Planning your marketing: ten FAQs

1. Where do I start?

2. What are the generic marketing methods I can use?

3. Why do I need a written marketing action plan, and what must it cover?

4. How often should I audit my marketing and update the plan?

5. Is marketing to businesses different from consumer marketing?

6. Must services be marketed differently?

7. How do I know what my sales will be?

8. How do I track what is working?

9. What am I most likely to get wrong?

1.  Where do I start?

Profitable marketing for small businesses involves identifying gaps in the market not covered by mass providers. You must identify a need that can be met profitably, in reasonable volume, where price is not the main criterion for purchase.

• Research the competition, looking at leaflets, Internet sites, Yellow Pages and exhibitions.
• Match customer needs with what you can realistically supply.
• Run tests and trials in stages before you are fully committed (do not order 10,000 colour brochures just yet).
• Cost and budget your plans to meet your objectives.

Assuming that your business is already up and running, look ahead, say two to three years, and decide how much revenue you will need to generate the profitability you require.

Next, ask yourself if you will achieve those results if your business carries on as it is today, using your current business plan. If the answer is yes, then you might not need to do much more than maintain your course. If the answer is no, then you need a new marketing strategy geared to meeting your objectives.

Start by reviewing your business performance, to establish where you are stronger or weaker than your competitors. Also consider what external factors could impact on your business or on your relationship with customers. These factors could be threats or opportunities. The prime objective of marketing is to make sure your resources are focused on only the best, most accessible business opportunities.

2.  What are the generic marketing methods I can use?

You need to draw up a profile of the needs of your target customers and then decide how best to reach them. A SWOT analysis may help. You should be aiming to pinpoint five major elements.

• A target list, broken down into segments (trade or consumer, ABC profile, geographical, interests).
• What your target customers need (think benefits, not features).
• Prices, maybe using differential pricing for different segments.
• How to reach your customers (display advertising, leaflet drops, direct mail, direct selling, website, mobile and text marketing and social media).
• The offer (innovative edge, rarity value, more benefits than the competition).

3.  Why do I need a written marketing action plan, and what must it cover?

Plans in your head are little more than a collection or ideas and ambitions. Written down, they become an organised, measurable commitment. For most of us, committing our plans to paper is the only way to avoid losing sight of what we want to achieve - turning our ideas into proven reality.

• A written marketing plan can be invaluable in making the case for a bank loan, or in attracting investment.
• A written plan provides a quantifiable basis for measurement and review at the end of the exercise.
• A marketing plan will usually include:

>A brief mission statement about the purpose of the business

  >A summary of the previous year's performance

>Financial objectives for three-year and next-year periods

>Your overview of the market you are in
>Marketing objectives (which products to which markets?) 
>Forecasts and budgets

>Key factors identified in Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats analysis

The degree of formality needed will depend on the size and complexity of the business. Small companies can cover what they need on just a few sheets of paper.

4.  How often should I audit my marketing and update the plan?

Preferably you should make some kind of regular check on general progress at least monthly. As long as the ongoing signs are good then a more in-depth review can take place bi-annually. If, however, your marketing activity is primed for short bursts you should monitor the outcome of each burst immediately and adjust your bigger picture plan if necessary.

Plan two or three years ahead in very broad outline, but plot the next year in more detail. This way, the short-term plan will always lead towards the longer-term aims.

Try to stick to your plan but be prepared to be flexible in changing circumstances - a key customer going bust for example.

5.  Is marketing to businesses different from consumer marketing?

Business-to-business marketing should be simpler, as companies can easily be identified. There are many ways of tracking them down and the people who work in them also have job titles that describe what they do. Consumer marketing is generally mass marketing, which means you are in competition with supermarkets, DIY stores and national brand names with overwhelming advertising budgets

Business marketing can be more direct and focused. Volumes should be greater, which should mean fewer distribution problems. Margins may be smaller (because of trade discounts), but volume will be going to fewer outlets (fewer sales ledger problems). Small firms should concentrate on heavy users. Credit is usually expected, which can eat into your capital and cashflow - engineering firms, for example, may take 90 days to pay. Look at factoring your debts.

6.  Must services be marketed differently?

Products are more tangible than services. They can be stored until they are required and can be made to an exact and reproducible specification. Even so, the marketing process remains the same in as much as the service must be matched to the needs and preferences of the potential buyer. As services are likely to involve more personal acquaintances than boxed products, rapport automatically becomes a more important part of the transaction.

7.  How do I know what my sales will be?

Sales forecasting is not an exact science, but it is much easier for established businesses that can base their estimates on last year's figures. Start-ups should beware of basing their plans on sales forecasts that are too ambitious - what is irresistible to you, may meet with indifference in the market. Companies House can provide you with copies of the accounts filed by the competition - but only, of course, limited companies. If it is possible to measure against a market leader, expecting to grab any more than 5% would probably be ambitious in the first year. It helps to work out your breakeven point, to encourage and focus your efforts.

8.  How do I track what is working?

For most businesses, 80% of the most profitable sales come from 20% of the customers. Track what is happening with these key customers to safeguard the most important chunk of your business.

It is important to monitor the number of new contacts made each week and to check how many of these result in a sale. Without new contacts in the pipeline, sales will dry up. Be alert for mistakes - the stage at which the sales process breaks down will give a valuable insight into possible areas for improvement. Similarly there will be a point in your sales pitch where you get the buyers agreement. Learn from both the positive and negative experiences. Also, keep track of your experiences in a way that enables measurement and will permit retrospective analysis.

In addition to checking your activities you should also measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Apart from helping to separate what works from what doesn't, these measurements will help you sift the actual value of your efforts.

Monitor all new enquiries by coding advertisements and coupons, getting respondents to ask for a certain person or inserting codes into the address. Phone enquirers should always be asked "By the way, how did you come to hear about us?" Visitors to e-commerce websites can be tracked by page visits and even by how long they spend on each page.

9.  What am I most likely to get wrong?

• Everything takes longer than shown in your plan. Allow for slippage, extra costs and slow payers. In the early days, cash will be more important than profits.
• Pricing. When launching new products, it can be difficult to establish the right price for the market position you have chosen, but it is usually better to start off with a higher price and offer reductions for volume. It will be much harder to put prices up later. Think of all the benefits.
• When it comes to advertising, new businesses usually expect too much from a single insertion. 'Repetition is reputation', as the advertising gurus say. If you cannot afford sustained advertising, you will have to find different ways to promote your business.
• Thousands of new websites are created each day, so do not expect miracles from the Internet. You need customers to visit your website. 

Planning is everything - yet it is also the most frequently ignored element on the part of would-be entrepreneurs. Planning your marketing is a logical and practical process, which can and should be measured and, if necessary, adjusted. Use Market, Consumer and SWOT analysis to provide the background facts which will shape your plan.

Trying to satisfy a wide range of different needs is rarely effective. Splitting your customers into different groups of similar people will enable you to market your products or services specifically to the ones that will be most profitable to you.

Trying to satisfy a wide range of different needs is rarely effective. Splitting your customers into different groups of similar people will enable you to market your products or services specifically to the ones that will be most profitable to you.

Identifying your target market

Start to identify the different segments among your existing customers by looking for groups with similar characteristics. Consumers are often segmented by age, gender or income. Business customers can be broken down into different industries or by size. In practice, location is often a key factor, whether you are targeting local customers or looking for export opportunities.

Segmenting your market should enable you to identify the similarities between your different customer groups - and the differences. You will be able to more clearly understand what aspects of your offer appeal to each of the groups and adapt your product or service to more closely match their requirements.

This might mean modifying your product - or working on delivery, service, reliability or some other need that is important to that market segment. It might also mean adjusting the way you market your offer - so you might change your pricing policy or use distribution channels that reach your target customers more effectively. You should also adapt your promotional messages to the different customer segments.

Finding and evaluating customers

Knowledge is everything when it comes to identifying which groups of customers you should be targeting. Market research will help you understand more about the needs, tastes and spending habits of different groups of potential customers. This should tell you about the customer segments most likely to buy into your offer and the kind of marketing and sales activities they will respond to.

A SWOT analysis will help you assess your strengths and weaknesses as a business and spot the opportunities and threats that are looming in your market. It will help you evaluate if you're in a position to carry out a strong marketing and sales campaign with your target groups of customers. Significantly, it will also enable you to see how you measure up against the competition.

Understanding what your rivals are up to is critical. How are they working with your target group/s? Would you do better or worse? Where are the gaps - in their offer and in their marketing? Are groups of customers being ignored by rivals? Could you target these profitably?

This combination of market research, SWOT analysis and benchmarking should give you a detailed picture of your marketplace and your own potential. This in turn will tell you where you should be directing your marketing activities and how. Only when you are armed with this knowledge can you confidently tailor your message to different segments of your market and have persuasive conversations with your potential customers.

Choosing the right marketing methods: Eight FAQs

1. What marketing methods are most likely to be cost-effective for a small business?

2. Will I need different methods for different types of customer?

3. I hate selling, so how am I going to generate new business?

4. Does the Internet mean I can forget about traditional marketing methods?

5. Once I've got customers, how can I make sure I keep them?

6. How much will I have to budget for my marketing?

7. What methods can I use when funds are low?

8. Where can I get inspiration, if I run out of marketing ideas?

1.  What marketing methods are most likely to be cost-effective for a small business?

For most small businesses, especially those providing services, the most potent way to generate new business is by word of mouth. This is not something that can be bought. But you can certainly help to promote and encourage it, by networking with all the contacts you have in a given market, and by asking all your satisfied clients to recommend you to their friends and acquaintances. If necessary, offer some kind of reward for any contacts which lead to new business.

It depends on whether you are dealing with the trade or consumer sectors, whether you are selling a product or services and whether your market is local or nationwide. Most small firms grow by developing specialist niche sectors, where target audiences can be readily identified and word of mouth can be the key success factor. Think in terms of target segments, rather than the whole population. The goal is to develop your market where customer choice is made on specification, service and availability rather than on price alone.

2.  Will I need different methods for different types of customer?

Yes, that is why the idea of customer segmentation is so important. Different customers will respond to different stimuli. For example, if your customers can easily afford your product or service, you may choose to give them a discount if they pay in advance. If other customers have less ready cash available, you may choose to offer them staged payments or special credit.

3.  I hate selling, so how am I going to generate new business?

Most small firms find they can sell with conviction if the prospect is already warm. Targeted mailshots and well-placed advertisements that call for a response make selling a lot easier. Cold calling is a more difficult sales skill to pull off. A sales person will cost a minimum of £30,000 a year, so few small firms can afford one. Using an agent can also cause problems as, like you, they rely on turnover to generate income (from 7.5 per cent to, perhaps, 15 per cent commission, depending on the product). If you can't afford to take on a sales specialist, adopt marketing strategies that generate business at a distance - mailshots, advertising that sells off the page and regular PR.

Do not place too much reliance on a website solving your sales problem. With four million new sites every day, getting recall from the search engines is increasingly difficult. While the 'web changes everything' it is just another marketing tool.

4.  Does the Internet mean I can forget about traditional marketing methods?

While it may sometimes be convenient to divide marketing methods into 'traditional' and 'new', it may be more useful to think of them in terms of what is likely to work for you, and what will not produce the results you need.

Buying online clearly has great appeal for some people. But you must ask yourself if these people are typical of your customers and prospects. If they are not, traditional methods may be more effective. At the same time, it is important to remember that successful companies constantly experiment with different ways of reaching out to their markets. The formula that works well today will not necessarily be the one to give you a competitive advantage tomorrow.

5.  Once I've got customers, how can I make sure I keep them?

Customer care must be built into the way you run your business. So many large firms are cavalier about customers that this is a major area where you can steal a march over the competition.  There are several simple steps you can take:

1. Make the customer the centre of your business.

2. Offer a no-quibble guarantee.

3. Make customers feel wanted by encouraging feedback, requests for new lines and ideas for improving the product.

4. Make customers feel valued by forming a club, offering discounts for regular purchases and running open days and other events.

5. Above all, keep your promises.

6.  How much will I have to budget for my marketing?

It will depend on the nature of your product or service, the structure and geographical spread of your market, and the level of competition you face.

When you are budgeting to meet your sales forecasts, remember to include all your anticipated sales costs, plus any planned expenditure on advertising, brochures, mailshots and promotional activities, such as exhibitions. Every one of your marketing costs ought to be seen to be making a contribution to achieving your targets. If that link is not clear, avoid getting involved in what may well turn out to be meaningless, money-wasting activities.

7.  What methods can I use when funds are low?

It is almost always cheaper to sell more to your existing customer base than to hunt for new customers. Pull out your top 50 accounts and find out what else they need. Send a newsletter or mailshot to this select few. Make them a tempting offer in return for bigger orders, on an 'if I do, will you?' basis. There are many other methods that may not involve much cost, including:

1. Generate a PR story.

2. Share a direct-mail exercise with another business that needs to reach a similar target audience. Generate names off your website and run e-news offers.

3. Share promotional costs by running a co-operative advert or brochure. This works particularly well in the tourist trade, to attract people to an area or to cater for a special interest or hobby.

4. Run a clearance sale to turn slow lines into quick cash.

8.  Where can I get inspiration, if I run out of marketing ideas?

One obvious source of new ideas is adapting marketing ideas that others are using successfully. Ideally, the source of your inspiration should be from a different industry or market, as this will ensure that you gain a competitive advantage in your own field. Several substantial fortunes have been built on the back of ideas that people have brought home with them from holidays abroad.

The other underused source of marketing ideas is your customers. Find out, by asking them, what you can do to make their lives easier or to add value to what you supply. This is the essence of being customer-focused. And even those customers 

Email marketing has become a vital tool for small businesses that want to send regular marketing messages.The initial attractions are obvious - it's fast and cheap. But that's not all - email marketing offers sophisticated opportunities to target messages to the right people at the right time and bring in serious business.

Response rates for bulk emails are higher than for direct mailings, thanks to the immediacy of the medium. Results can be measured and used to make subsequent email marketing more tightly focused.

Direct marketing via email is an ideal communication method for any small firm that relies on its website for much of its business. Email messages can highlight special offers and new products and then prompt recipients to click through to the website.

Email marketing done badly does present some pitfalls, however. Indiscriminate emailing will be seen as spam. Responsibility and relevance are the watchwords. You must have permission to email the recipient. And if you want them to respond positively, you must send messages that are genuinely of value to them.

Building your email marketing list

An up-to-date database is the starting point for your permission-based email marketing strategy. Your contact list must have all the necessary information about recipients so that you can target your messages.

These recipients must have given their permission for you to send them marketing emails by 'opting in' on a form or on your website. Make sure you include simple opt-in tick boxes on all your marketing material.

Segment your email list into key groups of people who share specific characteristics. Group your customers according to what they have bought in the past. That way you can send targeted messages about specific product ranges to the right people.

The law on email marketing

You can contact customers that have agreed to receive information from you in the past. The important thing is that they must actively opt in. Sending unsolicited marketing emails, or spam, is illegal. Anyone that has registered with the Direct Marketing Association's Email Preference Service should be removed from your contact list.

It is illegal to reveal recipients' details on your emails, so you need to create a mailing group that sends a blind carbon copy (bcc). All commercial emails should be clearly identifiable as such. At the same time, you must not conceal your own identity. Finally, each mailing should include an Unsubscribe option so people can opt out if they wish.

Creating your marketing emails Whether you send regular email newsletters or occasional offers, the content of your marketing emails must be relevant and useful to the recipient. Send one or two irrelevant messages and your prospects may start deleting all your emails, or even unsubscribe.

To ensure relevancy, target messages to specific segments of your database rather than the whole list. Check out responses to previous emails and also buying habits to make sure your message is reaching the right people.

There are lots of ways to make your email stand out. Grab attention with a compelling subject line, but don't use exaggerated claims - they can look like junk mail. Keep the text simple and give a clear call to action and a reason to respond. Encourage recipients to click through to your website.

Before pressing 'send', always review the email and put yourself in the shoes of the recipient. Is it really relevant or useful?

A good-looking email is essential, but some messages end up getting mangled on the recipient's computer because of software incompatibility. It's worth offering both a text-only email as well as an HTML version.

Measuring the response to your emails

Tracking the results of your email campaigns will enable you to establish what's working and what's not.

Invest in software or work with your ISP (Internet service provider) to gather key information such as: how many emails were delivered, how many people clicked through and how many people opted out. Give each email campaign a code in order to calculate the campaign response rate.

Response rates for email marketing are often higher than for other direct marketing methods. The average rate is about 4%. If you send emails to a large mailing group, you could be inundated with enquiries. Make sure you can you handle them and fulfil the orders.

Ben Barden is a blogging expert and Head of Development for printed.com. Here he offers the types of topics that lend themselves well to a business blog that will keep customers informed and engaged.

“Blogging allows you to publish your own articles with ease. Writing a blog for your business can also be a great opportunity to connect with customers, industry professionals, staff, or casual visitors.

Running a decent blog requires time and dedication. The key to getting started is to think of some topics you could write about. Here are a few to get you thinking:

• When/how/why did your business launch? You don’t have to write an essay on your 100 year history – just the highlights will do. Some readers will be curious about how your business came into existence, along with where it’s headed next. This is a good intro post.

• What makes your business stand out? Why should people care what you do or what you have to say? If you haven’t thought of this before, it can be quite difficult to write – but once you’ve done it, you’ll have a clearer sense of purpose – and you’ll set expectations for customers.

• Who works for your business? What are they like? For larger teams – this could evolve into a series of “Meet the team” style posts.

• What are your products and services? Sticking to one product or service per post can give you a lot of topics.

• Have you recently attended any events or conventions? This is your opportunity to share experiences at events in your industry, along with photos and perhaps your own review of the event. If you can find a suitable event that relates to your business, this is a great way to connect with people and also provide suitable fodder for a blog post or two.

• Special promotions: Although you may not have any of these when you start blogging, you can include them as and when they occur. Don’t expect to come up with a long list of ideas in one sitting – it can take time to put together but will be worth the investment.

Simple Ways to Grow partner, NewZapp, was launched in 1998 and over the past decade has been helping small businesses connect and communicate with customers through e-newsletter campaigns.

Whether your business is in Hotel and Tourism, retail, training or finance, you can browse a library Here   of how e-newsletters have worked for small business owners across the UK and how straightforward it is to set up and manage a NewZapp campaign.

One of the profiled businesses is sunwear specialist, The Beach Factory. Director of the company, Anne Speak, says:

“A NewZapp newsletter is a great way of advising regular customers of new products which have arrived in the warehouse. We recently sent a newsletter to customers who had bought a particular type of swimwear for their children last year offering them a sneak preview of the new collection. The click-through rate was really positive and customers made purchases which they might not have made until later in the season, taking advantage of the 10% discount offered in the newsletter.”

"A timely NewZapp newsletter encourages them to make their purchases before they are on their way to the airport when it is too late!”

Visit the NewZapp resource hub Here  to download how-to guides and instruction on how to design your newsletter so it generates maximum effect with existing and prospective customers.

Find out more about Simple Ways to Grow partners Here

Your_Partners Thanks to our publishing partners Enterprise Nation for this article.

Follow NewZapp @newzapp

Follow Enterprise Nation @e_nation

Follow Simple Ways To grow @simpleways2grow

1. Plan ahead – make notes of the topics you want to cover this year, and work out if they need to correspond with any particular events or bank holidays. Set yourself deadlines for copy writing with reminders on your calendar.

2. Design – make sure your design is up to date in terms of matching your branding, and offering relevant and current quick links. Use a reputable and well experienced email marketing company for your template design so it looks good in all readers and platforms.

3. Welcome new subscribers – setup a welcome email to thank your new subscriber, tell them what/when they can expect from you, and offer links or articles they might find useful.

4. Landing pages – create a landing page on your website specifically for each campaign if possible. Combined with Campaign Reporting and Google Analytics, you can then gain valuable information on how many views the page gets and the journey of the recipient from there on.

5. Personalisation – if you are capturing certain information from your customers then make use of it!

6. Keep building and promoting your list – using social media and your blog, keep mentioning where/how to subscribe to your updates.

7. 3 second subject line – as email marketing legend goes, you have on average 3-5 seconds to catch someone’s attention with your subject line, so choose wisely!

8. Be social – add Facebook, Twitter social share and Forward to a Friend buttons to your email campaigns, to encourage them to be shared and so that more people see your email.

9. Test first – never say you do not have time to test. If you are busy then ask colleagues to help. Use NewZapp’s Spell Checker on your campaign before you send colleagues a test copy, and then ask them to proof read your content and try any links you’ve included.

10. Animated images – as you can’t use Flash or videos in email, use animated gifs instead!

11. Call to action – make sure your calls to action are clear; if necessary repeat the link further down the email to catch your subscriber’s attention.

12. Segment your data - not just by interest but also previous customers vs leads, or even by targeting customers who have purchased a certain product and might be interested in your latest offer.

