Category Archives: Marketing

Case Study – Prestonfield Golf Club

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prestonfield-golf-club by Little Voice CommunicationsLittle Voice has designed a number of golf club websites now, and the challenges they face are quite unique.

Golf club websites have to satisfy a number of audiences, including:

  • current members
  • potential members
  • visitors

and, in the case of Prestonfield Golf Club in Edinburgh, they were also keen to attract sponsors and advertisers.

The solution for Prestonfield was to produce a site full of information that potential members and visitors would find useful, combined with the facility to provide fresh, up to date content for their membership. Moreover, it was vital that the up to date content was actually pushed to the membership, rather than having them always have to make the effort to come and find it on the website.

Prestonfield newsletterSeveral committee members and staff at Prestonfield have access to the website to post news.  As soon as they add news to the website, it is immediately also published on Facebook and twitter. Additionally, on a weekly basis, this news is automatically gathered and emailed to the membership based on their pre-defined preferences and without the need for any further intervention on anyone’s part. Members can chose to receive weekly summaries of ladies news or gents’ news and a general summary of club news also goes out once a week. In the future, junior news and course news weekly summaries may also be produced in this automated fashion. The club can receive statistics on how many people open these weekly emails and any links that they clicked within the newsletter. This lets them see which particular news items are popular and how engaged their membership audience is.

All in all, the website, news and social media features are extremely useful tools for a club that sees membership engagement as a top priority.

Additionally space is available for advertisers who may wish to reach an audience of over 9000 visitors a month in peak season and the club has just started to seek some income generation via website adverts.

Finally the club is starting to see some success from marketing special deals to visitors by utilising the website, social media and their intelligence-led email messaging facility.

Check out the Prestonfiled Golf Club website here.

Would these tools work well for your golf club? Why not contact us to find out more.

 

Is there still a place for printed material in modern marketing?

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Image of a smart phoneThe growth in internet marketing has only increased the dilemma facing business in terms of how to spend their limited marketing budgets.

More and more customers are accessing information about suppliers via PCs, Laptops, iPads and smart phones. Fewer and fewer customers will go to the yellow pages or pick up leaflets. I wonder how many yellow pages directories go straight from doorstep to recycling bin? Mine certainly does.

Printed newspapers, with dwindling sales, are now having to adapt or die as their readership turns to the web for news and information. The likes of Amazon Kindle has completely changed the publishing landscape and readers grab books and magazines from their store with the minimum of effort. Night time readers don’t even have to get out of bed to select a new book to read – it all happens wirelessly, downloaded in seconds.

With web marketing it is perfectly possible to pull people towards your goods and services without any additional cost, barring time and effort.

And therein lies the second dilemma for businesses. Precious time must be dedicated to build up that web presence. Regular blogging, newsletters, social media, adding your company to the best directories, Google places and the likes all take time. Time which, traditionally, graphic designers, printers, leaflet distributors and snail mail carriers took off your hands by producing and delivering your printed marketing material for you.

I believe the best marketing mix for the modern business world includes both offline and online activities.

A company that spends that little extra to produce quality business cards, as opposed to the free, or very inexpensive ones promoted by certain online printers will stand out from the crowd. Printed material is tactile, thus introducing the touch sense to the prospective buyer’s overall impression of you as a business.

A well targeted direct mailing campaign can still reap rewards – banners, posters, vehicle graphics, glossy brochures and even printed letterheads still have their place. However these can’t eclipse or replace a quality and easily found web presence.

With the same limited time and budget constraints as before, businesses have to be absolutely clear where their marketing budget will be spent and how to measure its success. Then they must commit wholeheartedly to ensuring that the decisions they make result in success. This may mean paying for the help of social media and search engine experts in much the same way as businesses paid for graphic design, print and postage in the past.

Clearcad has teamed up with business growth and customer development strategists Neontics to offer you a variety of solutions including consultancy, CRM, web design, authoring, web hosting, Search Engine Optimisation, print design and analytical tools. We would be happy to meet with you to look at the options you have for developing both an online and offline marketing plan.

Is Press advertising worth it?

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Image of a newspaperThis is a question I am regularly asked by clients, particularly because advertising in newspapers, compared with some of the other online and offline  advertising opportunities that now exist, can be expensive.

My answer is, it depends on a number of factors:

1. What type of business you have

Do you sell direct to customers? For newspaper advertising your target market should be consumers. If your target market is businesses, you need to look at trade publications. Do you have premises for people to visit or is your business fully online. If it’s online, newspaper advertising may not be for you, unless they offer advertising on their website.

2. Doing your homework

It’s important that you do some homework to help you decide which publications are best suited for advertising your business. Most publishers give details of their circulation numbers and prices. You need to weigh the opportunities up before making an informed placement decision.

3. Do you operate locally or nationally?

This will inform which newspapers you consider placing adverts with. If you look at local papers you do see national advertisers, but they have placed these adverts in the belief that there is a strong local demand for their product or service.

4. Your ability to fund regular adverts

Can you afford to pay for daily or weekly adverts depending on how often your chosen publications are printed? Newspaper advertising is MUCH more effective if your advert is regularly seen.

5. Whether you can include regular special offers

The ability to offer a good deal on current stock, or a percentage off a particular service will make your advert more appealing. It’s worth also planning ahead for seasonal opportunities.

6. Can you meet the demand an advert might generate?

You may have heard horror stories about companies advertising on voucher sites and not being able to supply the goods offered at a discount price. Whilst I wouldn’t want to excite you by saying your advert might generate huge business for you, it is something you need to bear in mind.

7. Have you exhausted all of the free, or less expensive alternatives?

Because it is expensive, I usually advise clients to try other alternatives first. Particularly for new businesses, there are a number of lower cost online and offline options to consider and try before looking at paid press advertising.

8. Do your main competitors advertise regularly?

If they do, then you may feel that you need to do the same to compete. If they don’t, advertising yourself might give you an advantage.

9. If you are already advertising is it working or you?

It’s important to measure the success of your current advertising to ensure you are getting value for money. Take steps to find out where customers heard about you. Stop your adverts for a month to see if it makes any difference to your customer take-up. Make informed decisions about how you promote your company to ensure the best use of your marketing budget.

10. Test the waters

If you haven’t advertised in the press before – give it a try, but be aware that you will need a sustained period of advertising to maximise your chance of success. For a daily publication you would need at least a month, for weekly 3 months and for monthly 6 months to ensure that enough of your target audience has seen your advert and/or can recall it.

Little Voice can help you with your advertising and marketing strategy, contact us today for a free consultation.