2009 Kick-off Your Marketing

Like any company, marketing in 2009 has become more important than ever before. Having only been in business for 10 years, I have never experienced such tough economic times, nor do I hope to again. Touch wood, it really hasn’t hit me yet, but is this just the lag effect? Will it happen in the next quarter or will the new marketing campaigns that I am currently putting in place safeguard me from what is believed to be the toughest economic environment that I have seen in my lifetime? Whilst not all of our staff are back on board (some have taken longer holidays overseas to visit family, or in the case of our Marketing Director, Julie Schoneveld, a working holiday to Cambodia helping out in an orphanage) the ones that are, are refreshed and ready to take on the year. Now is the time to capitalise on their enthusiasm and the ideas that come from being fresh and innovative. In December we launched a campaign whereby clients that sign up for a ‘Marketing Eye’ get a free website (or a website revamp). This is worth $7,000 to each client, so it is an enormous saving. To do this campaign we had to weigh up whether giving so much away, dimishes the value of our brand and our service offering. In the end, we believed that given the fact so many companies are doing it tough, it is important to give a helping hand and ensure that they use marketing as the platform to stand out from the crowd. This campaign has been enormously successful and although we have had a long Christmas break, we are expecting the phones to keep ringing. One campaign is not enough though. This is not for everyone because some people don’t realise the value in their websites. I do. In December, 59,000 unique page views showed me that our website is our most valuable marketing tool and combined with public relations, advertising and direct marketing, will showcase our value proposition to the market. Our website is also integral to growing our business in new markets. In December, we had people for South Africa, London, United States, Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong approach us to join our team – just based on the information and branding of our website. Whilst we can all start the year focusing on the numbers and worrying about what is going to happen next, by taking an hour out of each day and focusing on marketing your company you will see a difference. Till next time.

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