13. Alt text – make sure all your images have Alt Text set on them. This text will display on screen if images are not displayed.

14. Make it easy to subscribe – keep the form short and test this before you promote the link.

15. Use the johnson box wisely - this is the area above your template where you can add copy such as an introduction to your company, a summary of your campaign contents, or an explanation of why they are receiving this email.

16. Be consistent - this goes not just for content but for the date and time you usually send out campaigns so your subscribers know when to expect it.

17. It doesn’t need to always be a newsletter – maybe send a campaign focused on one product or service that you provide, or the promotion of a special offer.

18. Monitor your reports – using the Reporting tools, look at which links were most popular and which weren’t. Work on this in your next campaign.

19. Re-engage your inactive subscribers - by sending them a campaign pointing out that they don’t appear to have opened your last email; use this information to your advantage and offer a discount if they make a purchase!

20. Stuck for inspiration? Look at our blog post titled Great examples of Email Marketing Practice.

Written by Mark Taylor of NewZapp - email marketing experts and a Simple Ways To Grow partner.

For more information on NewZapp visit: www.newzapp.co.uk

In this article we examine what's good, bad and ugly when it comes to personalising your email marketing campaigns.

Personalisation is far from new. We all use it in some form every day. We personalise our one-to-one communications as a matter of course. However, how many of us strive to personalise our mass communication? When was the last time you used what you know about your recipients to help personalise your message?

Many believe personalisation to be "The ability to integrate personal details into a communication on mass."

However, we'd suggest that personalisation is in fact "The ability to create a message that connects on a one-to-one basis, whether the message is sent on mass or individually"

If you're personalising your mass communications, you'll need to consider the good, the bad and the ugly of personalisation:

The good - that's relevant

Good personalisation flows easily. It incorporates relevant information and helps tailor the message to the needs of the recipient. It can also integrate their name, location or business name. Great personalisation is natural and therefore blends nicely with the overall communication.

The bad - how did they get these details?

Bad personalisation leads the recipient to ask where you got the information from. Your communication shouldn't over use personal details or list data that isn't correct or relevant to the message. Don't dump everything you know about someone on the page, use what you know to tailor the message.

The ugly - that doesn't even make sense

Ugly personalisation doesn't make sense. Don't be tempted to write sentences like this...

"John Smith, as a resident of England and a Marketing Manager at NewZapp, you'll be amazed how easy it is to order from our online shop."

Did this sentence need location, job title and company name?

Keep focused on using what you know to help tailor your message. Only explicitly integrate data that adds to the flow of the message.

Overall the aim should be to create messages that engage and lead the recipient to take the desired action. If you want to achieve the best results you'll always need to test, test and test again. Finding out what works for your business can take time but it's always worth the effort.

http://www.newzapp.co.uk/resource-hub/article-GoodBadAndUgly.html

In order to achieve the best results, it's good practice to plan your email campaigns in advance.  However, one of the many advantages of email marketing is it enables you to quickly react to marketing opportunities when they occur and in particular, it allows you to take advantage of topical news and events to boost your marketing.

If you'd like to give this a go, below are some key things you should consider:

Relevance

For marketing communications to be effective they need to be relevant to your target audience.  There's little point talking to your recipients about a topic that doesn't have any relevance to them.  For example if there was a change in employment law, a recruitment company could use it as the topic of an email campaign to send to employers, however this wouldn't make sense coming from a marketing firm to their customers.

While the topic must be relevant, it doesn't necessarily need to be directly linked to your business.  As parts of the UK were brought to a standstill by heavy snowfall earlier in the year, we received an email from a well-known online retailer which demonstrated how you can use topical events to boost your email marketing.  While the body of the email focused on their normal newsletter content, an up to the minute subject line made it really topical: "Snowed in? Shop online for a stylish start to spring!"  

While snow is not necessarily, or usually, related to spring fashion trends, the retailer reacted to the outside circumstances and utilised it within their email campaign to create a relevant, compelling call-to-action in their subject line.  This example also demonstrates that you don't need to theme the entire email around the topic, you can make a small section or even just the subject line topical.

Timing

When dealing with topical content, timing is key.  Your message is likely to be less effective if the content is perceived to be out-dated or yesterday's news. 

Where possible you should try to prepare your content in advance.  For example, at Oscar time a DVD retailer could pre-plan an offer on former Oscar winning movies to coincide with the current awards.  However for unexpected and unforeseen events you should endeavour to react as quickly as possible while the topic is still relevant and current.

Avoid the bandwagon

There'll always be times when there's an influx of emails around the same topic, such as Christmas, Easter or Valentines Day.  If your recipients receive a lot of emails on the same topic the impact of your campaign may be diluted.  You need to ensure what you're communicating has added value for your recipients.  For example, the recruitment company emailing employers about changes in employment law could summarise in an easy format what it means for them, rather than just retelling the changes. 

While topical content can aid your email marketing, the most important thing to remember is not to force-fit it into your email campaigns.  Ultimately your email campaign will only be effective if it's interesting and appealing to your recipients.

http://www.newzapp.co.uk/resource-hub/article-TopicalContent.html

Let's make sure you emails look great every time with some best practice tips to get you started:

1. If you're copying and pasting content, keep it clean!

Whenever you copy and paste from an external source such as Microsoft Word or a website, you could be bringing additional coding into your email. Some email readers will refer to the code hidden behind your content instead of the text styles and colours that have already been pre-set for you on your NewZapp template. Outlook 2007/10 for example uses MS Word as it's html rendering engine.

The effect this can have on your email in some readers, is that content looks very different to how it looked when you were composing it, and in worst cases, actually disjoints or "breaks" the whole layout.

• Simply make sure you feed your email with good clean content 
  from there you can use the tools on the NewZapp tool bar to change text styles, colours and sizes.

Here are a couple of ways in which to help you clean up the content that you want to paste:

1. Use Notepad like a clipboard - Paste your copy into Notepad first and this will strip it back to basic text and of all coding. Then select all and copy again from the Notepad screen and paste straight into your email. You don't even need to save the Notepad file.
2. Within your NewZapp account there is a Paste button on the tool bar and this has a pre-selected option "Clean MS Word formatting". NewZapp will then clean the content of unwanted code as it pastes it into your email. 

2. Use descriptive links instead of full links or email addresses

If you include full links or full email addresses as text within an email, you run the risk of being caught in a phishing filter.  This is because the filter may detect that the link is not going directly to the link destination, but via the NewZapp servers first in order to provide you with tracking data.

• To avoid this try using a descriptive link instead 
  eg. Read more online, Visit our website, contact us. 

Using a descriptive link can also help you create a much stronger call to action, generating higher click-through rates.  

For example, "Read here why our customers made the decision to use NewZapp" is a more inspiring and concise link than "Read why our customers made the decision to use NewZapp at http://www.newzapp.co.uk/aboutus/whatcustomerssay.html" 

3. Be polite

No one likes being shouted at, so follow the basics of email etiquette and avoid SHOUTING YOUR SUBJECT LINE as a means to make your email get noticed (it won't) or SHOUTING ORDERS AT YOUR RECIPIENTS like CLICK HERE!!!! (they won't).

For more tips on best practice with your content read our article Getting your emails into the inbox.

4. Size your images correctly

To make sure your email looks just how you want it, in as many email readers as possible, it's best to size your images to the exact size that you want them to appear in your email. Some email readers will ignore the fact that you have resized an image by clicking on a corner marker and reduced it, and choose to refer the original size instead - which could be quite embarrassing if you're using that 2000 x 1000 pixel image from your A4 brochure that the printers gave you!  

If you're a NewZapp customer you can either use the Image Editor within your account or size your images before you upload them into your account.

• You just need to know how many pixels wide you want your image to be
  and if you're a NewZapp customer, guidelines on the maximum image sizes you should be using will be found in your account.

If you want to size your images before uploading to your account, you can use an image resizing tool such as Microsoft Office Picture Manager.  If you don't have any image editing software installed then there are free tools available online, such as getgimp.com 

5. Use a genuine and monitored "From" email address

Firstly... why would you not want to use a genuine "From" email address? If you've taken the trouble to invest time and money in email marketing, with presumably the purpose of engaging with your database and gaining new business, then anything they might want to tell you by clicking "reply" (good or bad!) should be important to you.  

No... you are not going to be bombarded with bounced email server messages, NewZapp catches any for you.

Yes... you are going to receive some "out of office" replies on this email address, but if you use this address for other correspondence then consider setting up a rule on your inbox so that replies from your email marketing land in a folder of their own for you to review separately. This is also a great way to gauge reponses from your email campaigns as it should help determine where the enquiry originated from.
 

• Remember, email filters aren't as green as they are cabbage looking! 
  If you try using a non-existent "From" email address then your email is pretty certain to be rejected by the recipient's mail server. So resist the urge to use one that doesn't exist like theresnoone@home.domain it just won't work! 

If you don't want a personal email address as the sender, consider setting up a "friendly" non-offensive email address, like updates@, enews@, newsletter@ etc. These should be more readily received by recipients and email filters than sales@ or info@ and look a whole lot more polite than donotreply@!

6. Use a "From" name that your subscribers will recognise

If your recipients don't know who the email is from, they're unlikely to open it. Within NewZapp, you can set the "From" name of your choice for every email you send. The question to ask is, do your subscribers know you personally? (e.g. John Smith) or do they know your company, brand or product? (eg. Smith Ltd). We'd advise that you use whichever would be most recognisable to your subscribers. 

In NewZapp you can use up to 128 characters, so you can have it all (if you want to) i.e. "John Smith at Smith Ltd".

http://www.newzapp.co.uk/resource-hub/article-FewTipsToGetStarted.html

Refresh your email marketing

Summer is (sometimes) here, so it is a great time to refresh your email marketing strategy. In this blog post I am going to talk you through how to give your email marketing a good summer clean and how making a few changes can hopefully improve your open rates.

1.       Refresh your content

Do you know which links are working and which are not? Maybe it's time to remove some of the content in your newsletter that isn’t grabbing their attention and adding content that will. Clear calls to action which will make your subscribers want to click and find out more.

2.       Clean up your list

In my spare time I run a football club newsletter, last week I removed 120 subscribers from my list. Why? They had not opened or clicked any links in the past 5 months. Sure anyone can re-subscribe but I do not want to keep contacting these subscribers if they do not have the time to read the newsletter. This will also improve the stats, by removing these non openers this should increase the total percentage of opens you receive.

3.       Review when you send

If you are not happy with the open rates of your emails, review when the peak time and day opens and clicks occur. Maybe you would like to try changing the time or day that you send out to try to improve the activity on your newsletter.

4.       Get more subscribers

This should be on your to do list every month, gain more subscribers to your newsletter. Promote your previous newsletters using your Facebook and Twitter accounts to show everyone what they are opting –in for. Create offers or discount codes exclusively for your newsletter subscribers, this alone should encourage more subscribers.

5.       Run a competition

Run a competition for a month and giveaway a product or service you provide, or even something popular - like iTunes vouchers. I have seen companies on Twitter asking each entrant to subscribe to their newsletter and retweet the competition tweet; this will increase the overall reach and gain even more exposure.

6.       Change the subject

Do you have the same or similar subject for every campaign? Try changing this to entice your subscribers to open and read your email. Instead of using subjects like “Newsletter 16th June 2012” try using one of your stories your newsletter features to grab your subscriber’s attention and make them aware of your latest news.

7.       Reposition your form

How well is your signup form working? Do you know how many subscribers do you get per month or per week? If you form is at the bottom of your website maybe you should try moving it further up the page. Promote your newsletter using your social media accounts to alert your followers where they can sign up to your newsletter.

8.       Redesign your template

Have you had a recent website redesign and want to keep your branding the same or just want to modernise you template? Here at NewZapp we can create you a bespoke template to reflect your business branding.

9.       Make them an offer they can't refuse

Create a special offer or discount code exclusively for the subscribers of your newsletter. Not only will this make them feel special but you can also monitor how much the offer or code is redeemed, making it easy to calculate your return of investment.

Written by Mark Taylor of NewZapp,email marketing experts and a Simple Ways to Grow partner,.

For more information on NewZapp visit: www.newzapp.co.uk

Don't be scared of competing with big brands

All too often small businesses have a perception that they can't compete with big brands, when in fact, in the modern marketing age, there are many opportunities for small businesses to achieve market share and compete with even the largest global brands.

In this brief article we'll give you a few quick and easy ways to compete with big brands. We'll also discuss why consumers often turn to who they know over buying from smaller businesses.

Check out the competition

The first thing you'll need to do is find out where your competitors (both large and small) are leaving the door wide open to competition. The key to success for big businesses is their ability to raise awareness of their products and services. In the past this resulted in traffic being driven directly to them. However, today this often results in hundreds and thousands of interested people searching for information related to big brand campaigns. These people often turn to the Internet to research the product or service they're interested in. So the first thing you'll need to do is ensure your business is visible to these researching consumers. You can do this via paid advertising or natural search engine optimisation. You should also look at affiliate marketing and price comparison websites for opportunities to reach these interested consumers.

Next you'll need to ensure that your business is able to convert researchers into customers. People buy from businesses they know, like and trust.  

Keep looking good

One easy way of building trust is to look good. You need to look as good as your competitors or even better. Creating a website and marketing materials that look professional and are easy to understand could be the most important thing you'll ever do for your business. Ask yourself, have you ever bought from a company whose website and marketing materials look homemade? The chances are you haven't. If you have, it probably took you a long time to make that final purchasing decision. 

Remember, people are looking to buy. The main reason they fail to make the purchasing decision (and here's where it gets a little technical...) is because the fear of making the decision is greater than the benefit of making the decision. In simple terms their fear outweighs their confidence in your ability to deliver what they want. For this reason it's vitally important you work towards eliminating any doubts they have about making the decision. This is why they turn to big brands. They feel more confident in their ability to deliver what they want. Customer testimonials and positive online PR are vital to building this trust. You should work hard to gain positive PR and present these messages to your potential customers at every opportunity.

Stay front of mind

The final area we'll look at is how big brands keep customers returning to them time and time again. They do this by simply staying in touch or as marketers like to call it "being front of mind". They have huge budgets for customer relationship management. You can do the same on a smaller scale. Your best opportunity for future sales are the people who have bought from you before. Interestingly, one of the main reasons for customers not returning is lack of contact. Your challenge is to keep your customers returning to your website, shop or offices regularly. You can do this by sending regular marketing messages. An email newsletter or email shot is one way to achieve this at a relatively low cost. 

Whichever marketing media you choose, remember your communications must be relevant and engaging for the recipient. Consumers have a "what's in it for me" attitude. Your marketing communications should therefore address this directly by explicitly showing what is in it for them. This means the benefits for the consumer. Your communications should also continually build your brand and explain the reasons for choosing your business over the competition. 

And finally

There is one more thing to consider. This article simply touches on a few key points. You'll need to find what works for your business. The best way to do this is to understand your market and who you're competing with, and then work hard to find out how they find new business and retain their customers. 

Look for the areas where budget isn't the key factor for success. Big brands may be the kings of print and TV advertising, but on the Internet and in many other areas your business can compete head-to-head with anyone. 

Written by Mark Taylor of NewZapp,email marketing experts and a Simple Ways to Grow partner,.

For more information on NewZapp visit: www.newzapp.co.uk

Raise your revenue with email marketing

Raise your revenue with email marketingIt’s easy to put email marketing into a box where it’s just doing one job for you, but there's so much more your emails can achieve.

You probably treat your customers differently. The more they spend with you, the more likely they are to receive better service from you. Use your email marketing to continue those special relationships and to improve your low value customers.

You probably treat prospects differently too. An offer or sales proposition you would use to convert leads to customers, may not be something you would offer an existing customer.

Email marketing can be used for more than just acquisition or retention. There are more ways to utilise email marketing than you'd think.

By segmenting your database and targeting your emails, you can improve your relationships with contacts and add to your bottom line.

Retention email marketing

This is a great way to keep your branding in front of your customers.

Tell them about industry news, show them you know what’s going on and prove you have your finger on the pulse. Passing this information on to your customers will help keep them in the loop. This will help your customers see you as a useful resource and build longer lasting relationships.

Show them your expertise in your industry by writing interesting and relevant articles. This will help build trust in your business. Trust is important as it helps make decision making easier and quicker. To make a purchase a customer must know, like and trust your business.

Offer advice and support as part of the deal. Be as specific as you can. This will help make your emails valuable to your customer.

This is a softer approach to generating more business than acquisition emails. You don’t want to be too aggressive and lose the customer altogether. We would recommend you use between three and five retention emails to one acquisition email.

Acquisition email marketing

Leads
Use your emails to make a special impact on warm leads to convert them to sales. Where they have expressed a specific interest, send them an email relating to this area, explaining the benefits of buying from you and working with your business. Use your reporting to follow up those who opened or clicked your email.

Customers
Email is a great way of getting your other products and services in front of your customers. Offer those optional extras, up sell and cross sell your products and services. You can do this in stand alone acquisition emails or as part of a retention email, especially if your retention emails are long and in an editorial style. Integrating a sales message into a long editorial email can be highly effective. However, be careful not to dominate your retention email with a sales message.

Events and news alerts
Treat events you are attending and news alerts differently to the more structured campaigns above. This is your opportunity to blow your own trumpet, and let your subscribers know what you’re up to.

If you have an article in the press, let them know and link to it. It’s proving your knowledge and expertise, it’s good PR and it will boost your brand.

If you're attending an event, let everyone know where you’re going and invite them to meet you there. This offers an opportunity for your contacts to meet you in person, which could be your opportunity to improve your relationships and close sales.

Transactional emails

Say thank you. When someone spends money with you, send a thank you email. It start’s off the marketing conversation with your customer. You can include a marketing message on other related products and services, as well as information on what the subscriber can expect to receive from you in future.

If you let them know you're sending regular emails, keep your promise. You'll be improving their experience of you, building trust, paving the way for future purchases and better relationships.

Above all

Be consistent with your messages and keep your promises. If you let your recipients down, you'll damage their confidence in you and your brand. Avoid getting stuck in an email marketing rut. Target your emails and you'll get a better response.

Email marketing is a great tool in your marketing tool box. It's not be the latest technological fad, but it’s the superglue to hold the rest of your mix together.

Written by Mark Taylor of NewZapp,email marketing experts and a Simple Ways to Grow partner,.

For more information on NewZapp visit: www.newzapp.co.uk

Reach for the stars, not for the benchmark

Benchmarks can help us make the right business decisions. However, far too often we say things like "we're above the industry average", when we should really be asking :

• Did we return on our investment?
• Have we achieved our campaign goals?
• What can we improve?

Benchmarks help us protect our investments and set realistic, achievable goals. The truth is, performance against benchmarks means very little if we fail to meet our internal target.

 With this in mind here are our top five tips to setting realistic email marketing targets.

Break your target down into individual goals. Try to quantify your goals wherever possible. This way you can quickly see where you are achieving and where you are not.

Break performance down into set areas. For example you may break your email marketing performance down into; delivery, read, click-through and conversion rates. This will help you review performance against your goals.

Clearly identify the final action you want your readers to take? Should they reply to your email, fill in a form or buy a product? Once you know what you want them to do, calculate how many conversions you need to return on your investment.

Set your target, and then review it against the required performance.  If your target is to achieve sales revenue of £1000 and to do this you need to sell 100 units, ask yourself:  

How many people will I need to convert from email to final action?

If your website converts at a rate of 1 in 10 you will need to convert a minimum of 1,000 people from email to website.

Now ask yourself... Is this a realistic goal?

Use past performance and benchmarks to help you decide if your target can be realistically achieved

Never limit your target to achieving one specific goal.  If you're struggling to identify your goals, try to break your target down into its component parts.

If your target is to achieve 100% growth in sales, then in order to achieve this your goals may be to

    1) Increase your conversion rate by 50%

    2) Raise the average order value by 100%

    3) Increase website visitors by 10%.

HOW TO CARRY OUT MARKET RESEARCH

Action List

Focus on research which will help you make better decisions.

Work out what you need to know and whether you need an in-depth understanding or simple numerical results.

Decide how quickly you need the information and how accurate it must be.

Set up your research with a clear brief, including objectives, deadlines and any important background information.

Decide whether you have the expertise to carry out larger research projects yourself or need to use an external agency or freelance researcher.

Make full use of easily accessed information from internal records, employee and customer feedback, publications and the internet.

Ask your customers who they see as your competition and why they use you.

If necessary, invest in surveys, observation and experiments to back up decisions.

Analyse research results carefully and objectively.

Be prepared to carry out further research if the information you have is insufficient or out of date.

Use your research to make decisions and plan strategy.

Regularly update your understanding of customers and market conditions.

