ACPR Blog

Check in every week with ACPR to get new ideas to help you market your business. This week we’re looking at your marketing your business over the internet. This is the fastest growing way to reach new customers and one that you can’t afford to miss out on. Make the most of internet marketing to find new fans and see your business grow.

Think about the activities in the following list and consider which ones could work for your business. The key to internet marketing is little and often, so build your chosen activities into your marketing plan on a regular basis:

1. Articles – write and place on other sites with links back to your business
2. Blogging – regular entries can help with SEO as well as provide interesting content for readers
3. Podcasting – use sound recordings to interest a different group of people
4. Vodcasting – video is an additional element to add interest
5. Website design and content – these fundamentals are essential for marketing your business
6. SEO – learn as much as you can about search engine optimisation to help your business appear in natural search results
7. Pay per click – useful for getting your business seen in places you can’t reach with SEO or before SEO gets results
8. Link building - links in can help riase you up the search results, but make sure not all links are reciprocal
9. Viral campaign – hard to engineer, magic when it takes off
10. Free downloads – create great incentives to get people to share their email address with you
11. e-books – offer extras of value to subscribers
12. FAQs – great way to put your business messages across
13. Affiliate schemes – a way to reward and encuorage those who recommend you
14. BTTradespace – very useful site to increase your business reach

We’ll look at social networking for marketing later in this series. For more ideas to help your business grow, buy A Guide to Promoting Your Business: The Ultimate Workbook for Business Owners by Antonia Chitty.

Check in every week with ACPR to get new ideas to help you market your business. This week we’re looking at your marketing your business through events. Events are a great way to reach new audiences, build your company reptation and grow your list of interested potential customers as well as make sales. I’m aiming to speak at one event each month this year: what programme of events could help you grow your business? Think about the following sorts of events and start researching ones that you could attend:

1. Conferences
2. Exhibitions and trade fairs
3. Consumer exhibitions, fairs and fetes
4. Festivals
5. Speaking opportunities
6. Seminars
7. Workshops and small group events

Ask the organisers for details of the sort of person and numbers attending so you can weigh up if the event is right for you. Build the events into your marketing plan so you can plan in advance and make the most of them.For more ideas to help your business grow, buy A Guide to Promoting Your Business: The Ultimate Workbook for Business Owners by Antonia Chitty.

This month I have a selection of books for you to win to help you, whatever your plans for the year. Choose from a signed copy of ‘Happiness – it’s just a habit’ by Martine Brennan. It is a pocket sized 30 day plan to help you smile more and love your life. Or opt for ‘Ping – How to trap the power of traditional and social media to massively improve your profile and profits’ by Alan Stevens. Or try on of the fabulous ‘How to Books’ range, ‘Start and Run a Business from Home’ by Paul Power. Or go for ‘Work from Home’ by Judy Heminsley. Just put the title of the book you’d like in the subject line and send an email to antonia@acpr.co.uk by 15th February. To find out more about any of the books, browse through the book reviews on Family Friendly Working.

Check in every week with ACPR to get new ideas to help you market your business. This week we’re looking at your e-marketing. This is how you use email to sell your business to new and potential customers. Do you have a newsletter already? Have you got your latest offer in your signature? And how do you encourage people to sign up and subscribe? Have a look at the following list and mark the areas you need to work on. Build these into your marketing plan so you are making the most of email communication:

1. Sign up incentives to grow your contacts database
2. E-blasts: quick offers or snippets of information
3. Email signatures
4. E-newsletters: regular monthly or quarterly news and offers
5. E-vouchers: special discounts for subscribers

For more ideas to help your business grow, buy A Guide to Promoting Your Business: The Ultimate Workbook for Business Owners by Antonia Chitty

I’m speaking at an event in Westminster next month about flexible work, and am currently doing some research for it.

Could you fill in  a survey about flexible work … and please pass this on to friends

Find the survey here

Many thanks
Antonia

UK parents are leaving work due to the lack of flexible working opportunities available to them, according to a new survey for Family Friendly Working. The cost of childcare is also forcing parents to stay at home.

