pdf) make sure the new version is uploaded with the exact same title to the same location.
• Begin to consider IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) integration for your site – the internet currently predominately uses IPv4 to allocate internet addresses, which carries four billion separate address and is predicted to run out of available addresses sometime next year. IPv6 was devised in 1996 and can provide 340 trillion trillion trillion separate addresses. One of the issues with the IPv6 rollout however, is that any updated hardware with an IPv6 address will not be able to access a website that only has IPv4 connectivity. As handheld devices and desktop computers are increasingly using IPv6 connectivity, this may be something for you to check with your web designer.

To find out more about online presence management, email dcq@claritymarketing.com.au or call Deborah on 0411 139 881.

Set a SMART objective

1. Specific- have a clear and concise aim e.g. a 5% increase in enquires.
2. Measurable- ensure it is something that can be evaluated.
3. Attainable- it needs to be an outcome legitimately achievable.
4. Realistic- with the available money, time and resources.
5. Timed- it needs to be bound within a particular time frame.

Identify the target clients

1. Any generic traits that identify them as a group: e.g. business problems, lifestyles,  aspirations, attitudes, priorities and perceptions.
2. Any potential barriers or risks for the client.
3. The potential motivations that will encourage them.

Take stock of competitors and yourself

1. What are they doing in terms of advertising and promotion?
2. What are the particular fields of service/product that they dominate?
3. What do you offer that they don’t? That is, what can you promise to the client that your competitor cannot?
4. What is your position in the market?

Design Specifications

1. The tone, manner and feeling you wish to convey.
2. Any supporting material you have to assist in the creative process (e.g. editorials, testimonials etc.).
3. Any themes or suggestions such as tag lines, slogans, logos, visions or directions.
4. The exact amount that you have budgeted to spend on this particular project.

Putting together a brief that covers off on all of these topics is important. Include any other details that you consider to be important or relevant for the designer to know. If you need any advice on putting together a marketing plan or an advertising brief for you business contact Deborah from Clarity Marketing on 0411 139 881 or email dcq@claritymarketing.com.au.

Headings with impact

Your heading needs to stand out and capture your market’s attention so they don’t just place your hard work and money straight into the bin. Try making your heading witty, personal or a direct question, such as “Do you know the value of direct mail outs?”

Body of the text

Don’t just talk about what you offer; talk about the benefits of what you are offering. It is also important to make the text easy to read and to the point.

Strong call to action and visible contact details

Offer something in your call to action – don’t just say “call or email now”. The customers need to know the benefit gained if they contact you. It is a good idea to offer a promotion or special price here or to make the consumer feel like they need to call. Use bold or larger font along with active, urgent language. Make sure that your contact details (phone number, email, website) all stand out and can clearly be read.

Testimonials are great to include

Potential customers will take the opinion of a third party much more seriously than your own opinion of your business. Wherever possible use images of your happy customers to support the testimonials.

Strategic use of images and colour

It has been proven that colour makes an advertisement look more professional and will be more likely to be read. Also, try using different paper types, envelopes and shapes; all of these things will be much more aesthetically appealing than black text on plain white paper. Use images that will capture your customer’s attention or that will highlight what you have to offer. Don’t forget to include your logo.

Targeted distribution

Send your direct mail piece to qualified recipients: commonly a business’ existing clients, or potential clients with similar demographics to your current database. You are able to specifically target the demographics of your ideal customers, for example if you own a lawn mowing business you would target suburban houses with lawns rather than city apartment blocks. It also provides opportunity for more specific measurements and analytics of distribution and response. It is important to remember to write in a language that will suit your target market.

If you would like to find out more about creating the perfect direct mail piece or for marketing advice for your business please contact Deborah from Clarity Marketing on 0411 139 881 or email dcq@claritymarketing.com.au

• Allow employees to bond,
• Teach new skills or ideals for use within the company,
• Introduce new initiatives and manage change,
• Reduce stress within the workplace, and
• To thank the team for all their hard work.