Cardinal Rules

Do:

• plan your objectives and clarify what you need to know 
• choose the most cost-effective research methods 
• use your research to improve your competitiveness 
• keep up to date

Don’t:

• base important decisions on inadequate research 
• ignore research which contradicts your preconceptions 
• rely on old research

Copyright © BHP Information Solutions Ltd, 2011. All rights reserved

HOW TO CREATE AN EFFECTIVE MARKETING SLOGAN

Action List

1. Consider why you need a slogan. Think about what is most important for your firm. Do you want it to be original, memorable, to differentiate your brand or include a key benefit?
2. Be truthful — for example, it's no good using your slogan to claim that you are “the biggest sports retailer in your local area”, if there is an equally popular sports shop down the road. Instead, focus on something that distinguishes you from your competitors.
3. Look at other business’ slogans and decide what works and what doesn’t. For example, Reggae Reggae Sauce’s “Put some music in your food” is memorable and immediately conveys a strong image. However, Bacardi Spice’s “Distilled in Hell” has negative associations and although striking, arguably does not work as a marketing message. Check you don’t choose a slogan that is already trademarked, by using the Intellectual Property Office’s online database.
4. Ask staff to brainstorm potential slogan ideas or consider running a competition to find the best one. What your firm means to them could be the same message you want to portray to customers.
5. Make your slogan customer-focused. Ask your clients what they like about your firm. If there's a recurring theme, consider integrating it into your slogan.
6. Keep it short. If you want your slogan to stick in people’s minds, try to keep it between five and seven words maximum. For example, BT’s “It’s good to talk” is simple but catchy.
7. If you are struggling to come up with an idea, consider hiring a marketing consultant. Ask other business owners to recommend agencies they have found useful. A brand strategy session is likely to cost you around £400 with an independent consultant.
8. Protect your slogan. Register it as a trade mark at the IPO website, to stop others from using the same one. It costs £200 to apply to register a trade mark, with a £30 discount if you apply online.
9. Publicise your slogan on your business cards, on stationery, on your marketing materials, at exhibitions and at the bottom of emails. You might also want to include it on your signage. Make use of it as often as possible and ensure you live up to its promise.
10. Review your slogan regularly. Like your offering, your slogan might need to be adapted according to the needs of your market. For example, in the current economic climate, affordability is likely to be an important characteristic.

Cardinal rules

Do:

• Ensure that your slogan reflects your USP 
• Make sure your slogan stands out 
• Protect your slogan with a trade mark

Don’t

• Make exaggerated claims that you can’t justify 
• Use an existing slogan 
• Use negative wording

With thanks to Fiona Humberstone, founder of Flourish Design & Marketing

Exploiting gaps in your market

Spotting a gap in the market is a key challenge for any business that wants to stay competitive. But proposing a new offer is one thing. Taking it successfully to market presents another challenge.

The history of commerce is littered with products and services that seemed like great ideas, but for which there was actually no sustainable market. For example, Clive Sinclair's C5 electric tricycle famously failed to take off because it created a safety problem rather than solving a transport one.

"I think all of us have launched some bad ideas," says John Fitzgerald, chief executive of BRAVE, the business-support agency. "It's very easy to rush on because it seems like a good idea. I've seen it in both delivering services and manufacturing products – for example, making something because you like making it, rather than asking your customers first."

Research the market

Launching a new product or service without proper planning could seriously undermine your credibility. If you are seen as a business that plunges into new schemes without thinking them through, customers will doubt your professionalism and drift away.

"Every company wants to get to market quickly, but you must do your market research – even within your own organisation," Fitzgerald advises. "Don't get into a position where you're launching a product and your own people don't know about it, then say 'That's never going to work. You should have asked me.'

"Try your idea within the company first, then talk to customers and trade bodies and work it up to get the best offer you can," he continues. "Ask 'Who is this product directed at?'. You need to understand what your potential customers want."

Run a pilot

"Don't oversell and under-deliver," warns Fitzgerald. "If you think you've got the offer right, think through what it means for your company. Can you be sure you can meet demand? Have you got enough warehouse and distribution capacity?"

Running a low-key pilot will help you test demand and iron out problems. "Pick two or three customers who you know will give you very solid feedback and ask them to try it out," Fitzgerald suggests.

"If there are things wrong with it, you'll find out early and you haven't got egg on your face," he stresses. "Listen to their comments, make changes and push it a bit more, then a bit more."

"A lot of our buying decisions are based on the understanding that a product or service has been properly tested or is selling well in another market. If you can tell a potential customer, 'I can put you in touch with these people who are delighted with it', it puts you in a stronger position."

Knowing when a product is not viable

Knowing when to let go of something that is not working is as important as knowing when to push something that is.

"It's very difficult for most entrepreneurs to give up, but you have to have that mindset," insists Mike Southon, author of The Beermat Entrepreneur. "If it's hard work selling something, there's something wrong – whether it's the wrong market or the wrong product or service. You should never struggle with getting people to understand your offer."

Is it time to clean up your email database? You have spent the last 12 months or so building up and promoting your database, but some subscribers may have now lost interest and have stopped opening or reading your emails.

So in this blog post I am going to give ideas how you can clean up your email database and improve targeting your subscribers.

Spelling mistakes

Take time each week to view the recent subscribers and correct any obvious spelling mistakes, for example, seeing an email address like mark@gmaiil.com and correcting this to become a @gmail address. Other spelling mistakes in first or last names too should also be corrected in case you decide to personalise an email - it wouldn't make a good first impression if you got this wrong.

Segment

Split your data up, instead of have one big list containing everyone, break these down into smaller subfolders. Create a group for previous customers only; you can then exclude these from your next email campaign. With this group of subscribers who have never purchased you can send them a campaign showing a special offer or discount code to use.

Quality counts not quantity

I always advise that it is best to have subscribers on your list who know your business, or are previous customers. Don’t add people if they just send an enquiry form through, or if you pick up their business card at a trade show. By the time you email them they won’t have any idea who you are and might be annoyed that you are making unwelcome contact.

What to do with non openers?

An idea would be to add the non openers all to a new group, and maybe email them less frequently, say every month rather than every two weeks.

You could even try changing the subject line or the format of the email completely. Some of these subscribers may have been on your list for years receiving the same email with the same content, so dust of those template cobwebs and spring clean your email template!

When you send this email to your non openers, mention the fact that they haven’t read your email in a while and show them what they are missing out on;  give them the same information you promised when the signed up.

What next?

Ok, so you have fixed any spelling errors, segmented your lists and removed any non openers, now what? Focus on your next email campaigns, plan when you are going to send them out and if you will send different campaigns to each list.

I recommend putting reminders in your calendar for when you plan to send out, have colleagues at hand to proof read and spell check as well as check the links are all correct prior to sending.

Written by Mark Taylor of NewZapp - email marketing experts and a Simple Ways To Grow partner.

For more information on NewZapp visit:  http://www.newzapp.co.uk

So it's the middle of the month and you are looking to get more activity on your website, the problem is you sent out your newsletter two weeks ago. What you need is some social media activity to fill this gap and interact with your followers, keeping them warm until your next newsletter hits their inbox.

So here are some ways you can try to improve on this lack of activity by engaging with your followers.

Ask your followers to subscribe

You don't get if you don't ask. So post an update to your Facebook or Twitter account reminding your followers where to go to subscribe. It is also a good idea to show previous examples of your campaigns next to your signup form - just to show subscribers what they are signing up to and how this may interest them further.

Interact with your fans

Maybe recommend a product for a rainy Monday afternoon or simply just showing a new product that you have in stock. This can help grow activity on your posts and also grow awareness of your brand. Not only this but you can also use this as a great time to post “what did you think of product x?” asking feedback or reviews for other followers to see.

Run a competition

A great way to gain exposure is to run a competition; you can either give away a product or a service you provide. I have even seen examples in the past of companies giving away gift vouchers for high street stores. The competition will entail getting the followers to like or retweet your status to enter, this in turn will increase your overall reach of the competition with all the likes and retweets. Just make sure you have a page on your website with the rules of the competition, details of the prizes and when the competition will close.

Offer a discount

Create a discount code on your website and share this on your social network sites, giving something back to your fans and attempt to encourage new customers. You can promote this on your social network account and let followers know when this discount code ends.

You could even create a welcome email that contains the discount code and this would encourage more people to subscribe to your newsletter.

Plan ahead

Think ahead to any public holidays that are coming up, maybe you'd like to create a campaign themed on Halloween or maybe try posting an update in the evening or over a weekend. This can be anything from announcing a new feature in your system to promoting a new blog post or how to guide.

By using a free application like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, you can manage your social media accounts all under one roof. This also allows you to create social media updates in advance so you do not have to run around during the week.

If you use Google Analytics you can see where most of your traffic originates from and at what time, this can be something to work from in the future if a certain time is more popular than others.

Share links to Blogs or Guides

Share links on Facebook and Twitter to any recent blogs or guides you have written, maybe you can post earlier blog posts to give them some attention. As mentioned above, if you use a social media dashboard application manager you can schedule your updates for the week ahead!

While on the subject of sharing useful blog posts I have added 5 useful articles below that can help you with your email marketing, enjoy!

Written by Mark Taylor of NewZapp - email marketing experts and a Simple Ways To Grow partner.

For more information on NewZapp visit: http://www.newzapp.co.uk

Good mailings can help to boost immediate sales but great mailshots can help you understand your customers and develop lasting relationships, as (insert new Royal Mail contributor) of the Royal Mail explains.

Direct mail is a key marketing tool that enables many businesses to generate sales with the people who are most likely to want their products. But the success of a mail campaign should not be measured solely in terms of immediate sales.

A mailshot also enables you to generate enquiries, find out more about potential customers and cement relationships with people who already buy from you. Keeping multiple objectives in mind will help you more effectively use direct mailing to grow sales and develop your business.

Successful campaigns

A successful mailing campaign is, broadly, one that pays for itself. It is also one that meets objectives you have defined at the outset; and you could be measuring success in a number of ways - total revenue generated, number of sales, response rate (typically seven per cent of recipients respond), information gathered and so on.

Even if you meet your targets for revenue or number of sales, you can still gather worthwhile customer information. For example, you may have set yourself targets of 400 sales and £4,000 in revenue; but your campaign creates 500 sales for just £3,000 income. You have only hit one of your targets, but you have two valuable pieces of data:

1. 500 people are interested in your products
2. These people are mainly interested in your lower-value products.

With this information alone, you can plan your next mailing campaign, which specifically targets these 500 customers with lower-value products.

Customer knowledge

Ideally, though, you will want to know more about your customers than this. For example, is it new customers who have responded or old ones? What parts of the offer have they responded to? Who has spent more?

Every direct mailing gives you the opportunity to find out more about your customers, whether via recording this kind of information, inviting customers to fill out a simple questionnaire or gathering contact information for a follow-up phone survey.

This increased customer knowledge will help you segment your database, build customer profiles and target groups of customers with highly specific mailings which are likely to produce a higher response rate. This in turn will mean that your direct mail campaigns become even more cost-effective and useful.

1. What can I realistically expect a mailshot to do for me?

2. Is direct mail more effective in business or consumer markets?

3. What comes first - who to send to or what to send?

4. Will a personalised mailing always get a better response?

5. Who do I send my mailshots to?

6. What should I look for in a mailing list?

7. How much does a mailshot cost?

8. What response can I expect?

9. How soon will I know if the mailshot has worked?

10. What must I do to comply with the Data Protection Act?

1. What can I realistically expect a mailshot to do for me?

Both direct mail and advertising are methods of communicating with customers and prospects without meeting them face-to-face. Advertising, by its very nature, is impersonal and seldom targets an audience with the same precise accuracy as DM. In contrast, a mailshot can be sent to exactly the person you intend and can be addressed to that specific individual by name. You can limit direct mailing to small numbers until you get the 'recipe' right, and can even adjust the message to suit the recipient. In a way, direct mail can be likened to pinpoint target shooting, whereas advertising is more like a scatter-gun. Unless you can see your target clearly, the advertising scatter-gun may be more useful. Advertising also has the benefit of putting the company name before a wide audience, which can be good for image building. However, precisely targeted DM campaigns are invariably more effective. When and how often you use direct mail depends upon the nature of your business (for example - seasonality), your marketing strategy (intentions), and the results you obtain from each batch of mailings (effectiveness).

2. Is direct mail more effective in business or consumer markets?

Well-planned direct mail can be equally effective in both business and consumer markets. But these two markets are quite different, and need different approaches. In general, the list of prospects in a business market will be shorter than in a consumer market, but the value of each item sold may be greater. This means that you may be justified in spending more time and money personalising business mailshots. The language has to be more formal and the 

message might best appeal to logic rather than emotion. The recipient of a business mailshot can rarely act without first consulting relevant colleagues - so include benefits and evidence.

In consumer markets the recipient is usually the buyer and can respond immediately. Moreover, the message can be aimed at broader emotional appeal since this plays a strong role in influencing personal buying, though benefits are still very important.

3. What comes first - who to send to or what to send?

Look at the mailing list first. Start off by spending most of your time and resources in either compiling your own list or carefully sourcing the right list from a list broker. A stunning message delivered to the wrong audience is a complete waste of money. Only when you are happy that a good list is available should you move on to thinking about what to send.

Send to your identified, targeted prospects. And remember to mailshot your existing customers as well - they need to be told about new offers and reminded to make seasonal purchases. You will make more profit selling to your existing customers than spending money looking for more names.

4. Will a personalised mailing always get a better response?

Personalised mailings will always get a better response than bland 'To whom it may concern' letters. The latter fall into the realms of junk mail, and we all know what happens to that. The more individual you make the message, the more chance you have of building a relationship and making a sale.

Consider digitally-produced options very seriously. These days they are capable of a high level of personalisation.

5. Who do I send my mailshots to?

Ideally, you want to be mailing people who meet the same criteria as your best customers. So think about the characteristics of these very carefully and see if you can build up a picture of them. Knowing who you are looking for makes it much easier to compile mailing lists and tailor the most effective messages.

In consumer markets, ask yourself if your best customers share the same age group, sex, marital status, income bracket, occupation, geographical location, lifestyle or hobbies. Also consider if your best customers are likely to be of the same mindset, work in the same industry, have the same delivery requirements or all rely on seasonal demand. Always tailor to the needs and expectations of your targets.

6. What should I look for in a mailing list?

Direct mail is a huge industry with many firms that specialise in running mail campaigns (direct mail agencies), compiling and selling lists (list brokers), designing, printing, mechanically stuffing and dispatching envelopes (mailing or fulfilment houses) and managing databases. A small business will probably do best by just contacting list brokers (sourced via the Direct Marketing Association at www.dma.org.uk ) or looking in Yellow Pages under 'Direct Mail'.

Bought-in lists should always be treated with some care. You need to ask:

• Is the list for rent or for sale? Most are to rent on a one-use only basis, though follow-up mailings within a certain period are allowed on payment of a reduced fee.
• Does the cost per thousand include telephone numbers, job titles and individuals' names, and essential extras like printing out the addresses on sticky labels?
• How was the list compiled? Lists are often gathered from membership lists of magazines (the most common source) or learned societies, 'publicly available sources' (such as the electoral roll) and advertising coupon responses. Lists built from 'box tickers' are far less valuable than those based on real orders to buy.
• What is the minimum order? Many brokers will try to sell you 5,000 names as a minimum. Do not be bullied into this. It does not take 5,000 names to know whether the list, or your offer, is going to generate a response. A list of 1,000 should be enough.
• What is the total number available? Some lists may simply be too small to reach the minimum quantity, making them rather expensive per head.

7. How much does a mailshot cost?

The cost of a mailshot includes:

• Postage or delivery charges (depending on weight).

• Numerical quantity of the mailshot.

• Printing costs of the contents.

• Cost of renting or compiling lists.

• Any administrative costs involved.

Savings are possible if you tackle each of these individual elements of cost.

For example, explore the possibility of self-generated in-house marketing or a discount on postage with the Royal Mail. Limiting the size of the mailshot is an obvious saving. The weight can be reduced by removing all unnecessary contents, or even using thinner paper for your letter and the envelope. Print costs can also be reduced by having optimum print runs or using fewer colours. Try to balance savings against loss of quality - avoid looking cheap.

8. What response can I expect?

Response varies enormously, though you can usually rely on better returns when you mail your own customer base - those who already know and love you. People normally talk in terms of a national average response rate of about 0.5 per cent, but if you are selling BMWs or major capital goods, a much lower figure will still be quite acceptable.

You must distinguish between responses and conversions. Many prospects may send for a brochure, but how many actually buy? Record all your responses and take steps to improve on your results.

9. How soon will I know if the mailshot has worked?

The extent of the response will be known within a week or two, often less than that. If the response is poor, you may not immediately know whether it is because you have mailed to the wrong list or whether the offer was poorly communicated or simply fell on stony ground. Contact some of the targets and try to find out why it did not appeal. Without this direct analysis, you will not learn where you went wrong. Where possible it is better to test your campaign in advance on a small sample group before deploying it fully. This will help reduce the risk of poor performance.

10. What must I do to comply with the Data Protection Act?

All businesses using personal data must comply with the Data Protection Act. To comply with the Act, you must observe the eight data protection principles - enforceable rules for handling information - and ensure that your staff are aware of them. Under the principles you must make sure that any personal information you hold is:

• Fairly and lawfully processed

• Processed for limited purposes

• Adequate, relevant and not excessive

• Accurate and up to date

• Not kept for longer than is necessary

• Processed in line with your rights

• Secure

• Not transferred to other countries without adequate protection

If your business' core activity involves processing personal details, for example you sell mailing lists, you will also have to notify the Information Commissioner that you are a data controller (unless you are exempt). To find out more about your obligations under the Data Protection Act, visit the Information Commissioner's Office website (www.ico.gov.uk).

Direct mail is personally addressed advertising, delivered through the post. It can be extremely effective for start-up businesses, because it is so flexible - and because its effects are so easily tracked. You can send what you want, when you want, to the customers you choose to target. You can experiment before doing a full mailshot. And you can measure the customer response to every mailing you do. This briefing explains:

1. How to decide if direct mail can help you.

2. How to plan and design a campaign.

3. Preparing a mailshot. 4. Handling the responses.

1 Who does it work for?  

Consider three businesses, each trying to find new customers. Each of the three spends £250 sending a mailshot to a list of 1,000 names.

1.1 A travel company sells holidays for £1,000 each, £250 of which is profit. • If one person books a holiday, the mailshot has paid for itself.

1.2 A sandwich shop makes £1 profit on each £2 sandwich it sells. Regular customers spend about £5 a week, generating £125 profit each in a year. • If the mailshot brings in two new regular customers, it has paid for itself.

1.3 A pottery makes a clear £5 profit on each set of mugs it sells. But customers do not buy more than one set. • The mailshot would have to produce 50 new customers, just to pay for itself. To be profitable, a mailshot must give a large gross profit per customer or a high conversion rate (the percentage of target customers who make a purchase), or ideally both of these things. Handling the response Prepare realistically for the enquiries and replies your mailshot will trigger. Response rates from trial mailings will help you to predict the numbers fairly accurately. Stagger your posting dates, to control the flow of responses. Make sure your employees know what they have to do. Keep updating your mailing list, noting who has replied and which names and addresses are no longer correct. • Measure the response to see how cost-effective the mailing has been.

2 What are your objectives?

Start by asking yourself what the mailing is designed to achieve.

2.1 Are you trying to make immediate sales? • What volume, by what date?

2.2 Are you aiming to get names and addresses of interested potential customers? • How many new names?

2.3 Are you trying to bring forward sales to your existing customers?

2.4 Is the whole point of the mailing to allow you to make follow-up calls?

2.5 Is the mailing to provide information to existing customers?

3 Responses

4.1 Response rates to mailshots vary widely.

• A 1 to 2 per cent response rate is often regarded as normal. But a mailshot to your ten best customers, making them a good offer, could result in a 100 per cent response rate (they all reply) and even a 100 per cent conversion rate (they all place an order).

4.2 Timing is important.

• At what times of the year, month or week will customers be most interested in your product?

• For most businesses, the best time to receive a mailshot is midweek - when they are not too busy - and not just before or after a holiday. 4.3 Experiment a little before investing in any expensive mailshots, to find out what works.

• Results from one small section of a list should scale up if you have made sure it is representative of the list as a whole.

4.4 Responses may be delayed if mailshots are passed to other staff or filed for reference.

• Useful information on topics like transport, accommodation, office equipment and seminars may be retained for some time.

5 Mailing existing customers

Mailshots to customers can be used to introduce a new product, to make a special offer, or simply to keep customers informed and build loyalty.

5.1 A small travel company planned a schedule of three mailshots in the run-up to its busy January-March booking period:

• September - invitation to a slide show.
• November - list of holiday ideas and special offers
• January - a letter introducing the company's new sales manager, explaining how capable and experienced she was (and thus doubling her chances of selling to existing customers).

6.  Points to note

• Everyone who responds to your original mailing becomes 'yours' and can be mailed again, as often as you like.

• Try to find an attention-grabbing headline.

• Offer a benefit in the opening paragraph.