The survey reveals that just over a third (34.6%) of parents who had left work after having children had done so because of lack of flexible work opportunities. Three in 10 (30.7%) cite the cost of childcare as a key reason to quit.

The Employment Act 2002 introduced legislation designed to help working parents. Since April 2003 parents with young and disabled children have had the right to request flexible work. This right to request was extended in 2009 to anyone with parental responsibility for a child aged 16 or under or a disabled child under 18 who receives Disability Living Allowance. People can ask to:

• change the hours they work;
• change the times they work; or

• work from home (for all or part of the week).

Director of Family Friendly Working Antonia Chitty says, “This survey indicates that parents are not getting the flexible work that they need. More work is needed to see whether parents are unclear about their rights, whether bosses are saying no, or whether the flexible work available just isn’t flexible enough. The current provision of funding for 2.5-3hours pre school per day can be nigh on impossible to fit in with most employment: the Government needs to look at the way this is delivered and increase the flexibility of ways that parents can use the funding.”

Parents completing the survey commented:

“My boss was being very demanding, insisting I would get no special treatment and that I had to be in the office from at least 9am until 6pm. This was not an option with a three month old baby so I didn’t return.”

“My daughter was about to start infant school. There was no way I could shorten my hours enough to be there for her before & after school (especially as she was only doing 5 morning a week initially, and I was then working 3 days a week).”

“Working and so many school holidays makes it difficult, especially as a single parent.”

Further results

The survey also found that around one in 10 parents (11.5%) are forced to quit because of lack of childcare. A similar proportion (10.7%) left work because having children changed their priorities.

Check in every week with ACPR to get new ideas to help you market your business. This week we’re looking at Advertising. Think about the following sorts of advertising. Which might work well for your business? Mark the ones you need to investigate and build them into your marketing plan:

1. Classified adverts
2. Directory advertising
3. Display adverts – national and local, magazines and newspapers
4. Vehicle advertising
5. Radio advertising
6. TV advertising
7. Internet banner advertising
8. Internet text link advertising
9. Adwords – pay per click
10. Advertising hoardings and posters
11. Cinema advertising
12. Direct mail

For more ideas to help your business grow, buy A Guide to Promoting Your Business: The Ultimate Workbook for Business Owners by Antonia Chitty

A new survey for Family Friendly Working shows that talented parents are leaving the world of employment.

Britain’s bosses are missing out on skilled employees due to a combination of the lack of flexible hours and the cost of childcare. And the parents who are leaving are continuing to develop their skills too both with the family, by retraining, and in their own businesses.

Unsurprisingly the top talents developed by parents are Multitasking (68.4%) and Time Management (65.3%). But more than half (55.3%) of the parents who responded to the survey have developed Promotion and Marketing Skills and almost as many (45.3%) have developed better Communication Skills.

Mums and Dads are getting better at managing money too, with nearly 4 in 10 (39.2%) saying that they have developed their Financial Management Skills after leaving work. A similar number (37.6%) have improved Project Planning Skills since quitting employment.

Parents’ people skills are getting a great workout too. Three in 10 (30.7%) parents claim to have developed better Conflict Management Skills, and one in five (20%) have better Team Management Skills since leaving employment.

Director of Family Friendly Working Antonia Chitty says, “I know that I’ve developed my skills since I left employment and it looks like I’m not alone. Britain’s’ bosses need to think hard about offering more flexible work opportunities in order to make the most of talented parents.”

Parents completing the survey have commented on their post-employment experiences:

“I have learnt a lot since then! More importantly I have learnt a lot about myself, maintaining a positive mental attitude, social networking, enterprise and more.”

“I ended up returning to education and finally getting the degree I always wanted.”

“Starting my business has meant my time management has to be good so that my children get the best of me and I still have time to put into work.”

“In 2006 I published my first book, with a five month old baby and two older kids. Truly a new start for me.”

“I retrained as reflexologist so had a complete career change. I had to learn about running my own business and marketing myself.”

Thanks Roberta!

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