It’s important to consider the variety of options available and to decide which is the most beneficial to your employees and suitable for the purpose of the event. For example, if it is to de-stress and congratulate your team for a hard year of work before the Christmas break, it’s much better to have drinks and a nice dinner than it is to play leadership and team building exercises. While it is easy to host your event at the workplace, it is a great idea to go out into fresh surroundings. Some ideas for team events include:

• Karaoke – this encourages people to let go of their inhibitions and have fun by stepping outside of their comfort zone.
• Laser Tag – people increase their team/ work skills as they have to work together, this reflects back to team work in the office.
• Dinner and Drinks – Kick back, let your hair down and don’t talk about work. This gives your employees a chance to build on their relationships with one another.
• Building and Construction events – these require employees to work together and achieve a common purpose.

Fun team building events can recharge and motivate your employees. Not only do they enjoy it and have a great time but it can also benefit the working environment; which can result in a happier and more efficient team.

To find out more about organising a great team event that suits your workplace contact Deborah from Clarity Marketing on 0411 139 881 or email  info@claritymarketing.com.au

People purchase products or services for three basic reasons:

To satisfy basic needs
To solve problems
To make themselves feel good

You’ll need to determine which of those categories (there may be more than one) your product or service is the solution to, and be prepared to market it accordingly. Remember, you can’t be everything to everyone, so refine your products or services and become a specialist in your niche area!

The best way to market to your target market is through Market Segmentation. This includes determining geographically who you will be selling to – will you sell Internationally, Nationally or Locally? Once you have determined this you will then need to research the ‘demographics’ of the population in the region you are targeting, such as:

• Age: children, teens, young, middle, elderly
• Gender: male, female
• Education: high school, college, university
• Income: low, medium, high
• Marital status: single, married, divorced
• Ethnic and/or religious background
• Family life cycle: newly married, married for 10 – 20 years, with or without children.

This information should be available to you through your local town hall, library or Chamber of Commerce – and the more detail you can get, the better.

Next, you need to segment the market further using ‘psychographics’ as your guide:

• Lifestyle: conservative, exciting, trendy, economical
• Social class: lower, middle, upper
• Opinion: easily led or opinionated
• Activities and interests: sports, physical fitness, shopping, books
• Attitudes and beliefs: environmentalist, security conscious

If you are targeting businesses you’ll also need to consider the types of industries available to you and details such as number of employees, annual sales volume, and company stability. In addition, you might want to find out how they purchase: seasonally, locally, only in volume and who makes the decisions? It is important to note that businesses, unlike individuals, buy products or services for three reasons only:

To increase revenue
To maintain the status quo or
To decrease expenses

If you fill one or more of these corporate needs, you may have found a target market. Often prospective customers don’t know about your company, or can’t tell the difference between your company and others. It is your job, once you know who your best customers are, to ‘target’ the group that you’ve identified – even if you have competition.

If you’d like to identify your target market or for any other marketing advice and services contact Deborah from Clarity Marketing on 0411 139 881 or email info@claritymarketing.com.au

As you can see from the diagram below, organic rankings appear on the left hand side of your search result, underneath the sponsored (paid) links. The aim of SEO is to make it easier for potential clients to find your website when searching and maximise the number of targeted visitors. A well optimised site is seen to be the most relevant to the keywords that users have searched by. Essentially, the better your site is optimised, the higher your organic ranking will be.

Ways to optimise your site include:

• Regularly review the content of your website to keep it fresh and up-to-date. The more relevant the content, the greater visibility your site will have.
• Create a blog that is regularly updated with topical articles. It is important to ensure that any content you publish includes the keywords you aim to be ranked for.
• Link building. Your ranking can be boosted if you have a healthy number of others websites linking to your site. Target sites that have a similar client base to yours – not necessarily the same product but the same type of customers – and offer a reciprocal arrangement where you place a link to their website on your site and they return the favour.

There is value in pursuing SEO in conjunction with, or instead of, Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising for a number of reasons.

• As some potential customers place greater trust in organic results over paid results.
• Organic listings allow you to own more of the page. PPC Ads only provide one listing per keyword search, whereas your website may showing listings organically.
• While there are costs to update and maintain you site, SEO costs can be considerably less than the costs of PPC advertising.
• SEO boosts your sites overall relevancy and produces long-term results. The effects of PPC are immediate and if you stop, your visibility will almost instantly decrease.
• SEO can provide you with multiple listings for one search term, where PPC can usually only provide one listing for any one search term.

If you’d like to find out about how to introduce an SEO campaign to your website contact Deborah from Clarity Marketing on 0411 139 881 or email info@claritymarketing.com.au