• Tell a clear, simple, convincing story.

• Finish by prompting the reader to take action, and explaining how to do it.

• For a letter, the ideal is to write the name in by hand and sign the letter yourself.

• Pictures of your products can answer a lot of the potential customer's questions.

• Consider some form of special offer. This should be for a limited period, and include relevant terms and conditions.  

This briefing outlines:

• How to write an effective sales letter

• How to write leaflets and brochures

• How to create a response device

1. Writing an effective sales letter

Ask yourself the following questions and arrange the answers in the form of a letter:

• Do you have the name of your customer? If so, address the letter to them. If you know them well, use their first name. If not, use their title and surname. If you don't have their name, use a default greeting - Dear reader or Dear gardener, for example. • What's your main reason for writing?

• What are you offering your customer?

• Why is it of benefit to them?

• Are there any other benefits for the customer?

• Can you offer your customer a guarantee that this is the right product for them?

• Can you encourage your customer to respond more quickly?

• Is there any information they will need to respond?

• Have you signed the letter? Use your full name.

• Ask yourself again: is there any way to encourage your customer to respond or can you restate your main benefit? Your sales letter must be easy to read. Here's how to keep your letter simple and to the point:

• Use short sentences. 16 words is a good general rule; don't exceed 32 words

• Use short paragraphs. Limit each paragraph to one thought or idea

• Concentrate on style. A good approach is to write as you would speak.

• Minimise punctuation

• Be warm and friendly. Let your personality shine through but don't be over-familiar

• Use the word "you" as often as possible. It should appear at least two or three times more often than I, we or our • Use everyday words and phrases

THE WHATEVER SOLUTION 

WHATEVER your business does. WHATEVER size of company you have. 

WHATEVER your marketing challenges are. WHATEVER part of the country you are in. 

DIRECT MAIL DELIVERS 

because 

1 WHATEVER your target market is, direct mail can help to reach them with minimum 

wastage. There are many, many direct mail lists available to both buy and rent . . . and you 

can choose just as easily between business to business and business to consumer. So 

whether it’s 

– Finance Directors in Yorkshire companies irrelevant of what type of business OR 

– Directors of “green” supply businesses in North Yorkshire OR 

– Young married couples on the Yorkshire coast OR 

– Retirees in York 

there’s a list to meet your need; if you don’t know who you want to talk to, take a tip from 

your existing customers . . . find more of the same! Just starting up and haven’t got any 

customers? Well, if you don’t know who you want to sell to, how on earth did you get past 

the bank? 

2 WHATEVER you want those recipients to do, the key is to be very, very clear. If you 

want them to come to an event . . . a seminar, a shop opening, a trade show, a wine tasting 

. . . then tell them up front. Imagine how you would couch the invitation if you were face to 

face. You are unlikely to start the conversation: “my name is Joe Bloggs, and 9 years ago I 

decided to open a shop in Northallerton specialising in Portuguese wines. So my wife and I 

drove around Portugal for 6 months in a camper van, lining up suppliers and then came 

back to Northallerton because it became obvious we would need the grandparents as baby 

sitters! So we chose a shop, argued about the colour scheme . . . by the way do you prefer 

white or cream . . . and eventually we opened. Once a year we hold a tasting event for the 

new season’s wine; it’s next Thursday; would you like to come?” 

You wouldn’t, would you? You’d say: “want to come to a wine tasting next Thursday?” 

It’s just the same with Direct Mail. Decide, in advance, the purpose of your mailshot: 

 – place an order from your catalogue or website 

 – ask for more information, someone to call 

 – accept an invitation to attend an event 

THEN, build your mailshot around that purpose, remembering that the letter is the single 

most important element because it IS the replacement for you talking face to face. 

“Dear Mr Smith 

 A Special “Wine from Portugal” Event 

Would you like to come to our FREE wine tasting of this year’s Portuguese wine? It’s an 

annual event we hold at our wine shop in Blossomgate, where for 9 years we have 

specialised in Portuguese wines because we know that Northallerton residents like yourself 

enjoy the rather different and eclectic ranges.” 

3 WHATEVER you want to use to motivate must also be clear. Ask yourself: “WHY 

should they respond?” Well actually you need a good, strong company message. What are 

your unique points? Patented technology? Family business? Been going for years? Won 

lots of awards? You’re trying to get them INTERESTED and TRUSTING. But, hey, we’re all 

busy. There is nothing wrong with incentivising a response (ok,ok, bribing). But you do 

need to think carefully about what incentive FITS with not only your business but also with 

what you want them to do (the call to action). Common incentive techniques are 

 – free gift on enquiry or purchase; this works if they are coming to you, or you are 

 going to them . . . otherwise you’ve got post and packing costs 

 – entry into a free prize draw on enquiring (it’s unlawful to make an entry conditional 

 on a purchase) 

 – money off such as 10% off first order, or buy one, get one free. 

Remember, if you get zilch response from your mailshot, that’s it. If you get an enquiry, a 

contact, a prospect – because you have bribed them . . . then even if they don’t buy there 

and then, you have contact details that you can go back to. 

4 WHATEVER you want to earn from your first mailshot, may not be entirely in your 

hands. Like all good clubs, mail has an entry price, whilst you get going. And because you 

should always start off low key you won’t benefit from economies of scale . . . but you will 

when you move into bigger volumes and / or higher frequency. There is no such thing as a 

right or wrong level of response. Some businesses need 10%, some make a fortune on 

0.01%! It’s not the response rate, it’s the Return on Investment that matters. How much 

can you afford to pay for a new prospect or customer, remembering that looked after 

properly they will be with you for years! 

THE WHATEVER RULES OF THE GAME 

1 The choice of list will have the most effect on your success. 

2 Take small list quantities while you test, test and test again. 

3 The single most important item in the envelope is the letter. 

4 The letter is you telling them why they might be interested . . . it’s not about you! 

5 The envelope should also contain some literature . . . up to the postage rate. 

6 The bribe should be featured on a separate piece of paper. 

7 The call to action should be very clear . . . we’re all busy! 

8 An unconverted prospect is still a prospect. 

9 Response rate is nothing: RoI is everything. 

10 Royal Mail can help you with all of the above. 

DIRECT MAIL DELIVERS 

Judith Donovan CBE did her first mailshot whilst working for Ford Motor Company in 1975. 

She did her second for the Yale Fork Lift Trucks in 1976. In 1977 she joined Grattan 

Warehouses, the catalogue company, and in 1982 she started what became Britain’s 2nd 

oldest independent Direct Mail agency with a turnover of more than £10 million and 50 

staff. Before she sold to her Managers in 2000, she became Chair of the DMA, Editor in 

Chief of Direct Mailing Strategies and author of DIY Direct Marketing. She has lectured on 

direct mail in over 26 countries and has been awarded “Direct Marketer of the Year” and a 

place on the DMA Roll of Honour. Currently she consults to Royal Mail and chairs a 

Strategic Mailing Partnership for them . . . and she is also Chair of the Greater Ripon 

Improvement Partnership. 

HOW TO USE DIRECT MAIL

Action List

• Decide what your objectives are: for example, making direct sales, maintaining customer relationships or generating new enquiries
• Identify your target audience, typically similar to your existing customers.
• Establish your budget; consider how much each response will be worth to you, and the likely response rate.
• Plan the timing of the mailshot; avoid holiday periods, and ensure that mailings that are linked to a specific event arrive in good time.
• Build your own mailing list and keep it up to date; keep records of enquiries and existing customers, and ask existing contacts for new leads.
• Consider renting a mailing list; clearly specify your target audience, how many names you want.  

Ensure that your use and storage of personal data complies with the Data Protection Act.

• Prepare a letter with a clear, attention-grabbing message selling the benefits of your offer.
• Design the mailshot to be attractive
• Encourage responses: make responding easy and consider offering an incentive to reply promptly.
• Use test mailings to establish likely response rates, and to compare the effectiveness of different mailshots or mailing lists.
• Decide how you will handle the response and make any necessary preparations: for example, train employees how to deal with enquiries and ensure you have adequate stocks.
• Analyse the response; record which contacts have been mailed and their response. Update your mailing list for any mail ‘returned to sender’ or e-mail bouncebacks.

Cardinal Rules

Do:

• be clear what your objectives are and who you are targeting 
• use an up-to-date and accurate mailing list 
• prepare an attractive, personalised mailing 
• encourage responses

Don’t:

• commit to a large mailshot without adequate testing 
• overestimate likely response rates 
• send a mailshot before ensuring that you can handle the response

Your website strategy

Virtually all businesses will benefit from a website. This briefing will help you develop a strategy for building one.

This briefing covers:

• The benefits of setting up a website.
• The costs involved.
• How you can make money from your site.

1 The business benefits

You can reach new customers and improve communications with existing customers through a website. You can also sell online, use forums or blogs to solicit feedback and show the individuals behind your business.

1.1 Improve marketing to existing customers.

• Keep customers up-to-date about new products and special offers.
• Provide a forum for customer feedback.
• Publishing costs are low, so provide as much detail as you want. Organise information logically, so customers can find what they need.

1.2 Address new markets, national and global.

• You can reach potential buyers anywhere in the country, or anywhere in the world. You may wish to translate your website into other languages, or register domain names for other countries. Be aware of complications of law, delivery and payment when trading internationally.
• If you operate in a niche, potential customers from further afield will find you through search engines.

1.3 Cut costs by providing technical information and after-sales support online.

• Compile lists of frequently asked questions (FAQs) so that your customers themselves can find answers to many of their queries.
• List contact details for distributors or stockists.
• Give extra information to help customers order the right items first time.
• Allow customers to send you messages online, rather than calling you.

1.4 Protect existing revenue streams and generate new ones.

• Set up an online shop to sell your products or information services online (see 4.1).
• Carry advertisements which generate revenue when people click them (see 4.2).

1.5 Recruit people with specialised skills, knowledge and experience.

• Advertise job opportunities on your site.

Once your website is set up, the space you use within that website is effectively free. Whenever you have an idea that involves putting out extra information to help your customers, suppliers or employees, you can try it at no cost.

2 Exploiting your website

A website can make it possible to deliver existing services more efficiently, as well as new ones.

2.1 Publish an online catalogue of goods and services.

• Visitors can learn about your products and make a selection at their own pace.
• Catalogues can be updated instantly, with no need to print and distribute them. This makes it easier to run promotions or change product lines.

2.2 Create a shopping site, so visitors can buy from you 24 hours a day (see 4.1).

• An off-the-shelf e-commerce package will let you build a basic shopping site easily.
• Running an online shop can have a significant impact on your stock systems, IT and logistics.

2.3 Provide product updates and service information for your existing customers.

• Frequently-changing information can be easily updated at regular intervals, or even in real time.

2.4 Encourage your customers to get involved with your website.

• Use a blog to show the personalities behind your business and invite customer comments.
• Provide space for customers to submit reviews of your products or services.

3 How much will it cost?

Costs are determined by the level of sophistication you build into your website.

3.1 For a comparatively small, simple site, the costs will be modest.

• Registering your domain name, ie www.yourcompany.com, for two years could cost from £6.
• A web-hosting plan will make your site accessible on the internet. Hosting starts from £3 a month. 
• You can create a basic site with a website builder. These use templates and hide the website code. 
• If your business lacks the necessary in-house technical knowledge, it may be wise to hire a designer.

3.2 Costs will be higher for a more complex site, but the impact will be greater.

• Consider employing a website manager and a web designer, especially if you will make frequent changes to your pages.
• You will probably need a developer to add extra features to your site - such as search tools, or a 'shopping-cart' system for online sales.
• If you open an e-commerce site (see 4.1), additional costs may include commission on sales to a shopping software supplier and bank fees for processing credit cards.

If this is your first website, consider commissioning an established design agency to devise and build your site. This can seem expensive at first, but is likely to prove better value for money, as you will end up with a professional site which is easier to update.

Getting started

The usual way to establish a location is to rent space for your website on a server run by a web-hosting company.

• Your web-hosting company can also register a domain name - the unique address identifying your site, like www.yourcompany.com.
• The cost of hosting will depend on the features you need, and how many visitors you expect. 
• If your website grows beyond the capacity of your hosting, you may be charged. Choose a package which you can upgrade easily as your site grows.

Before purchasing from a web host, check how they deal with downtime.

• Look for a service level agreement (SLA). This will guarantee availability of your website, and commits the web host to restoring service within a certain amount of time if your site goes down. 
• Make sure the hosting service includes backups. This will keep your company's data safe.

For maximum impact, employ professional designers to develop your page content.

• A good designer will know how to make the best use of the technology.
• Recommendations are the best way to find a good designer.
• Always ask for references and look closely at their previous work.

4 Making money

Even if your site is mainly designed to improve communication with your customers, it may offer revenue-raising opportunities.

4.1 You can sell products and services direct from your site.

• Once set up, a website is a cheap and efficient method of making sales.
• Margins can be unusually high, because there is no wholesaler or retailer involved.
• The best sellers are commodity goods such as books that can be sold at reduced prices, reflecting low overheads.
• The web is ideal for selling things that buyers find hard to track down.
• Service industries can also sell online. Travel agents, hotels, plumbers and dentists all take bookings on the web.

Payment is the critical factor when selling online. You can purchase an e-commerce package or online payment system to safely accept card payments. You should not request credit card details by email, as this is not secure.

4.2 Even small sites can make money from advertising, although you will need a large audience to generate a significant income.

• Pay-per-click adverts are most common. These small blocks of text are inserted into your site by search engines. You receive a small payment each time one is clicked.
• You can also sell banner adverts. These graphic adverts link to an advertiser's site. However, you will need to check that your website design can accept external banner adverts.  
• Advertising rates vary widely, depending on the nature and performance of the adverts.
• You can sign up to the major search engines' pay-per-click advertising programmes online. Contact a specialist online ad agency if you think you have an audience for banner adverts.

4.3 If you offer information which is impossible to find elsewhere, you may be able to charge for access to your site.

• People are very reluctant to pay for information online, so this model is only viable for websites in specialist areas.

Security

Security is important for any website.

All reputable web-hosting companies will take security precautions.

• Make sure your hosting company uses firewalls, and updates their systems on a regular basis.
• Physical security is important too. Your web host should be able to explain where their servers are located and how they are protected from theft, fire and flooding.

For online payments, set up a secure link to the online bank or credit card authorisation service you use.

• Many web-hosting services offer this as an option. It can be easier to pay extra for this than building your own system.
• You can take offline payments, over the phone.
• This is safe and also economical, but the extra hassle may put customers off.
• Never ask customers to send payment details through email. This is not secure.

5 Making a site successful

Stick to a simple, clear design that delivers what your customers are hoping to find.

5.1 Provide an information service, not just an online catalogue.

• For example, Amazon.co.uk offers reviews and interviews, as well as a vast range of products for sale.

5.2 Use a news section to add impact.

• Grab people's attention by displaying news and offers on the first page of your site.
• Up-to-date news keeps your website fresh and may be valued by visitors.

5.3 Make visitors feel involved by asking for their opinions and respecting their interests.

• Include links to other interesting sites. Contact businesses offering products which complement your own and set up reciprocal links.
• Links can be coded to open up in a new window, so that people who follow them do not actually leave your site.

5.4 Make the site relevant to global audiences.

• Set up localised pages for key overseas markets, with details of dealers and prices.

5.5 Ensure your site is efficient, attractive and free from design glitches and spelling errors.

• Keep it simple. Cluttered designs with too many graphics take too long to download.
• Check that every link works. There are free online services that will check your site's links regularly.
• Test your site with all the major browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari and Google Chrome.

6 Attracting visitors

6.1 Optimise your site for search engines.

6.2 Use social media to reach potential customers for free

• Twitter enables you to post brief messages which are read instantly by 'followers'.
• Facebook enables you to create your own page, which can be 'Liked' by 'fans', who will automatically see any messages that you publish.

6.3 Consider using pay-per-click advertising on search engines to attract visitors.

6.4 Use email to let a targeted list of potential customers know about your site.

• You must obtain your recipients' prior consent before sending them any marketing emails.
• You can rent an email list from a broker. Check that list members opt to be included.
• Keep your email short and simple. Test it carefully and make sure major email services do not flag it up as spam.

6.5 Issue a press release when the site launches.

• PR websites will pick this up and link to your site and other relevant sites and industry magazines may mention your site.

6.6 Negotiate to exchange links with relevant but non-competing organisations.

• If your trade or industry body has a website, ask for a link to your site.
• Contact anyone you know who might be able to spread the word. Plug your site in allcompany literature including letterheads and business cards, as well as flyers and advertisements.

7 Getting help

Word-of-mouth recommendation and advice from business friends will be more help than books, which are soon out of date.

7.1 Ask your local chamber of commerce and trade associations for recommendations.

• They may be able to put you in touch with specialist designers and agencies that they have used and would recommend.

7.2 Choose a consultant who has been recommended by someone you trust, or who worked on a website that you like.

• Internet and business magazines often run features about web design agencies.
• Make sure you check a designer's portfolio and references.

7.3 Must ensure that your website complies with disability discrimination legislation. For related information, visit the Equality and Human Rights Commission website: .

What ePages 6 offers for SEO out-of-the-box

We will show you how ePages is designed to work with search engines  

Some of the methods used by search engines for indexing and rating are not publicly known and change with time. This article does not claim to be complete, but will help you to understand what SEO is and how ePages is configured to help you, however we can provide no guarantee of successs as much of that is down to what you do.  See our other article on "How to make SEO work for you"  

Some Basic terminology 

Alt attribute of the IMG tag

The alt attribute is used in HTML documents to specify alternative text (alt text) that is to be rendered when the element to which it is applied cannot be rendered. It is also used by "screen reader" software so that a person who is listening to the content of a webpage (for instance, a person who is blind) can interact with this element. In HTML 4.01, the attribute is required for the image (img) and area tags. It is optional for the input tag.

Keywords and tags

HTML provides for sections (tags) in a web page which are not displayed in a browser but can be evaluated by a search engine. Some are ignored by search engines because they were often misused in the past. It is generally true that search terms should be spread over the entire page.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the main markup language for creating web pages and other information that can be displayed in a web browser.

Indexing

This is a term used to describe search engines recognising and listing a web site or sometng within a web site

Search Term

This is a word or phrase which can be "seen" by a search engine and used in listing or indexing. e.g the term "Jackets" in the example below.  You as a buyer will use "search terms" to find what you need.  so if you are looking for a jacket you will use the word jacket in your search, however you may be looking for a specific type of jacket or maker either or both can be search terms.

Session IDs

Web sites often generate Session IDs, long chains of letters and numbers in the URL, (starting with "ID=" or "session=") and include a number of parameters (represented in the URL with question marks "?" followed by characters interspersed with ampersands "&"). These do not work well with search engines.

Sitemap.XML

ePages automatically creates a file called sitemap-xml. The http://www.sitemaps.org project is sponsored by Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft operators of the leading search engines on the internet.

The TITLE tag

The TITLE tag is a very important element for SEO. It is automatically filled with the product name followed by the shop name.

The URL

The URL is the address of a website or page within it and is used to navigate from one page or web site to another through the web.

Understanding how these are used in the Internet and in ePages

Sitemao.xml The existence of this structural overview on a website makes it easier for search engines to analyse the site and provides information about timeliness and the relative importance of specific pages, for example.

The URL & Session Ids  ePages does not use session IDs in the URL

Some areas of a web site do not need to be indexed in a search engine. At times, indexing could also be undesirable, examples being the shopping basket or the My Account area. ePages prevents indexing of these pages by using the rel="nofollow" link attribute.

The URL has been made as short as possible to make it easier for a user to understand the results a search engine displays. In order to change the link, a special "Short URL" entry field is available for all products and categories. Here are a few examples:

• Home page: http://<domain>
• Category page: http://<domain>/Jackets
• Product detail page: http://<domain>/Family-Tent-XYZ

The position of the search term in the URL and whether it is included as a parameter are both unimportant. However, the URL is clearer if the search term is included (see above).

Title tags

 The detail page of the family tent from our example content has the following:

TITLE tag <title>Eureka El Capitan IV - Milestones</title>

It starts with the possible search term. The company name comes afterwards. This also fulfils the requirement that every subpage has a unique TITLE tag so that a web site can be found using many different search terms.  You can make this most effective when you supplement the exiting content of the title tag to create an entire search phrase. 

META tags

Meta elements provide information about a given Web page, most often to help search engines categorize them correctly. They are inserted into the HTML document, but are often not directly visible to a user visiting the site.

