BCTC Forum – Bringing Businesses and Charities Together

Posted on by Richard Milton

Local businesses are invited to this Bournemouth Chamber of Trade and Commerce Forum in conjunction with Bournemouth and Poole CVS on June 27th.

Taking place at St Francis of Assisi Church, this is a chance for Businesses and Charities to meet to discuss how they can work together.

By you answering the registration questions on the Eventbrite booking form below we will endeavour to ‘match’ your Business with a not for profit group in attendance so you can have a meaningful and productive conversation at the event.

Please complete the questions in as much detail as possible to help us organise this event.

To book your place please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bctc-forum-invitation-to-business-sector-bringing-businesses-and-charities-together-tickets-60570015547

8 ways to measure, monitor & enhance your marketing!

Posted on by Richard Milton

There are so many readily available systems and processes for you to use when measuring, monitoring and enhancing your marketing impact. Some examples include:

• Adding a web analytics tool e.g. Google Analytics to your website to track and monitor your website performance. Are you reaching the right audience and are they engaging with your site?

• Monitoring the performance of your keywords for your website to ensure your Search Engine performance is optimised. Do you appear high enough in google so that your customers will find you?

• Using an email based system e.g. Mailchimp that allows you to monitor your email open rates, click through rates, unsubscribes etc. Do your subscribers respond to your emails or one type of email campaign compared to another?

• Monitoring your social media demographics and engagement levels. Do your followers match your target audience? Which channel is more effective for brand building vs sales generation? What posts are more effective than other posts e.g. image driven vs video based?

• Conducting Net Promotor Score (NPS) research to understand your customers loyalty to your business. Are they willing to recommend your business to their family and friends?

• Adding UTM tracking codes to your digital advertising, social media activity or email campaigns. How do the different channels drive traffic to your website? Which channel is more effective? How does one advertising media e.g. Google paid ads compared to ads you run for example on Facebook?

• Using a CRM system to record and monitor customer engagement and sales. What approaches generate the most leads and which of these turn into paying customers?

• You can use the same CRM data to explore which customers are the most important to your business? What characteristics do this customers share and how can you find more businesses or individuals who share the same characteristics to help drive forward your business?

Measure4success blog

Measure4success is the blog for e-nexus Ltd.  We are a Bournemouth based Marketing consultancy specialising in Strategic Marketing Planning and Performance Measurement.  Learn more about what we do and how we can support your business by emailing info@e-nexus.co.uk or by visiting our website at www.e-nexus.co.uk

Let’s Make Tax Digital

Posted on by Steve Bicknell

Making Tax Digital for VAT has started, all VAT registered Business with a turnover above the £85k threshold will either join MTD from the first month or quarter (depending on whether you do quarterly or monthly VAT returns) starting after 1st April 2019 or for those qualifying for the deferred period, they will start in first month or quarter after the 1st October 2019 (its estimated only 3.5% of VAT registered business qualify for the deferred period).

In  the UK there are 2.7m VAT registered businesses, 1.8m have been filing via the HMRC portal and 1.2m businesses are over the VAT threshold. VAT generates 21% of the UK’s tax.

The portal will no longer be available for those who are within the scope of MTD and as a result 89% of businesses will have to change the way they file VAT.

Under MTD you have to file using approve API compliant software https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDGxLwEc1OM&feature=youtu.be

Many businesses will find that their software is not compliant and as result will choose to either change/upgrade or use Bridging software. Bridging Software is often spreadsheet based and with either import CSV/Excel files from your current system or allow you to set up formulae to link data and create the necessary digital links to pull data through to the return for submission.

Over the last couple of years I have been training accountants and more recently multi million large business in how they can meet the new MTD requirements.

Even though businesses may have some pain in order to change, in the long term MTD is expected to help business and HMRC to become more efficient and reduce errors.

Is your business ready for MTD?

 

 

 

Marketing is so much more than promotion

Posted on by Richard Milton

No matter the size of your business every penny you spend & every hour you commit to your marketing has to count towards you achieving your business goals.

Promotion is an important part in your marketing efforts but ‘effective marketing’, the entire marketing that satisfies the needs of your customers is so much more. You can have a great promotional campaign but if your product or service isn’t wanted or you are charging prices that are above what your target customers will pay then it will struggle to deliver.

 

To have ‘effective marketing’ you need to consider a wider range of factors than just promotion. Much of it isn’t difficult with the result being that it can transform the impact of your marketing. Here are just a few ideas:

• Start with product. Give customers what they need not what you think they need. Think wider than the actual product – consider the other features that surround your product – delivery methods and times, guarantees, installations, refunds, exchange policies – all of which can make your product or service more attractive.

• Speak to your customers. Ask them what they need and want from you. Find out what they think of your product or service and how it can be improved.

• Ask your customers for reviews. If they are liking what you do then encourage them to share with others what they think of your product and to post reviews on-line.

• Regularly monitor your sector and competitors. Consider how tastes are changing or new products are being launched and adapt where necessary.

• Make it easy for people to acquire your product. That maybe how they can find you or buy your product on-line. Make sure your website is mobile responsive and is search engine optimised.

• Develop your team. Ensure that everyone who works for you has great knowledge about your business and offer. Ensure they also have the right attitude & provide the level of service your customers would expect.

• Be responsive to your customers. Ensure you follow up on enquiries quickly – not many buy products or services from a company they have had to chase or have had to wait a long time to respond.

• Deal with customer complaints well. No doubts you have all had customers who haven’t been completely satisfied but how you deal and resolve their compliant will make all the difference to whether they buy from you again or recommend you to others.

• Measure, measure, measure. If you don’t measure your marketing you can’t understand, control or improve it. Use tools such as Google Analytics to see how well your website is working, monitor your email performance or conduct market research to understand what your target audience think about you and your product or service.

About the author

Richard Milton is founder of e-nexus Ltd – a Marketing Consultancy based in Bournemouth specialising in Strategic Marketing Planning and Performance Measurement. He is a career long marketer holding numerous senior marketing positions throughout his 20+ years in the profession.

Describing himself as a marketing strategist, Richard spends his time working with business owners, managers and marketers to help them improve their marketing decisions, investments and impact by connecting data, insight and creativity alongside his strategic experience.