Category: Marketing

There are a few ways a start-up or SME can distinguish itself from the masses in a crowded market, but perhaps one of the most the effective, certainly the most cost effective, is to sell yourself alongside your product.

Nigel Botterill, the UK entrepreneur and marketing expert who has established five million pound businesses, including the UK’s leading franchise company, Thebestof, and has been responsible for setting up over 2000 people in business since 2004 shares some of his top Twitter tips to help you and your business maximise the platform.

The big search engine news this month has been the launch of Google Instant. We spoke to online marketing specialist Gareth Morgan to put into context what the change means for businesses which use the web to market their products.

Getting your business exposure is key to healthy sales and steady growth. However, for an SME or start-up with a limited budget, decent coverage is hard to come by. That said, there are a number of ways to successfully market your business on a tight budget, and through this series of columns I aim to highlight the myriad effective yet budget-conscious ways to raise your business’ profile and, ultimately, boost sales.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is extending its remit to cover the online realm, and so online marketing and ads will, from 1 March 2011, be subject to the same strict advertising rules as traditional media.

Should you follow everyone who follows you? Which hashtags should you use for your business? And is it a bad idea to start a reply with the @ symbol? Twitter is a killer marketing tool, if you know how to use it!

Yell, the online telephone directory service, is to give a strong boost to small businesses in the UK by enabling targeted advertising on Facebook.

One of the world’s leading business networking gurus Dr Ivan Misner has hit out against the explosion of “premature solicitation” for work on social media websites by people who play the numbers game rather than cultivate relationships.

Businesses could be wasting thousands on unecessary social media training which teaches many employees what they already know and could simply work to fuel the fear that middle aged workers have towards social media, claim experts at online marketing consultancy E-mphasis.

Alibaba.com, the world’s leading small business e-commerce company, is inviting its users to audition their business for a starring role in its forthcoming high profile UK ad campaign.

Who’s worthy of going into your CRM system, Outlook, your mobile or your social network, etc.? What should be the criteria so you don’t end up with 500 e-mail addresses and can’t remember who half the people are?

The musician and entrepreneur Midge Ure will be headlining a show with a difference as the guest speaker at a business event to promote and inspire great leadership.