The application supports two META tags (these start with <meta> in HTML). These have varying relevance for search engines. The short description of the product is automatically written in the description attribute:

<meta name="description" content="Dome tent for four persons" />  

Search engines evaluate the DESCRIPTION tag. It is best to distribute the relevant search term several times in the text. When the search results are displayed, the description is printed highlighted and bold if it contains the search term.  At time of writing, almost all search engines (including Google) ignore the keywords META tag:

<meta name="keywords" content="Camping" />

Since this may not always be the case, it is possible to fill out the field Key words for search field below the product descriptions. Even if Google does not use this field at the moment, it is still important for the internal product search. For example, if your product  is a vacuum cleaner, you can enter Hoover as a keyword. The product will now be found by the ePages product search, although the word Hoover does not appear in the product name or in the description. The TITLE and the META tags are found at the top of the HTML document inside the head tag.

H tags ( or heading tags)

H tags are used for headings in HTML and are important for search engines. The application uses the levels H1 to H3. Examples:

<h1>Eureka El Capitan IV</h1> <h3>Link to categories »

Link to tents » Link to family tents » Eureka El Capitan IV </h3>

The product name is automatically filled in in the H1 level. H2 contains that table with additional product attributes primary search terms can be entered here for search engines as well. H3 contains the navigation history, meaning the path of the product within the hierarchy.  Although the entries are displayed at the top of the page in the browser, they are in the middle of the body area of the HTML text.

Alt tags

In ePages the ALT attribute of the IMG tag  are used to provide more detailed descriptions of images. The product name is entered automatically here as well.

ALT="Eureka El Capitan IV"  

Search engines consider ALT attributes important if the graphic is found within a link. This is so in ePages  as pictures of categories and products are always links. Keywords in the ALT attribute of images are assigned by Google to the target linked page and not to the page on which the images are placed.

Google PageRank

Google PageRank does not affect the order of the search results. This is simply a general value (from 0 to 10) which reflects the  "importance" of the page. Primarily, the PageRank is affected by the number and quality of back-links (see External links).

Making SEO work for you

We will explain what you can do to optimise your ePages web site for search engines and also how to improve ranking in the search engines.

What you can do

ePages as a software vendor cannot perform the entire search engine optimisation for your site and there are some important aspects which can only be set by the web site owner, the most important one being of course the content. In addition, you must also consider the speed at which the search engines add new pages and update old ones. If the domain is brand new, it may take a few weeks until it is indexed.

External links

Google takes into account that your shop is part of the internet and regards how your web site is linked to other web pages. If you do not have any incoming links, Google will not find or index your "island", even if you register the URL of your home page with Google manually!

How to link  

Back-links have the most important effect on your site's relevance for search engines. These are links to your web site from other webpages. These not only includes links to the home page of your web site but more importantly, links to subpages such as categories and products. Every link to your site's pages signals to the search engine that your web site contains a relevant offering and deserves a prominent place in the search results.  The link text plays an important role. If the search term is contained in the link  text, the search engine assumes that the target of the link your shop or web page contains content which is relevant to the search term. This means that an external web page should not link to your shop like this:

<a href="http://<domain>/epages/ShopName>.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=Categories/Tents/FamilyTents">click here</a>

But rather like this:

<a href="http://domain>/epages/ShopName>.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=Categories/Tents/FamilyTents">Family tents</a>

or better (using the short URL):

<a href="http://<domain>/family_tents">Family tents</a>

The link text is "Family tents" and forwards to the relevant category page in your web site when clicked. To pass links on, use the "Links to external" beneath the "Short URL" field. Embedding the link in a small text message or advert is even better. These increase the relevance. The text message should include relevant content and use the required search terms. This has the  advantage for the search engine that the search term and the message text are both contained in the link text and are close to each  other on the page. This proximity is considered in the ranking:

Find equipment for camping holidays at Milestones. Our special offer for the month:

<a href="http://domain>/epages/ShopName>.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=Categories/Tents/FamilyTents">Family tents</a>

Good places for links of this sort are busy forums where the content is changing constantly to stay up-to-date. These are visited often by search engines. Blogs are also good for this. However, some blogs and forums do not allow posts to contain links or use rel="nofollow" to bar these. Portals which contain lists of links are less efficient.

Cataloguing services such as DMOZ (http://www.dmoz.org) help when searching for link partners. An entry in the catalogue however does not improve rating more than  any other back-link. Additional such possibilities are:

http://www.freeindex.co.uk,  http://www.applegate.co.uk, http://www.yell.com or directories for specific sectors.

When buying banners and text adverts, make sure that the link does not contain a "rel=nofollow" attribute (search engines are stopped here) and also that the link does not forward over an ad server or a link script. Take a look at the existing adverts of the provider (does the link in the advert point to the customer's page directly?) or, if in doubt, ask. The position of links on the page is also crucial. A link in the footer or at the bottom of a sidebar does not help as much as one higher in the content area. There should also not be lots of other links on the page since this would diminish the value of your own link. Convince the operator of the other page about the long-term nature of the offer the older the link, the better. Google assumes that "older" links are more honest.

It is generally true that if you do not want to pay for all back-links and do not want to be excluded from forums because of adverts for your own web site, you must provide good reasons for voluntarily linking to your e-commerce site. Offer content other than your products or services such as information pages and specialist articles about general topics in your line of business or an archive of past newsletters. This increases the chance that other users will link to you from their pages. The search engine will then notice your increased popularity in the internet. Your creativity and sector know-how is required here. No one will simply link to your product pages without a reason. Other content-based incentives must exist to encourage this in order to receive links to informational pages. Then, at least the user will visit your site. You can find examples of how to get links like this under the term Link bait on the internet. And: search engines regard links which are created "naturally", better. 

Of course, you should use the export of your products to various product portals (for example, Pangora, Shopping.com, Google Merchant Center) that you find in your web site administration under Marketing >> Product portals.

Link source

The source of the link accounts for 50% of the rating. It is important who links to your pages. (Don't buy 20 million links at eBay for £19.95. That does not help and actually hinders your site!) Important is the domain from which the back-link comes. Back-links to a British web site should come from a British domain (.uk Therefore, even if you own a .com domain, but the server is in Germany, it  will be harder in the American Google index if you do not have only American customers (you can then convert this assignment in the Google webmaster tools). Google works internally with the IP addresses assigned to the domains. The first three number blocks of the IP addresses must be different. Differences in the last number block (the D block) do not count: 123.456.789.xxx (You can find out the IP address of a domain by entering ping <domain> in the command prompt). Google rates multiple links that come from one domain the same as a single link. Therefore, you need as many links as possible from different domains. Links from .edu domains have an especially positive effect. Perhaps you can sponsor them and receive links in return. "If you link to me, I'll link to you" isn't really a worthwhile practice. One-way links are evaluated more positively than links in both directions. Use a "triangle of links"  instead: A to B, B to C and C to A.

Look at the cache date for a page where you buy a link (view with cache:URL). If the date is older than a month, it is not very valuable. To increase the quality and number of links, you must plan in enough time. It would be frivolous to claim that immense progress can be achieved here within a few days.

Press releases

Even if you do not know the editor of a trade journal for your sector, press releases can get the attention of bloggers and journalists.In addition to fee-based online portals for press releases, there are also free portals, although these must fulfil the requirements above as well (for example, links have to have rel="nofollow" attributes) the press release should of course have a link to your pages. You can link to your home page, or, if it fits the text better, to one of your sub-pages. Online press portals have a relatively high page rank and are indexed often by the search engines because of their continual updates. But do not expect many visitors from press portals. Note that the same press release at multiple portals can be rated as duplicate content, which is negative. Perhaps you can change the release a little bit for each portal. Examples of online press portals (at some, registration is necessary) are:

- http://free-press-release.com

- http://www.prlog.org

- http://www.1888pressrelease.com

- http://www.i-newswire.com

- http://www.freepressreleases.co.uk

- http://www.pr.com

Link farms and other unfair methods

Google has a number of strict rules for the owners of web pages including web site owners. Link farms, link purchases, hidden links (using CSS), and doorway pages are prohibited. Although an automatic method to recognise these does not exist, competitors often report unfair methods to Google using the spam report button. Often, links to pages which have been reported like this are not evaluated. In exceptional cases (for example explicit spam pages), web sites are downgraded or even removed from the index as a punishment. Be careful when dealing with dubious "page optimisers". You should not link to a link farm yourself, of course.  

Before buying expensive back-links, make sure to find out as much as possible about them, for example in SEO forums. Examples of these are:

- http://www.seochat.com

- http://forums.digitalpoint.com

Web pages which are predominantly linked to from pages with a high PageRank (>5) or demonstrate a sudden, unnatural increase in links (for example 2,000 links at once) are looked at suspiciously for "unfair methods" by the "eyes" of the search engines. In these cases, Google checks manually for possible legitimate reasons for this, such as an article on www.bbc.co.uk with a link to a previously relatively unknown page. However, if the suspicion is confirmed, the page is downgraded in the ranking as a punishment. A natural link network usually consists of a large number of pages with a low page rank and a small percentage of pages with a high page rank. If the back-links contain identical link texts, this can also arouse suspicion. This does not happen in a natural link network there are always variations.

Check up on it!

Check regularly to see which of your pages have been indexed by a search engine. Go to the search engine page and enter the following in the search field: site:<yourdomain> . The search results will contain all the pages in your shop (maximum 1,000) that are contained in the search engine's index. If you would like to confirm whether a specific page is in the index, you can do so using info: <URL>.

You can also check to see which external domains link to your pages and how many of these the search engine is aware of. In  Google: link:<your domain> (however, Google deliberately only includes some back-links. In the Google Webmaster tools, you can get a more detailed overview.) 

Various SEO tools which you can use to analyze your domain can be found at:

• http://www.linkvendor.com as well as an add-on for the Firefox browser at:

- http://www.seoquake.com

- http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/

- http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/

- http://wordcountplus.mozdev.org/

- http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/

- https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/590

Your own domain

It is crucial for your web site to have its own domain <http://www.MyShop.co.uk>. The search engines are just one reason why you should do this. Ask your provider how your domain can be linked to your shop or web site. The link to a product could then look like this:

http://www.demosite.co.uk/ProductXYZ

A decisive factor for search machines when using multiple domains is the forwarding from your domain (http://www.demosite.co.uk) to the actual URL of the platform. This should be done technically with HTTP code 301 (moved permanently). In no case should Javascript, META refresh, frame, or splash pages be used for forwarding. These are not liked by search engines. Discuss the technical details with your provider. The forwarding of your domain http://demosite.co.uk to the actual home page cannot contain any changes (for example, http://demosite.co.uk/epages/demosite.sf). Search engines downgrade the link even if the WWW is missing.

Web Site content

Something which has a large effect and is under your control is the content of your web site. Search engines appreciate change and frequency of updates. Web sites which remain the same for 6 months will be ignored by the search engines. In particular, the home page and the pages linked from it should be updated regularly. Search engines reward this with more frequent visits and in-depth indexing.

Page optimisation

Individual pages (not the entire web page or web site) should be optimised for two or three search terms at the most. The search terms should constitute two to three percent of the entire text. Although there is no maximum value, a long list of search terms looks like spam. Check which keywords your competitors that are listed before you in Google use. 

Product Number, Name, Descriptions, Attributes & Keywords

Either the product number is used in the URL (see http://www.demosite.co.uk/epages/Demosite.sf/?ObjectPath=Products/ProductXYZ) or (better!) you can use the short URL. There is another entry field for every language that contains a suggestion based upon the product name. Note that when you change this suggestion, it cannot contain any spaces, underscores, or umlauts. (The short URL is only available if your Web site uses its own domain).

Make sure that the URL does not become unnecessarily long through the short URL. The total length should not be longer than 100 characters, with a maximum of 200 characters. So, if you already have a very long domain name, you must rein yourself in with the short

URL.

Of course, the product name is very important as well. As mentioned above, the application automatically places the product name in the H1 tag, the TITLE tag, as well as in the ALT tag if there is an image of the product. Because Google indexes a maximum of 65 characters from the TITLE tag, you should not use too many words in product names. However, associating the product manufacturer with the product name is recommended (for example "Canon EOS 300D"). Pay attention to legal issues such as restricted trademarks, however, when using them.

Two good solutions for the combination of key words and brand names are:

• Primary key word secondary key word | brand name
• Brand name | primary key word secondary key word

It is optimal if the title tag does not only contain the product name, but instead a complete search phrase. A search phrase connects the product name with a "money term" such as "order", "buy", "cheap", etc. Customers often use these search phrases and do not search simply according to product names. If the product name is only entered for the search, in addition to shops, general informational pages are shown as well. This makes it difficult for the customer to find where to buy the item. Therefore, customers use money terms such as "Buy Canon Camera" or "Order Canon Camera". Then they are shown pages to purchase the product as well. One tip: finish the search phrase with an exclamation point or a question mark. 

For example: "Buy Canon camera with free shipping!"

Add to this the fact that the title tag is shown as a link in the search results, which means that it is the first thing that catches the user's eye. If the customer sees "Buy Canon EOS 300D cheap!" he is more likely to click than if only "Canon EOS 300D" is shown. The content for the title tag can be edited on the general product details page in the "Page title" field. The product and web site name are entered automatically. The product description will appear in your web site for the search engines at least twice.  Once will be a text on the category page which contains the product, and also on the product page itself in the META description tag. Search engines allow a maximum of 255 characters for this tag. However, fewer are definitely better. About 13 words has been shown to be the optimal number. However, do not only enter keywords here. This looks like spam and can discourage potential customers. Note that you have a Description field as well as a Long description field (the long description is shown as text on the product detail page). Both of these texts can and should be different, but both should be optimised for the correct search terms. Optimize your texts a maximum of 2-3 keywords per page. At the moment, Google users are looking for an average of 2.2 words per search. In particular, when using numbers, question marks and exclamation marks (e.g. cheap pencils) pencils - special characters (e.g. ticks or arrows) also help to attract attention here add them using the WYSIWYG Editor (Edit text). Don't copy the texts from your competition or your vendors. If this content is older than yours in Google, then Google will recognize the duplicate content and will not index it. Also small changes are not enough. 60% is enough to be marked by Google as duplicate content.

Create original content.

As mentioned above, the product attributes you assign to a product are displayed in an H2 tag. Use the ability to organise product attributes into product types (for example the "Pack size" attribute in the "Tent" product type in the demo content). Although the Keywords for search engines are not evaluated at the moment (see previous), you can still add alternative search terms here which you do not want to use in the description. You can use misspelled or variant versions of the product's name. For the example of an umbrella: Umbrella, umbrela, parasol, umbrala. Note that the search function in ePages  will also inspect these keywords to help your customer to find the product he or she is looking for.

Remember that your customer may use the plural, alternative terms, or even misspell (for the example of a mobile phone "cellphone, cell phone, mobile fon"). You can also enter the search terms in a different order, for example: "mobile phone, phone mobile". Mark specific keywords bold in the page text. This will help search engines and customers to find them more easily.

You can use the search statistics (in the Products menu) to analyse the search behaviour of your customers in the web site. There you can see which search terms were used and how many hits were generated. If search terms occur very often without results, you should

revise your descriptions.  

Another tip: Yahoo! Search, Google AdWords, and several fee-based services have keyword databases. There you can get an overview of how often specific keywords are used. Another good service is: http://www.keywordspy.com.

Delete products?

A URL which has been indexed by Google should never disappear! If this is a product that you can no longer deliver, label it as "Not available". To do so, set the attribute For sale on the General tab on the product detail page of the product in the Description section to no. This will remove the link Add to shopping basket. Because you will surely have alternative or next-generation products, note and link to that product in the product description.

Do not forget the category entries

The examples of the previous chapter apply to products, but the same is true for categories. Every category has an ID (Alias), a name, a description, and a long description. You can also provide keywords for categories. Always upload an image for each category. Not only does it look better, it also provides search engines with an additional ALT tag. Do not use abbreviations for category names. Avoid abbreviations such as "Heavy Mach. and Equip.". Use the full name instead ("Heavy Machinery and Equipment").

Category depth

You have surely thought about the structure of your pages. Make it easy for your users and the search engines by not using manysublevels. No search engine will go deeper than six levels. The higher in the hierarchy the indexed pages are, the better.

Videos

Product videos are becoming more and more common for marketing. In order for Google to "see" this video, you can create a site map for it. Place it in your Google webmaster area. Google video search will then find your product videos under the key words provided. Repeat this with other portals such as AOL, MSN, and Yahoo.

Include information pages

Remember that a shop should include more than categories and products. Inform your customers by using a blog (it would be best if the boss blogs himself) and use freelydesignable pages and content pages to inform your customers about news in your sector, attract interest with product usage information, and provide handbooks, past newsletters, and press releases as well. A "frequently asked questions" (FAQ) section  should contain useful tips about your services and shop usage. For everything on your site: Update regularly, at least three times a week! And remember: Even PDF, Word, and PowerPoint documents are recognised and indexed by Google and other search engines. So use the function which allows you to upload file attachments for your products. Note, however, that Google often ranks PDF documents higher. Since you would like your product pages at the front, not every PDF must appear in the index.

The copyright trick

A copyright notice is usually displayed at the foot of the web page. The system includes defined page elements which you can place in the footer. You can add a search term for the entire shop as the contents of a navigation element next to the copyright notice. The search engine will always see this at the foot of the page. For example:

Copyright Demo Site Ltd We have everything you need.

To create additional internal links, you can also link the copyright notice to the shop home page or to a prominent content page

Internal linking

Google increases the ranking if internal linking is used. Internal linking increases the keyword density and web pages further away from the home page are detected more reliably and visited more often. You can link between pages in numerous ways. Normally, a product should always be assigned to at least one category. You can create products without categories, but an "island" like this is not good. Use cross-selling and also link from the blog or forum you are operating from the shop. Each page should be linked to internally at least eight times. If a product needs to be assigned to multiple categories, everything will be listed below the product on the product detail page. This happens automatically.

Navigation history

When a user navigates through your pages, the current path is always displayed at the top of the page (for example: Categories » Tents » Family tents » Eureka El Capitan IV). The higher levels are links for quick navigation. That also helps the search engines. The navigation history is created automatically and coded in the HTML text in an H3 tag.

Cross-selling

The application offers multiple possibilities for cross-selling (using links to similar,  higher-value, or accessory products). You can also use automatic cross-selling ("Customers which bought this product also bought..."). The search engines use these links as well to analyze contextual connections and contexts. You can and should also link to other categories. To do so, use the description or the long description of the category or the Link element. For example, there are two ways to link from the Tents category to the Equipment category. In the category Tents, generate an element of the type Link and select the page to be linked.

Logo

Usually a logo is displayed in the header.  The name of your  website is also used as the Alt tag (see page 3) for this.

You should create the logo with a link to the shop home page. The application automatically links the logo to the home page. If you would like this to be another page, you can change this is the Quick design area. Move the mouse over the logo and click on the pencil icon.

Social networks

Under Marketing >>Social Web, you will find a range of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Enable these functions if you wish your business to be active on these networks.

Note that the content and subjects you publish on the social networks should be connected to your web site.  For further information, seehttp://blog.epages.com/en/2011/10/11/seo-for-yourfacebook-fapage/.

Facebook shop

Apart from a simple link to Facebook, you can also advertise certain products directly on Facebook. This function is described here in detail:

http://blog.epages.com/en/2011/06/08/fishing-in-the-social-network-how-you-can-sellon-facebook-using-epages/.

Google Places

Create a free-of-charge industry entry for your company on Google Places. This makes you visible and linked on search result pages with maps/street plans as well. The procedure is described under Marketing >> search engine optimisation (SEO) >>Google Places.

Loading speed

Google now pays attention to the loading time of pages and uses it as part of the ranking. So make sure you use the cache feature (Settings >> General settings >> Page cache). More information about this is available in the online help as well as at http://www.epages.com/en/blog/index.php/2008/05/09/increase-online-shopperformance/#more-64.

In ePages a general overview is provided by the SEO cockpit under Marketing >> search engine optimisation (SEO). At the top right of the data sheet view in administration, each individual page has SEO tab or in the preview using the same function in the Actions area.

Summary

Search engine optimisation is a very complex and confusing topic. You can find many books and articles about it in book stores or on the internet. Therefore, only a few basic principles of SEO as well as more specific things you can apply to ePages web sites have been included above. Nothing is better than a detailed analysis. SEO is a continuous process. Web site operators must do their part to optimise their site for search engines. ePages will of course continue to apply our experience and that of experts and partners to provide you

with constantly-improving SEO techniques. We are grateful for any tips, suggestions, or experiences you would like to share. Please send them to (pm@epages.com). 

More information

• Reports to analyse linking of web pages: http://www.seomoz.org/linkscape or http://www.urltrends.com/
• Studies about AdWords and search results (Google): https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.
• Semantic analysis: http://www.latentsemanticoptimization.com

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Advertising on the internet

Advertising on the internet can be an important part of your marketing strategy, helping to drive traffic to your website. Research shows that advertising online works well with other forms of advertising to help give your brand name or product a significant uplift in exposure. Unlike some traditional advertising, online advertising can deliver visitors immediately - through a simple click on your ad - and provides measurable results.  

Where to advertise online

The internet is vast. To maximise the effectiveness of your online advertising, you need to ensure that your ads appear in the right place by selecting websites that can deliver the right audience for your product or service. For instance, you might consider online publications or price-comparison sites that cater to your target market.

A simple and effective way to find the most appropriate websites is to put yourself in your customers' shoes, by typing in the sort of search terms that they would use. As long as the websites that come up aren't competitors of yours, they might be good places to advertise. A quick check will tell you whether each site has the right sort of image and offers the web advertising opportunities you're looking for.

An alternative approach is to advertise directly on a search engine as part of your search marketing. You can also buy advertising from a 'content network' that uses search technology to automatically display your ads on different websites that are likely to have the right audience. Although you have less control over exactly where your online advertising appears, this can be very effective.

Pay per click advertising and other online advertising options 

There are several ways to advertise on the internet. You can pay for website advertising with a price based on the number of times the ad is displayed. So the more viewers see your ad (or at least the page on which your ad is shown) the more you pay. This simple form of payment might suit you if the aim of your internet advertising is to build brand exposure. It's often referred to as CPM - cost per thousand (with M being the roman numeral for 1,000). 

Other alternatives take advantage of the interactive nature of the internet. If you advertise online with the aim of increasing website traffic, then pay per click advertising (PPC) is ideal. You only pay for the viewers who actually click on the ad and come to your site.

Taking this a step further, sometimes advertising on the internet is charged for on a cost per action (CPA) basis. For example, you might be able to negotiate an agreement where you only pay for the number of viewers who actually buy your product as the result of an ad. This kind of payment scheme requires a close relationship with the website where your ad is published, and is typically part of an affiliate marketing relationship.

Web advertising design 

There are several different online advertising design options. You may be able to buy a banner ad across the top of the page or different sizes of ad in different places. Skyscraper ads are vertical banners down one side of the page and can achieve a great deal of impact. 

Where you place your advert on a website is crucial. For instance, a banner ad on the home page might get the most exposure, but an ad on the page that is the most relevant to your product might provide more effective promotion.

While a static display ad is the simplest option, even simple animation may help attract more attention to your ad. While the main aim of many ads is to boost your website traffic, more complex rich media such as videos can be used to provide a more involving ad.

You will probably want to use a professional designer to create your online ad, though there are online advertising design tools for simple ads.

Your website: 8 FAQs

1. How can I register and protect my chosen internet domain name?

You register a domain name through one of the registrars who manage domain names, such as Nominet. Which registrars you can use depends on the category of domain name (eg whether it is '.co.uk', '.com', '.biz' and so on). Although you can contact registrars directly, many businesses register domain names through an intermediary such as their Internet Service Provider (ISP).

To make it easy for people to find your website and minimise the risk of someone else using a similar domain name, some businesses register several domain names. For example, you might want to register yourname.co.uk and yourname.com or even different versions of your name.

Registration itself is a fairly simple process, requiring the provision of various administrative details (eg who owns the domain name, contact details) and payment of a small fee. You should then receive a domain name registration certificate; check the detailed terms of the registration to ensure that the domain name is properly registered to you. Thereafter, you continue to pay small renewal fees to maintain your registration.

However, the situation is different if your chosen domain name has already been registered by someone else. Domain names are used by businesses as 'trading names'. Unscrupulous registrants may have registered a domain name that is substantially similar to your own business name (which may also be protected by a trade mark registration).

Possible approaches to recovering the domain name include using one of the internet domain name dispute resolution procedures or taking action under trade mark legislation or the law of 'passing off'. On the other hand, if whoever has registered the domain name has a legitimate claim to it, you may have to accept the fact and choose another domain name. Take legal advice on what best suits your circumstances.

2. Does having a website expose me to legal issues overseas and how can I protect myself?

Because websites are available internationally, you are exposing yourself to international legal risk, regulation and taxation. Unless you are trying to sell or promote your products internationally, it is a good idea to ensure that your website clearly states that it is only for UK customers and that English law will be applicable.

3. What legal statements should I include on my website?

Many website operators think it is good practice to display and utilise 'Terms of Use'- ie the terms and conditions upon which access to the website is granted. You must ensure that any Terms of Use include appropriate disclaimers of liability.

If your business owns its website, a copyright notice will communicate to the world at large that the website is owned by your business and that any copying will not be permitted other than in accordance with the Terms of Use.

If you collect information on visitors to your website, perhaps through the use of contact forms or cookies, you must tell visitors (see 4).

4. Are there any restrictions on collecting and using information on visitors to my website?

If you collect any information on users of your website, you must tell users. For example, if your website uses ‘cookies’ to track users, you must include a statement saying so. You must also give users the option to refuse to provide that information.

In addition, collecting personal data falls under the Data Protection Act 1998 may require that you register a notification. The Information Commissioner’s Office website has more information on your obligations under the Data Protection Act.

Set up a clear privacy policy — prominently available on your website — telling users how you will use their personal data before asking for it and give them the option to opt out. Make visitors aware if your site uses cookies to collect user information. And only collect the data you need.

5. Do websites count as advertising and what are the rules?

A website does not in itself constitute an advertisement - but parts of the website that advertise your products or services do. You should ensure that any such adverts comply with Advertising Standards Authority regulations. The basic rule is that adverts must be 'legal, decent, honest and truthful'.

6. Are there any restrictions on the content of my website?

On the whole, website content is a matter of common sense. For example, you should not publish offensive or defamatory material.

One area that can cause problems is copyright. You must not use copyrighted material - such as other people's text and pictures - on your website without permission. Similarly, linking to other web pages in a way which makes them appear to be part of your site or modifies their appearance could constitute 'passing off'. If you want to link to another website, ask permission from that website's owner.

7. Are there any legal issues to do with website design?

Design right and copyright apply to websites in the same way as to other designs and written materials, though it is unlikely that you will particularly want to protect the design of your website or that anyone else will feel that the design of your website breaches their intellectual property rights.

There may also be copyright in the selection and arrangement of the elements in the underlying databases and in the computer programs used (whether source or object codes).

If you use a designer to create your website, ask them for a written guarantee that the site does not breach anyone else’s rights. And ensure that the design right and copyright are assigned to you in writing. Otherwise, you could be forced to pay the designer every time you want to change the site, even if the designer has stopped working for you.

You should also be aware that you must not discriminate against disabled people in the way that you recruit employees or provide a service. This may apply to your website, for example, if you are recruiting or selling online. The design of an ‘accessible’ website should take into account the problems that, for example, people with impaired sight might face.

8. Are there any potential legal problems with the software used in my website?

As with any other use of software, you must comply with the terms of the software licence. If you commission bespoke software, ensure that the copyright is assigned to you.

Kevin Dixie is the founder and MD of Fuelmywebsite.  Fuelmywebsite.com helps small businesses connect with bloggers through their blogger community of over 60,000 bloggers. A product or service is guaranteed to be reviewed by bloggers, tweeted and shared and found in search.  There is an exclusive 50% off code at the end of this article.

Understanding the value of on-site trust

Users of the internet are now able to make quick decisions on whether they have landed on a website that is legit and trustworthy, for example, make a purchase or fill in an information request form.

Making a new visitor feel comfortable enough to buy from a website is the main objective of building on-site trust.  If a new visitor to a website can not find a reason to trust it, they will go elsewhere and spend a little extra money on the same product or service with a company they know or can find in search.  

By now, most businesses will have understood the need to claim their voices on Twitter and Facebook. This is all good and grand but it sits in a very closed environment.  People do not search on Facebook or Twitter before buying a product, they search first on Google, Yahoo or Bing.

Consumers are increasingly checking search engines in order to get extra background on businesses before making a buying decision.  This is especially true for e-commerce websites and lesser known brands.  Potential new customers want the reassurance that the site is trustworthy, that other customers have bought from it and, most importantly, that the product will arrive.

Different ways to build on-site trust

Web Design

The single and biggest turn-off when landing on a new website is bad design.  Bad web design can really turn people off in a second without even giving the site's content or offer a chance.

We Are Human

People like associating themselves and do business with other people, not with faceless companies. There are a number of ways of doing this, ie Show the companies team, Facebook widgets and Twitter status feeds. 

Media Coverage

If a business has ever had any coverage in a local newspaper or National press, showing the logo's and linking to the coverage (where possible) on the homepage is a must.  The association between unknown brand with well known publications shows they trusted the companies business enough to share with their readers.

Blogger Outreach

Having bloggers talk about a company not only enables initial coverage to their readers, it also helps the search engines position the reviews alongside the companies website, new customers can even leave a comment on the blog review and actually ask for that recommendation, why, how or what. 

Importantly, by having these customer reviews and real testimonials linked from a homepage, the new visitor will be able to make that quick decision required with trusting the unknown brand.  This will help with converting visitors to customers.

Social Proof

Social proof happens when actual clients and customers talk about a product or service. 

Testimonials

Testimonials must be visually present and easy to navigate to.  Trusting a testimonial is really important.  Simply having a page with a list of comments saying things like  “I love this chair!” -  Terry from London is not enough to build instant trust.  A customer must   be able to verify that the testimony is real.  For example, after each campaign, Fuelmywebsite provide a fully working testimonial widget, clicking on the links takes the visitor to the blog review.

Product Reviews

Product reviews work because they are a word-of-mouth engine and people know they are written by real users.  For every company online, reviews are a must.  According to YouGov, 75% of purchases (made on and offline) are made after looking at reviews.

Reviews that are relevant can single handedly drive trust and help users feel comfortable enough to take action on their site.

A US based company called People Claim recently ran some research, here are some of the key points:

• 75% of reviews posted on websites are positive
• 71% agree that product reviews make them comfortable about buying a product
• 41% say they read 4 to 7 reviews before feeling comfortable about a purchase decision
• 63% are more likely to buy from a website with reviews and ratings
• Customer reviews increase product conversion by 74%

Bad Reviews or Comments

Anybody can have a bad review online, what matters is how a company handles it.  We offer advice on the odd occasion this has happened.  If dealt with properly, it is actually as good if not, better than a super positive review.  It lets others see how committed a company is to providing great customer service.

Special Offer for Simple Ways To Grow

The first ten companies responding to this article will get to try out a fuelmywebsite campaign at 50% off.  That's just £150 instead of £295.  Use order code RMTRIAL in the order form to gain the discount.

Time-scales for a small business taking out a campaign.

Day 1 – We are giving brief by the customer via online capture form, told what product or service they want reviewed, what target market and a tweet sized piece of information to add to the outreach newsletter.

Day 4 -  We let the customer know how many are interested in reviewing and send them the top five respondents based on page rank, content and suitability (with a five review campaign).

Day 5 – Customer sends the product to the blogger (or books the appointment).

Day 14 – We start forwarding the posted blog reviews to the company, advising them to leave a comment under the post and get them to re-tweet it on Twitter.

End of Month 1 – Normally all reviews are complete, we send the customer the testimonial widget code for embedding on the customers website.  And if the business has a high street presence we send them an NFC sticker to enable them to drive offline traffic to their Facebook page.

Any questions drop Kevin an email on kevin@fuelmywebsite.com

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK TO PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS

Action List

Decide why you are joining Facebook and let that determine how you use it — for example, you could be using it to find local customers, build client relationships or establish your expertise.

Register your free account by providing a name and an email address — you don’t need a personal page to create a business fan page, but it can be a good way to get people you know to visit it.

Include details about your personal tastes and experiences — join a local network and post relevant links, before directing friends to your fan page.

Set up a fan page for your business. Fill out the required information fields, identifying yourself by sector or by brand, product or business name.
Use keywords that people are most likely to search for in relation to your product. It may help your fan page get listed in search engine results.

Create a profile for your business on the fan page, including a link to your website, an overview of your company and a description of your product or service. Invite the same people you are friends with on your personal profile to become fans.

Drive visitors to your fan page. Use other social networks, like Twitter, to post links to your Facebook page, put details of it on your website and all your marketing literature, and include a link below your email signature.

Make your fan page a hub of engaging information — update your page regularly with items that are relevant to your business and reflect your brand.
Direct people to your own website or blog from your Facebook page. Set your blog’s RSS feed so that you automatically publish snippets to your Facebook wall, to give fans a taster and encourage them to visit.

Respond to questions and encourage discussion on your fan page. Each time a fan comments on your wall, each one of their friends will see what they have said, so it is an effective way to generate word-of-mouth marketing. You could comment on other businesses’ fan pages, too.

Reward your fans by running competitions or making exclusive special offers.

Consider placing an advertisement on the site. It could be money well spent as your advert will appear in front of a highly-targeted audience.

Cardinal Rules

Do:

• decide what your objective is 
• create an engaging fan page 
• use your fan page to communicate with customers

Don’t:

• be too formal or business-like on your personal profile page 
• post irrelevant links or comments that could damage your brand
•  ignore comments on your fan page

BHP Information Solutions 2012

HOW TO CREATE AN EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILE

Action List

• Do your research and look at other profiles on your chosen social media platform. What draws your attention and what pushes you away? Who do you want to connect with? Learn from what others are doing.
• Get the essentials right. Tell your reader who you are and what you do as succinctly and clearly as possible ideally in two short sentences. Include a link to your website. You will get the chance to elaborate as you get to know people.
•  Adjust your tone to the medium. Don’t be jokey on a serious business networking platform such as LinkedIn, and don’t be wordy and self-important on a personal networking platform like Facebook you will look out of place.
• Tell readers where you’ve been and where you’re going. Mention at least one professional achievement. People will want to know how credible you are. Goals are important, too — people who see these may be able to help you achieve your aims.
• Let a little personality through. It should not be all about work — your interests can open doors with others who share them. Balance work and personal information sensibly, though, and think about who you want to connect with.
• Post a picture. Photographs are more immediate than words, but a picture must be right for the medium and your desired connections. On a business-focused platform, use a good-quality image of yourself looking professional. On Facebook, it is acceptable to include holiday snaps.
• Brand your profile. Most platforms allow you to change colours or add background images. Use your company livery to reinforce your viewer’s connection with your firm’s brand. Be discreet about logos, though — get people to connect with you personally first.
• Do not be boring. Don’t use your profile to offer a lengthy dissection of your industry, to rant, to outline your company history in detail or to talk about your products, except in passing.
• Keep it fresh. Update your profile regularly. If your goals change, or you’ve got a great success story, add that in. If people can see that you have been recently active on a profile they will be more inclined to connect with you.
• Don’t sell, engage. Never use your profile to try to sell to people they will leave immediately and there are other channels you can use to talk about your product or service. The aim of your profile is to give people a reason to connect with you, rather than with your business.

Cardinal Rules

Do:

• look at other people’s profiles for research 
• adapt your tone to suit different social networking sites 
• update your profile regularly

Don’t:

• post too much personal information 
• use your profile to sell your products 
• be boring

BHP Information Solutions 2012

HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST KEYWORDS FOR YOUR WEBSITE

Action List

• Understand the value of keywords — these are the words and phrases that people type into search engines such as Google or Yahoo! to find the information they require.
• Choose the right keywords and use them correctly. This is a major element of search engine optimisation (SEO) and can ensure your website is listed as near as possible to the top of relevant searches so potential customers can find you.
• Consider the sector you operate in, your products or services, any brand names you use, your location, and what is unique to your business — then come up with relevant short descriptive phrases to find appropriate keywords for your business.
• Identify your competitors’ keywords. Using these yourself may enable you to redirect some of their web traffic towards you. Online services, such as Keyword Spy, can help you do this.
• Use a keyword suggestion tool — such as Google’s free keyword service to find variations on the keywords you have come up with, as well as useful statistics related to the use of these keywords.
• Remember, there is no limit on the number of keywords you can use.
• Embed your keywords in your website. They need to be embedded into the title tag of each page, the page headings and sub-headings, and the metadata (snippets of code that users don’t see but which search engines analyse). They should also be embedded into the content of your pages, and the higher up the better.
• Trial a number of keywords in a paid search campaign — whereby you pay the search engine according to the number of users clicking to your site having used keywords you have previously selected.
• Put the keywords into your link-building strategy. Most search engines work using complicated algorithms that see how many links point to your site, so you need to cultivate links with appropriate and relevant sites. Vary the keywords you use in these links to give search engines a good idea of what your site is about.
• Track and monitor how your keywords are working by analysing your web server’s log files (available from your hosting provider) or using a free online tool such as Google Analytics. Modify your site and your keywords accordingly.
• Consider paying a specialist agency to do help you track, monitor and modify your keywords as experts understand the constantly changing nature of search engines. It can also be time consuming to do it properly.

Cardinal Rules

Do:

• continually refine and update your keywords 
• experiment with keywords 
• give your keywords time to show results

Don’t:

• choose single words e.g. insurance 
• use highly competitive keywords 
• write content only intended for search engine ranking

BHP Information Solutions 2013

Combine social media with other forms of marketing

Many small businesses are blogging, tweeting and posting updates on social media websites. At first glance, it can look fun and easy. However, social media marketing is a powerful tool and it is vital to approach it strategically. Rachel Miller explains how to bring your online and offline marketing together.

Small firms that are using social media to market themselves online need to set objectives, plan their approach and make sure it dovetails with their overall marketing strategy.

Like any new marketing initiative, getting results can take time and your strategy may need tweaking. You may find that you are spending a lot more time online than you first anticipated - and neglecting other tasks as a result. Perhaps you are taking an ad hoc approach and failing to co-ordinate all of your marketing messages.

Match the message to the medium

The golden rule when it comes to social media marketing is not to overtly sell goods or services. So, the way you communicate on Facebook, Twitter or Ecademy, for instance, will be very different from the way you would approach a sales letter or flyer.

However, it is vital that you don’t go completely off-message. All your marketing communication should highlight your USPs, strengthen your brand and be aimed at your target market. With social networking, for example, you can position yourself as an expert or talk about relevant issues that you are passionate about.

How social media can fit into your overall strategy

Have a look at your existing marketing activities. Each of them does a specific job, reaching your target audience in different ways. Social media marketing can work with your traditional marketing to enhance it.

Advertising: You can’t necessarily use social networking to sell, but you can talk about issues related to your products and services that will subtly help your sales effort. PR: Submit your press releases to online PR services. In your social media engagement, position yourself as an expert. Your website: Include web links in your social media marketing to boost traffic to your website and improve your search engine ranking. Use keywords in your blogs, posts and tweets to help potential customers discover you online. Market research: Use online social media to gather feedback about your products and services. New prospects: Find new prospects and develop relationships with customers. Customer service: Use social media marketing to give customers more - alert them to new developments, explain issues, answer questions and provide support.

Your social media strategy

Given the growth of online social media networking, it is likely that more and more customers are coming to your via new routes — a forum, your blog, Facebook or Twitter. It is vital to be responsive and to convert this interest into sales.

Like any marketing, you will need to take a strategic and professional approach to your online social networking:

Set objectives and targets Integrate your online networking with your overall marketing strategy Allow enough time and set a budget Be flexible about how and when you use social media Take a personality-driven approach but don’t damage your reputation Social media networking is a two-way conversation. Don’t shut down criticism. Learn how to respond and try to turn negatives into positives And don’t forget the golden rule — no sales pitches.

You will also need to monitor everything you do, which is possible using tools provided by the social media platforms themselves, or by other software developers. This will enable you to measure the return on your investment in time (and money), find out what works and what does not, and fine-tune your approach to a new form of marketing which is still evolving at a spectacular rate.

Reach the top of local search rankings

Getting the most from your website isn’t just about topping the Google rankings nationally ― for many small firms it’s about getting to the top of local search rankings. If you don’t localise your search engine optimisation (SEO), you risk missing out on customers on your doorstep. We ask the experts how to go local

While some UK small firms on the web sell to customers all over the world, they are the exception. Most small businesses — especially those offering a service — don’t sell to customers beyond their own area, town or city. Clearly, many customers also prefer to buy from a local business because it’s convenient or they see it as less risky. So are you missing out on sales as you’re thinking too big with your SEO?

“Taking a more targeted approach, by localising your SEO, could give you the sales uplift you’ve been looking for,” stresses John Straw, founder and vice president of business development at SEO software provider Linkdex.

“Get it right and your website stands a better chance of being visited by the people most likely to buy from you ― those living nearby.”

Straw says more small businesses are cottoning on to the benefits of localising SEO and refining their approach to search engine marketing. “I was talking to my local chimney sweep recently and he was telling me how he got to the number one local search ranking on Google. As a result, he’s dropped all other forms of marketing.”

Separate national and local SEO

But how does local search engine optimisation differ from national? There’s a marked distinction, Straw emphasises.

“National SEO is all about ensuring your site is technically optimised, contains content that is tailored to your audience and includes links from other websites, while local SEO centres on generating local leads using tools such as Google Places and encouraging user reviews on local sites. These can include local groups, blogs and news sites.”

So how can small, budget-conscious businesses get it right? “It’s about reviews, reviews and reviews,” stresses Straw. “Then get some more reviews, but make sure they’re good ones.

“I’d also recommend making sure your business address is clearly displayed on your ‘contact us’ page ― preferably with an embedded map. A smart trick is to list your premises’ latitude and longitude on the contact us page ― it helps Google clarify addresses. You can get the coordinates from Google Maps.

“I’d also advise getting links in local online business directories,” adds Straw. “The good news is localising your SEO can normally be done in-house at minimal cost.”

Five local SEO tips

• Encourage reviews and create links on highly relevant local sites ― such as local groups, blogs, news sites, complementary local firms and hyper-local directories.
• Submit a free business profile directly to local listings via Google Places, Yahoo! Local and Bing Local, so when potential customers search maps and listings for local information, they will find your contact details. 
• Your local search ranking will depend on how close your firm is to the area specified and how close your business is to the person searching. To get a strong local search ranking you will need to build citations and get reviews. 
• Carry out onsite optimisation including adding your address on each page as well as your local phone number, rather than an 0800 number. 
• Consider creating dedicated pages for specific regions. Include a Google map of your location on your site.

In this article, email marketing experts and Simple Ways To Grow partners NewZapp, take a quick look at the 3 Rs of email marketing: reading, reports and return-on-investment.

Reading

The average email marketing campaign receives an open rate of 20% - 40% and can generate response rates that are up to twenty times higher than direct mail. If you want to maximise your read rates you need to find out what works best and who it works for.

Use this knowledge to decide the structure of your message and time for delivery. Remember email marketing allows you to be time critical, take advantage of this. Some people read their emails every hour, others do an early morning inbox clear out and then revisit them at lunch time.

Consider when you want your message to be read and the time it's most likely to catch your readers’ attention. Does your email have a weekend feel or will it need the reader to have their business hat firmly on? Most inboxes are busiest in the morning. Some email marketers send during the day to avoid this inbox clutter.

Make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve before sending your email. Well planned campaigns will return much higher read rates.

Reports

If you're using an email marketing provider you'll already have all of this at your fingertips. If you're not you'll need to create reports that help you answer these key questions:

• How many emails were delivered?
• Who read, when and how many times?
• Who clicked, when and how many times?

Answering these questions will help you qualify sales leads, tailor future offers, improve your email copy and better understand your market. All of this will help you grow your business and improve your communication with your target audience. 

Return-on-investment (ROI)

It's important to calculate the return you make on each email campaign. Email marketing is widely considered to return excellent ROI due to its low cost, high readership levels and ease of response. If last week's Sudoku has left you numbered out, try using an email ROI calculator like this one from bplans.co.uk.

Written by Mark Taylor of NewZapp, email marketing experts and a Simple Ways to Grow partner.

For more information on NewZapp visit: www.newzapp.co.uk

As it's so important to check your email before clicking to send it to your contacts, we suggest you create an email checklist, which you can refer to before sending your campaigns.

To help you get this started we've identified a number of questions you should answer before sending your campaign and make a checklist for you to follow.

The email

Have you copied and pasted content from a Microsoft programme or a web page?  Cutting and pasting from a programme like Word will bring Microsoft code into your email design. This code is not standard HTML so can result in your email layout and design looking a lot different that you intended in email readers, possibly clashing or breaking your own branding as well.

The risk is similar when pasting content that's been copied from a web page, as code that works on a web page won't necessarily to be recognised by email readers.

 Tip: Paste into Notepad first before pasting into your email systems. Doing this will avoid unnecessary formatting problems. If  using NewZapp, choose the "Paste from Word" option so that the unnecessary code is stripped.

Have you seen the email in your inbox yet?

Always send yourself a copy of the email before you send the full campaign. This will allow you to see it in your inbox and understand how it will look to your subscribers. Does it look as you intended and will your email stand out from the crowd?

Is the email too advertorial or editorial focused?

 It's important you consider the style of email you have created.

How much of your email shows in a preview pane?

You'll need to check how your email appears in the preview pane or a web based email reader, as well as how it looks once you've open it. Is your most important message or call to action visible when the email is previewed and/or before scrolling is needed? This is often referred to as being "above the fold".

Have you checked your spelling?

It's so easy to make a spelling mistake. We suggest you use spell checker and ask a proof group or colleague to double check your spelling.

Have you checked the content for filtering issues?

 To give your email the best chance of being delivered try to avoid including any words or formatting that might cause you to get caught in a spam filter.  A few things to avoid include: excessive capitalisation and punctuation; over use of words like free, guaranteed, offer and investment; large and bright Red fonts.  If using NewZapp, use the built in spam checker to help you avoid these traps.

 Have you included a call to action?

You can create an email that looks amazing and send it to your super clean in-house email database but it won't guarantee a response. One of the most important parts of your email is the call to action. This is a click-through link or message that motivates your recipient to act. We suggest that sales emails include a call to action at the top. middle and bottom of the design.

Can the email be shorter or more concise?

 It's easy to slip into the habit of writing too much. The best copy is short and to the point. Could you have written less but still covered your main points? Don't forget some of your subscribers will skim read your email. It's important they can find the information they are interested in quickly and easily.

Have you checked all of the links and contact details?

Make sure you and your proof group check all of the links on your email and your contact details. Click through to the landing pages to check that everything is going to the right places and that those files or web pages are downloading correctly. You should also check email addresses, telephone numbers and postal addresses if applicable. 

Have you given all the images Alt tags?

You should ensure that you have given all of your images an alt tag (a short descriptive message that accompanies/explains an image). Although it varies just how clearly some email readers display them, in those that do you will be giving your recipients additional information and encouragement to click to display images.

The subject line and from details

Have you checked the spelling?   Your subject line is one of the most important parts of your email campaign. Making a mistake in your subject line can seriously impact on success. Always check and double check your subject line. This is another reason why setting up a proof group is a good idea.

Will recipients recognise the From name and email address?

Recognition is vitally important to the success of your campaign. Think about what your recipients will know and trust. Is it an individual in your business or is it your business name?

Is the From address a live email address that works?

You must make sure your From email address is a live account. If it's not a live account you can experience issues with delivery and cause frustration for your recipients if they click to reply to your email.

Does someone open this inbox to answer replies?

You'll need to ensure somebody is ready to check for replies and respond to any requests.

It's very tempting to just send a generic email to your entire database. This won't produce the best conversion rates, and may eventually turn your subscribers into non responders.

If you segment your database and target your emails, you'll be able to write about what your subscribers are interested in. This will get a much better response rate, as your recipients are more likely to be interested in your communication. This will increase your open and click-through rates and therefore the overall success of your email campaigns.

Here are a few areas for you to try some segmentation and targeting:

Open history

See who opened which emails in the past and target them with similar information.

If you are using an email service provider such as NewZapp you will be able to track who is opening your emails. Look at who has opened which email campaigns in the past. If you've done a specific email on a certain area or product, see which subscribers opened this email, then tailor future emails to them along similar lines.

Monitor who opens the email and continue to send them information they're interested in.

Click history

See who clicked in specific areas of your email and target them too.

If you can track your email campaigns, look at your subscriber history to see which links they've clicked on in the past. Make the most of this knowledge and send these subscribers information on this area.

However, don’t try to make it too exclusive. Include links to other relevant areas and you'll be able to monitor what else they're interested in.

Don't fall into the trap of constantly sending the same information again and again. The emphasis is on "related topics". For example if you are a holiday company and a recipient clicked through on a link regarding a holiday in Paris, you can send them further information on other popular French cities. You could also send them information on the Euro tunnel, the cross channel ferry and flight options, so they can compare prices to their preferred destination. To take this even further, once they have booked their holiday you could also send information on car hire, local places to eat, entertainment in the area and so on. Follow your recipients' behaviour and then follow up with a related topic.

When to send?

Now you've got your targeted email ready to go, when do you send it?

Business to Business (B2B) can differ greatly to Business to Consumer (B2C). Industry standards suggest that the best day for B2B is Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays at around 10.30am and 2.30pm.

B2C industry standards suggest that Friday afternoons, weekends, and the lunchtime hours (12-2pm) are a good time to receive emails. Recent studies have found that B2C email behaviour is shifting to the working week. For example many recipients may read their private email during working hours.

You should test this to your unique database. Really think about your recipients and your industry to see if these studies are correct for your database. Also consider when you would like your message to be read and when it's most likely to have a high impact and produce the results you are looking for.

To do this, try an A/B spilt test. This is where you spilt your database evenly down the middle. Send your campaign to section A as you would normally, and send again to section B at a more considered time and date. Then review your reports to see if there was a difference. Either way you'll have found some information that will be useful for future campaigns.

This method of A/B split testing is useful for testing other aspects of your emails, such as: Subject line, call to action (location and phrase), images vs text only, offer type and different landing pages.  In fact you can test any element of your campaign!

For related information on non responders please see this article on making the most of your data.

Written by Mark Taylor of NewZapp - email marketing experts and a Simple Ways To Grow partner.

For more information on NewZapp visit:  http://www.newzapp.co.uk

..

By creating an email marketing plan you can set your targets on what you expect to get out of your Email Marketing campaigns as well as what content the emails have.

What do you want to do in the near future – do you wish to grow your list of subscribers and focus on seeing some new names on your list? Or is your plan to increase your current open and click through rates of your email campaigns?

All of this information should be in your plan so you know where you are and where you aim to be in three, six or twelve month’s time.

Targeting

Who will read your email? Do you already have a list to target or do you need to create a landing page and create an advertising campaign to capture new leads?
Obviously these are only questions you can answer once you create the plan – but by having the idea of who your emails will target you can better understand what advertising you can do to increase your subscribers. You could give away a free guide as an incentive to subscribe to your emails, the most popular at the moment being an Ebook or PDF guide that can help your customers.

Frequency

You’ll need to determine how frequently you send your campaigns out to your subscribers, and how the previous one will differ to the next. Do you just send out the first day of the month or do you already have specific dates of the month when you send your emails out?
Personally I have found that sending once or twice a month is standard email practice as long as the content is fresh and interesting and not just repeated content.
If your business has a weekly range of sale items then doing an email campaign every week would match your business - just make sure your subscribers are aware of the weekly frequency when they opt-in.

Purpose of the Campaigns

Define the purpose of each email and what you want to get out of your email marketing campaigns overall. Create your brief plan on what each email will contain and what top link or call to action you wish to focus on in each email, whether it is a product or service you provide.

Now break these down into 12 emails (or how every many you plan to send in a year) and you can plan the basic details first and then once you go to create each email campaign you will have a starting point for the content you need to create.

Goals

Identify your goals before you run your next campaign. What do you want to get out of your email marketing – do you want to grow your list by 20% in the first 6 months? Or maybe you want to increase your open rates of your existing subscribers?

Make note of these goals and review them every month to see how you are keeping up with these. The goal doesn’t have to be big, just make sure that you keep taking small steps to reach your end goal.

For example; if your goal is to grow your list then make sure you keep promoting the link where people can subscribe on your website, via Social Media and other mediums, and monitor the growth of your list over a period of time.

Calendar

Create reminders in your calendar for when you should be starting to create your email campaign and another reminder for when you are due to send this out. This can help you plan ahead and give you more time to focus on the content of the email you wish to create.

Don’t forget to include any important dates like public holidays in your calendar as these may affect the date you are send a regular communication. For example, if you usually send on the first Monday of every month, will your readers benefit from receiving it on a Tuesday when the Monday is a public holiday, or do you want to stick to your plan and just schedule the campaign to send while you are out of the office? The other thing to consider of course is that holidays are often  a great excuse to send an offer out to your subscribers; as they may have forgotten next Sunday is Mothers Day... (It’s not by the way!)

Creating your campaign

Whenever you create your email campaign make sure you never go in with a blank canvas. So before you create the email in NewZapp – create your content in Notepad and then paste this into the area of the email, you can then style and format the text, as well as insert any links and images.

By doing this you won’t have to stop and think in the middle of creating your email as to what content you should add as you will already have this ready at hand.

Written by Mark Taylor of NewZapp - email marketing experts and a Simple Ways To Grow partner.

For more information on NewZapp visit:  http://www.newzapp.co.uk

Networking is important for small businesses. Face-to-face communication can help you forge productive relationships with key people. Over time, these contacts can become powerful advocates that actively support and promote your business.

Networking is valuable for all types of businesses, from start-ups to established firms. Word-of-mouth recommendation is extremely powerful and business contacts can play a key role in spreading the word about your services.

How to network effectively

While some people find networking easier than others, it's something that everyone can do. With some preparation and practice, you can use networking effectively to enhance your business prospects.

You can build a good rapport with people when you know about their challenges and aspirations and they know yours. In conversation, your goal is to build relationships based on trust, not do a sales pitch.

When you talk about your business, try to be succinct and interesting. Convey your unique selling point (USP) and show how you solve problems for your customers. Have a good answer to the question, 'what do you do?'. Instead of saying you're an independent financial adviser, for instance, say you help people make their money go further.

The aim of networking is to create goodwill by being helpful, likeable and knowledgeable. You never know how useful a contact is going to be. The more people you win over, the more likely your message will reach your target market.

The advantages of networking

Networking works on many levels. You can meet suppliers, advisers, investors or customers.

If you build a good relationship with complementary businesses, they will become ambassadors for your business, passing customers your way. A carpet shop can recommend a fitter, for example, or an estate agent can suggest a good solicitor.

Networking is a good way to turn your ideas into reality. A strong business relationship can open up opportunities. Talking about ideas with other people can make things happen.

It's vital to keep in touch with your contacts. Arrange another meeting if you have an idea you want to develop further. You could send your new contact a useful article or weblink or invite them to relevant events. Another good approach is to introduce people you know that may be useful to each other.

Where to network

There are many local networking events aimed at particular sectors, from food to finance. Become an active participant in your sector or in the local community. Get involved with debates and discussions and attend relevant events.

Your local Chamber of Commerce will be able to recommend events where you will be able to make new business contacts. You can also set up your own networking group by inviting the people you have met so they can network with each other.

As well as face-to-face networking, you can also make new contacts online by contributing to relevant chat rooms or forums. Website forums such as ukbusinessforums.co.uk, for example, are popular with small businesses looking for advice and support.

Look for online communities that are a good match for your business. If you are running an organic restaurant, for example, you could contribute to debates on locally-sourced food or the environment. In addition, you could raise your profile locally by joining online debates about issues that affect you, from planning to recycling.

The golden rule is to be helpful and not to use the forum to overtly sell your services. Above all, networking is not about a quick sale, it's about building relationships in the long term.

1. Take an objective look at your existing sales strategy. Do you have the right approach? If not, adopt a more customer-focused sales strategy and re-evaluate its success in six months. Look at which sales techniques have worked and what hasn't. Learn from your mistakes.

2. Concentrate on increasing business from existing customers. The cliché about 20 per cent of customers providing 80 per cent of revenue is often true. Existing punters are already convinced about your product or service - the hard part is done. Think about ways to generate more sales from existing customers. Maybe they're unaware of the full extent of products or services you offer, and how these can benefit them.

3. Go back to basics. Make sure you're targeting the right market and listen to what potential customers really want. Remember that whatever you're selling, it needs to meet people's needs.

4. Make excellent customer service a priority. Put simple steps in place, such as offering after-sales support and providing training for all customer-facing staff. As well as encouraging repeat business, keeping customers happy means that often they'll do your selling for you by recommending you to others.

5. Get your prices right. Are they too high, which is putting people off buying from you? Are your prices too low, with the net result that potential customers fail to recognise the true value of your offer?

6. Look at what you're selling. Do you need to replace flagging lines by launching a new and improved offer? Would this enable you to make more sales? Remember, solution is evolution. Successful people know when it's time to make changes.

7. Do some basic market research. Are you up to speed with the needs and expectations of customers? These can change rapidly. Also take a look at what your competitors are doing. Constantly look for ways you can provide your customers with better value for money than your competitors can.

8. Raise awareness of your business, perhaps by launching a new marketing or advertising campaign. Even a simple leaflet drop can increase profile. It might even be time to take out a new advert in your local paper. Also try to gain free publicity by getting journalists to write good things about your business. Write an attention-grabbing press release about something newsworthy to do with your business. Encourage your customers to tell others about you. Word-of-mouth recommendation is the best form of advertising there is.

9. Assess your image. Is it making you look unprofessional or out of date? Consider ways you can improve your business image. This could involve decorating your premises - or even just having a good clean and tidy around. Maybe you and your staff need to dress more smartly. Perhaps it's time to upgrade your stationery or website. Simple changes aimed at improving customer perception can make a big difference to sales.

Customer care is at the heart of all successful companies. It can help you develop a loyal customer base and improve relationships with your customers.

In a competitive market you need to chase new business. However, to boost revenue and profitability in your business, you must also  focus on customer retention and build up customer loyalty.

Loyal customers come back time and again; they will also promote your business through word-of-mouth recommendation. By building a long-term customer base, you can reduce the costs of looking for new customers and improve your bottom line.

Good service helps turn customers into ambassadors for your business - they will buy your products and services regularly and give you valuable feedback on your performance as well as supporting you through good times and bad.

To turn a satisfied customer into an enthusiast you need to offer great service based on a deep understanding of your customers' needs. Price and product are important but it is service that gives you the edge over your competitors.

Customer satisfaction

Good customer service is about managing the perceptions of your customers and giving them a positive experience of doing business with you. Are your staff friendly and professional? Are your products and services up to scratch? Do you deliver what you promise?

Getting this right is vital. To create satisfied customers, you need to establish a relationship with them based on understanding their needs. Then you need to exceed their expectations at every turn.

Every business makes promises to its customers, whether tacit or implied. Make sure you are delivering results. A good rule of thumb is to under-promise and over-deliver.

Customer relationships

Even the smallest business needs to plan and control its customer communications. Customer relationship management (CRM) is not the preserve of big corporations. To succeed, every business needs to take a customer-centric approach and build good relationships with their customers based on trust.

You have to work at customer relationships. Never take your best customers for granted. Keep communicating with them so you can respond as their needs change and reward them for their loyalty.

Customers don't usually complain; most just go elsewhere. Others not only complain, but demand action and possibly compensation. Most businesses handle complaints badly. Set up a customer complaints procedure and respong promptly. Resolve the issue so that you dont make the same mistake twice and tell the customer how you have dealt with it. 

At the same time, dont wait until someone complains. Encourage continuous feedback and be prepared to make improvements. Regualr customer contact is vital and customer satifaction surveys are a good way to find out how your business is seen by others. Regulat surveys should elicit real responses, so ensure they can tell you in words as well as tick boxes.

Loyalty schemes allow you to focus on your best customers. These customers buy more and are more profitable than those who may only respond to discounts. What's more, highlt satified customers are more receptive to cross-selling and up-selling.

Establishing a customer profile can give you the information you need to generate business from new and existing punters. Tom Whitney finds out how to go about it

Understanding your customers is the secret of successful selling. Existing customers are important sources of information. The more you know about them, the easier it can be to increase their spending. And you can also use the information you gather to help you find new customers.

Create a customer profile

The information you need to collect depends on your type of business. For example, if you sell to individual consumers, you will want to know their age, gender, location, spending habits and income. If you sell to other businesses, find out what sector they are in, how big they are, how much they spend and what other suppliers they use.

"Find out as much as you can about existing customers," says Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) adviser Ray Jones. "Analyse your sales records, talk to your customers and, if you need more information, consider carrying out a survey.

" Build up a database of information about your customers. Include as much feedback as possible about how highly they rate your products or services. Use your own records to add details of purchasing behaviour, such as products each customer buys, when and how. (Bear in mind that once you have created the database, you must comply with the Data Protection Act.)

"Keep up-to-date records about who your customers are, what they are buying and how much effort you're spending on them in return for the profit this generates," advises Jones. "Accurate profiles allow you to focus your marketing resources where they are likely to be most effective.

" Key benefits of profiling customers "

The information you gather makes it easier to distinguish why customers buy from you," adds Jones. "The more information you have about your customers, the easier it is to spot opportunities to sell them new products.

" Use your new database to group individual customer profiles into different "market segments". This will enable you to target each group with specific offers tailored to their needs.

Targeting by segment also makes it easier to ensure that each customer gets the relevant marketing messages at the appropriate time. For example, you might be able to "up-sell", by explaining why a higher-priced product would better suit a particular group.

You could also consider boosting sales by producing customised products or services for each group.

"By analysing your records, you can identify important information about key customers," says Jones. "Look for those who make the largest orders or those accounts which are most profitable. In some businesses, just a few customers are responsible for almost all orders, while some of your largest-size customers might be among your least profitable.

"Profiling existing customers also makes it easier to find new ones. You can look for similar prospects and sell to them in a similar way," he concludes.

Understanding customers is the key to giving them good service. To give good customer care you must deliver what you promise. But great customer care involves getting to know your customers so well that you can anticipate their needs and exceed their expectations.

To understand your customers well, you need to be attentive to them whenever you are in contact with them. The potential rewards are great: you can increase customer loyalty and bring in new business through positive word-of-mouth recommendation.

There are three main ways to understand your customers better. One is to put yourself in their shoes and try and look at your business from their point of view. The second way is to collect and analyse data in order to shed light on their buying behaviour. The third way is simply to ask them what they think. 

Put yourself in your customers' shoes

Understanding customers requires you to take a hard look at the points at which your customers have contact with your business. These include meetings and visits, phone calls, correspondence and deliveries. Do your premises look scruffy, is your receptionist unfriendly or do your phones ring off the hook? All these things can make a customer feel disappointed.

The most common customer complaint is being kept waiting. If you're slow to return calls or fulfil orders, then you're in danger of losing customers. Above all, customers want you to deliver what you have promised and surpass their expectations.

As a small business, you can offer a personal service. If you remember a customer's name and recall your last conversation with them, you will have brightened up their day. They will also tell their friends what a great service you provide.

Understanding your customers and improving your service must be a priority throughout your business. Everyone from the front desk to the delivery staff should focus on exceeding customer expectations. 

Using data to understand your customers

Your database or customer relationship management system (CRM) holds valuable information about your customers that will help you to understand their needs.

Investigate the data you hold on your customers, it can tell you a lot. Look for patterns so you can see when your customers typically make orders. You can also use the data to analyse your performance. Check how quickly you're responding to orders or delivering goods.

CRM systems are more sophisticated than simple mailing lists. Because they hold information about customer behaviour and preferences they can improve customer satisfaction and retention. They can help you to identify customer needs more effectively, allowing you to up-sell and cross-sell, increasing profitability. 

Ask your customers what they think

Conduct a customer satisfaction survey and you will make your customers feel valued. You will also gain valuable insights. But don't ask for feedback if you are not prepared to make changes. When you do make improvements, tell your customers what you have done as a result of their feedback. 

Customer surveys can tell you things you may not know, including human factors such as staff behaviour. Not everyone complains when they are dissatisfied. Instead, they tell their friends about their bad experience and take their business elsewhere. Unless you proactively consult your customers, you may never discover where you are going wrong.

As well as asking for feedback, set up a customer contact programme to ensure you keep in touch with your clients. A good customer contact strategy will allow you to listen to your customers and tell them more about what you offer.

Networking is important for small businesses. Face-to-face communication can help you forge productive relationships with key people. Over time, these contacts can become powerful advocates that actively support and promote your business.

Networking is valuable for all types of businesses, from start-ups to established firms. Word-of-mouth recommendation is extremely powerful and business contacts can play a key role in spreading the word about your services.

How to network effectively

While some people find networking easier than others, it's something that everyone can do. With some preparation and practice, you can use networking effectively to enhance your business prospects.

You can build a good rapport with people when you know about their challenges and aspirations and they know yours. In conversation, your goal is to build relationships based on trust, not do a sales pitch.

When you talk about your business, try to be succinct and interesting. Convey your unique selling point (USP) and show how you solve problems for your customers. Have a good answer to the question, 'what do you do?'. Instead of saying you're an independent financial adviser, for instance, say you help people make their money go further.

The aim of networking is to create goodwill by being helpful, likeable and knowledgeable. You never know how useful a contact is going to be. The more people you win over, the more likely your message will reach your target market.

The advantages of networking

Networking works on many levels. You can meet suppliers, advisers, investors or customers.

If you build a good relationship with complementary businesses, they will become ambassadors for your business, passing customers your way. A carpet shop can recommend a fitter, for example, or an estate agent can suggest a good solicitor.

Networking is a good way to turn your ideas into reality. A strong business relationship can open up opportunities. Talking about ideas with other people can make things happen.

It's vital to keep in touch with your contacts. Arrange another meeting if you have an idea you want to develop further. You could send your new contact a useful article or weblink or invite them to relevant events. Another good approach is to introduce people you know that may be useful to each other.

Where to network

There are many local networking events aimed at particular sectors, from food to finance. Become an active participant in your sector or in the local community. Get involved with debates and discussions and attend relevant events.

Your local Chamber of Commerce will be able to recommend events where you will be able to make new business contacts. You can also set up your own networking group by inviting the people you have met so they can network with each other.

As well as face-to-face networking, you can also make new contacts online by contributing to relevant chat rooms or forums. Website forums such as ukbusinessforums.co.uk, for example, are popular with small businesses looking for advice and support.

Look for online communities that are a good match for your business. If you are running an organic restaurant, for example, you could contribute to debates on locally-sourced food or the environment. In addition, you could raise your profile locally by joining online debates about issues that affect you, from planning to recycling.

The golden rule is to be helpful and not to use the forum to overtly sell your services. Above all, networking is not about a quick sale, it's about building relationships in the long term.

HOW TO SELECT DATA IN SIMPLE WAYS TO GROW  

Business Lists

Business lists are made with the following criteria

Consumer Lists

Consumer lists are made with the following criteria

The introduction of RTI in April 2013 will bring important changes to the way employers submit PAYE information to HMRC, and effectively means the end of Payroll Year End as we know it. However, unless you're currently part of an RTI pilot scheme, there is still one more PAYE year end to go and existing rules and methods still apply.

Preparing for Payroll Year End and beyond ...

The introduction of RTI in April 2013 will bring important changes to the way employers submit PAYE information to HMRC, and effectively means the end of Payroll Year End as we know it. However, unless you're currently part of an RTI pilot scheme, there is still one more PAYE year end to go and existing rules and methods still apply.

Here are five key PAYE year end tasks you will need to complete before and after the tax year ends on 5 April.

•  Finalise your payroll records for the tax year

You'll need to finalise the figures (ie total earnings, tax, NICs, statutory payments, etc) on each employee's payroll record. If you've maintained a P11 form or similar record, the figures contained will help you complete your Employer Annual Return. Jonathan Dowden, Sage Payroll Product Manager, explains: "The calculations are done automatically if you use Sage payroll software. You can finalise your payroll records after the last payday before 5 April."

•  Complete and file your Employer Annual Return

The Employer Annual Return consists of a P14 form for each employee and a P35 form, which summarises year-end payroll totals for all your employees. "HMRC must receive your Employer Annual Return by 19 May," explains Jonathan. "You can be charged a penalty if you’re late," he warns. "Most employers must file online. To do this, you must first have registered to use HMRC’s PAYE online service. That can take up to a week, and you could incur penalties if you file late, so if you’re a new employer and need to register – don't leave it too late". Sage Payroll makes submitting these returns to HMRC simple in only a couple of clicks.

• Find out whether you've over paid or underpaid

Your Employer Annual Return will detail how much PAYE tax and Class 1 NICs were due to HMRC for the tax year. "This might be more or less than the amount you actually paid," says Jonathan. "If you've overpaid by up to £500, HMRC will let you know and automatically deduct this amount from the next year's payments. If it's more than £500, you can claim it back. If you've underpaid, you’ll need to pay the balance to HMRC - and may be charged interest if you're late."

•  Give a P60 to your employees

"You must provide all employees who still work for you on 5 April 2013 with a P60, which summarises their pay and deductions for the year, of course," Jonathan explains. "You must give your employees their P60s by 31 May, either in paper form or electronic, if they prefer that format. Our payroll software automatically creates a P60 for each employee, which can be printed or emailed to them."

•  Complete and file expenses and benefits forms

If you've provided expenses and benefits during the tax year to any employees, you must complete and file either a P9D form or P11D form. You must also file a P11D (b) form to declare Class 1A NICs payable on these. All forms must reach HMRC by 6 July. Jonathan adds: "If you send a cheque by post to pay Class 1A NICs due on taxable employee expenses and benefits, it must reach your HMRC accounts office by 19 July. If you use an approved electronic payment method, the money must be cleared in HMRC's bank account by 22 July, if you want to avoid interest," he concludes.

How will RTI affect Payroll Year End?

When RTI is fully introduced from 6 April 2013 you will no longer need to submit P35 and P14 forms, instead information about all PAYE payments will have to be submitted to HMRC online every time a payment is made as part of your payroll process, whether weekly or monthly, rather than at the end of the tax year.

However, you'll still need to submit your End of Year Declarations (the same declarations from the existing P35), provide P60s to your employees, either by paper or electronically and P11D and P11D(b) forms for Taxable Benefits should still be submitted as normal.

RTI will change the way you report PAYE. With the introduction of RTI fast approaching, you need to understand how it will affect your business and start preparing for the new legislation now.

RTI will change the way you report PAYE. With the introduction of RTI fast approaching, you need to understand how it will affect your business and start preparing for the new legislation now.

• Prepare your business for RTI By April 2013, all small businesses will be reporting PAYE in real time to HMRC.

With so little time to go, it's really important you start preparing now.

With a staggering 72% of employers unaware of the legislation changes*, many businesses will be unprepared for RTI - we're here to help make sure you're not one of them.

*Source: PAYE at the Crossroads July 2012

• Now is the time to review your payroll processes

No matter how you're currently processing your payroll, now is the time to review your processes and consider changing them. Switching to Sage could be the easier, more cost effective option. What's more, you'll have our award-winning support on hand for help & guidance with your software when you need it.

• Make sure your employee information is accurate and up to date

Do

 Enter the correct date of birth and ensure it's in the format DD/MM/YYYY

 Enter employees' full forename and surnames  

 Enter a double barrelled forename or surname in full  

 Only enter an employee's correct National Insurance number  

 Enter your Accounts Office Reference

 Enter your full Company Name and Address  

 Enter your correct Tax District and Reference Number  

Don't

Enter a default date of birth such as 01/01/1901 or make one up

Use 'known as' names, for example if an employee is known as Bob, you are still required to use his name in full - i.e. Robert

Enter an initial in either the Forename or Surname boxes

Make up an employee's National Insurance number

• Avoid a mismatch: prepare your data

To make sure you have the correct details for your employees, wherever possible, check the information you need against an official document such as:

• HMRC and/or Department for Work and Pensions documentation

• Passport documentation

• Birth certificate

For more information about getting your employees' information correct in preparation for RTI, visit HMRC.

Missing or incorrect data

According to HMRC, over 80% of data quality problems are connected to employers holding incorrect or inadequate information on employees' details. Currently, HMRC has on its records:

• 824 employees with the surname 'Unknown'

• 507 employees called A.N Other

• 160 surnames of 'Test' and 100 with 'do not use'

• 128 staff entered Mr, Ms or Mrs 'Dummy'

• Over 3000 employees with an NI number of AB123456 or AA111111

• 40 employees over the age of 200 years!

What is RTI?

RTI stands for Real Time Information, and it’s the new way to report wages, salaries, PAYE and National Insurance to H.M. Revenue & Customs (HMRC). The big change is that, from 6th April, you will need to report this information to HMRC in real time.

There are no changes to the amount of PAYE or National Insurance that you have to deduct from your payroll, nor to the dates by which you have to pay them over to HMRC. The only thing that is changing is the reporting process.

When is RTI being introduced?

You’ll need to start filing Real Time Informationfrom 6th April 2013.

Why is RTI being introduced?

RTI is being introduced because the Government needs up-to-date information about people’s pay in order to calculate the Universal Credit – the basic social security benefit – correctly. Universal Credit comes in later in 2013.

GLOSSARY

RTI - Real Time Information

PAYE  - Pay As You Earn

FPS - Full Payment Submission

EPS - Employer Payment Summary

HMRC - H.M. Revenue & Customs

Does RTI apply to me?

RTI applies to anyone who is registered for PAYE (or needs to be). This means:

Yes, if you employ staff (see below for a few exceptions)

Yes, if you do your work through a limited company (assuming you pay yourself a salary or reimburse expenses)

No, if you are a sole trader or a partnership that does not employ staff.

If you are a director of a limited company, remember that even if your company doesn’t pay you a salary, you still need to operate RTI if you receive any expense payments. Because you must report these expenses on form P11D each year, you need to have a PAYE scheme in place and thus fall under RTI.

I only employ casual staff or staff without PAYE deductions. Does RTI still apply to me?

Previously you could keep low-paid employees off the PAYE system, and only use PAYE for those that required it. Under RTI, if you have any staff for whom RTI applies, then you have to apply it for all staff.

RTI doesn’t apply if all of your staff:

•  do not receive expense payments.
• do not receive benefits that are not paid in cash (for example, health insurance or company cars).
•  are paid below the Lower Earnings Limit for National Insurance. This will be £109.00 a week for 2013/14, or £472.33 a month.
•  do not need PAYE deducting. 

You must deduct PAYE if you have a tax code for your employee, for example:

•• if you are using a tax code when RTI comes in.

•• if your employee gives you a P45.

•• if your employee gives you a P46 with box C ticked in the bottom left-hand corner. Otherwise, RTI does still apply.

Exceptions

These exceptions might apply, for example, to casual staff, or students, or people who only do a couple of hours a week.

Note for limited company directors:

Don’t forget though, if you are the director of a limited company and your company needs to operate RTI for you, your

company will also need to operate RTI for all your staff.

What will I have to do if RTI applies to my business?

• You will need to make a Full Payment Submission (FPS) every time you pay an employee, either at the time you pay or before. You need to do this online, using HMRC’s own submission tool, or a service like FreeAgent.
• You will need to file an Employer Payment Summary (EPS) for any notifications to HMRC that are not specific to a particular employee but have to be taken into account.
• You will not need to send the end-of-year forms P14 or P35 to HMRC after the tax year ended 2012/13.
• You will not need to send P45’s or P46’s for leavers and starters to HMRC (this information is given on the FPS).  P45’s should still be given to leaving employees.

Good News! Some things aren't changing

There is no change to the way that you deduct PAYE and NI from your payroll or your requirement to pay it to HMRC each month.

There is also no change to the system of coding notices, and you should still hand your employees a P60 form at the end of each tax year.

A Full Payment Submission

Employer details

Reference numbers, including your HMRC Office number, PAYE Reference, and Employer Accounts Office reference.

Employee details

Details of the employee, including National Insurance number, date of birth, etc.

Income Tax year

The income tax year for this FPS, for example 2013/14.

Employee pay details

Details of the payment, including the pay date, frequency, and taxable pay.

National Insurance contributions

Details about the National Insurance contributions for this employee.

An Employer Payment Summary

Employer details

Reference numbers, including your HMRC Office number, PAYE Reference, and Employer Accounts Office reference.

Notifications to HMRC

Use the EPS to notify HMRC about anything that is not specific to a particular employee but has to be taken into account when calculating

the monthly PAYE liability. For example, you would use the EPS to notify HRMC:

•  that you paid no salary to any employees for a particular month.
•  of any deductions under the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS).
•  of any recoveries of statutory sick pay or parental pay.

How does RTI apply to me?

I have a one-person limited company with no other employees

As the director of a limited company, PAYE and RTI applies to you even if you are the company’s only employee.

RTI will apply to salary payments that the company makes to you.

RTI will not apply to:

•  dividends
• rents
•  business expenses that aren’t taxable and are reported on a P11D form
•  loans (unless they are an advance on your salary)
•  any other payments to you 

You will need to continue operating PAYE and NI as at present. All that RTI changes is the way that this is reported to HMRC. However, you will need to file a report to HMRC every time you make a salary payment, not just at the end of the year.

I run a one-person limited company inside IR35 (the intermediaries rules)

If you work through a limited company but are an employee of your clients in all but name, you fall under IR35 rules, which impacts how the company can pay you.

If you fall under IR35 rules, there are two approaches that you can take:

1. Your company can pay you a salary of at least 95% of the money coming in to the company, less expenses. If you do this the system operates in the same way as for any other one-person limited company.

2. You can operate PAYE by calculating a ‘deemed payment’ each April 5th (or earlier if your assignment ceases), and paying PAYE on that. To calculate this payment, use the “deemed payment” calculator on HMRC’s Basic PAYE tool. If you do this you will only have one payment to report using RTI, and it must be reported on or before April 5th (or the earlier date). However it can be an estimate if you don’t have the final figure. You must tell HMRC that it is a deemed payment estimate, and send them any corrections by January 31st. We advise ringing HMRC on 08457 143143 to check that you are doing this the way that they want it. You can read more about IR35 at http://hmrc.gov.uk/ir35.

I have employees as a sole trader, partnership, or director of a limited company

Continue operating your payroll as now, deducting PAYE and paying it over to HMRC. The main change that RTI will make is that you will need to make a Full Payment Submission report every time you pay your employee(s), either on or before the date of payment.

Starters and leavers are dealt with on the FPS. You will no longer need to send P45’s or P46’s to HMRC, although you should continue giving P45’s to departing employees. 

How can I prepare for RTI?

• Register your business with HMRC: if you have started a new business and haven’t already registered with HMRC for a Government Gateway ID, register today to make sure you have it in place. It can take up to seven business days for your Government Gateway ID to arrive. Register at https://online.hmrc.gov.uk/registration/newbusiness/introduction
• Register for PAYE: If you haven’t already, ensure that you register as an employer with HMRC. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/paye/intro/register.htm
• Make sure that you have all the necessary details of your employees.

You will not be able to file reports unless you have, for each employee, their:

•  
  • first and last names
  •  date of birth
  •  gender
  •  address including postcode
  • National Insurance number (or passport number if not known)

If you can’t get your employee’s National Insurance number in time for your first payment, you can include a National Insurance

number verification request in a payroll submission.

For more details, visit http://hmrc.gov.uk/payerti/employee-starting/verify-nino.htm

• Get your software in place: You can use HMRC’s free software to file RTI returns, or another provider like FreeAgent who integrate

with HMRC. See the following page for a breakdown of what features and choices you have with each filing option.

DEADLINE:

6th April

Click here to download this guide as a PDF

http://www.freeagent.com/l/guide-to-rti-download

This article was prepared for FreeAgent

About the author

David Kirk is an independent Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser who specialises in PAYE and National Insurance.

David says: “I have been fortunate in having been asked to advise on RTI at an early stage, which has taught me how much less stressful it is to prepare in good time for changes like this. It looks complex, but is not as bad as it sounds. The key is to prepare in advance.”

For further information

hmrc.gov.uk/rti HMRC’s website section on RTI

08457 143143 HMRC’s employer helpline for general PAYE enquiries.

Open Monday to Friday 8.00 – 20.00,

and on Saturday 8.00 – 16.00.

08456 055999 HMRC’s on-line services helpdesk for help

with HMRC software and on-line submissions.

Open Monday to Friday 8.00 – 20.00,

and on Saturday 8.00 – 16.00.

0800 288 8691 FreeAgent information and support

available Monday to Friday 9.00 – 17.00.

You can also email us:

support@freeagent.com

Disclaimer

Introduction to RTI

Background

The Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system has changed very little since it was introduced in 1944. PAYE is the way that employees pay Income Tax and National Insurance Contributions (NIC). Employers deduct the payments from employees’ pay each week or month.

PAYE, on the whole, is an effective system. However, it is prone to fraud and this makes it difficult for HMRC to identify errors or help either employers or employees to resolve problems quickly and efficiently, which is why RTI is being introduced.

What is RTI?

Real Time Information, or RTI, is a new system that HMRC is introducing to improve the operation of PAYE. PAYE information will be collected more regularly and more efficiently as employers submit their regular payroll submissions, rather than with their end-of-year tax return. HMRC will notify employers 4 to 6 weeks prior to when they must begin RTI submissions.

Why is HMRC introducing RTI?

HMRC is introducing RTI for a number of important reasons.

• To enable a more efficient response to PAYE errors such as under or over payments.
• To support the introduction of Universal Credits, which will streamline benefits into one payment.
• To reduce fraud and ensure people receive the benefits they’re entitled to.
• To provide the Department for Work and Pensions with up-to-date information about each claimant’s employment income more efficiently.
• RTI means that employers will send data about PAYE, NIC and student loans every time they pay their employees.

RTI will be introduced from April 2013 and will become mandatory for all employers from October 2013.

Preparing for RTI

RTI means that instead of sending information once a year to HMRC, you will send it every time you pay your employees. Information including PAYE details, NIC and student loans will be submitted electronically.

Make sure your data is accurate

RTI is fast-approaching. Now is the time to make sure the information you hold on your employees is accurate. Under RTI, the information you submit to HMRC every time you pay your employees is matched against records HMRC stores on its National Insurance and PAYE Service (NPS).

It’s vital that you familiarise yourself with RTI now and makesure you understand its impacton your payroll processes.  Under RTI, employers submit information to HMRC every time they pay their employees. The information is matched against HMRC records stored

on the National Insurance and PAYE Service (NPS).  If there’s a mismatch between your information and HMRC’s records, duplicate or inaccurate records may be created, resulting in incorrect tax calculations or HMRC compliance checks.

The Dos and Don’ts of Employee Information

Don’ts

• Enter a default date of birth such as 01/01/1901 or make one up
• Use ‘known as’ names, for example if an employee is known as Bob, you are still required to use his name in full – i.e. Robert
• Enter an initial in either the Forename or Surname boxes
• Make up an employee’s National Insurance number

Dos

• Enter the Accounts Office Reference
• Enter the full Company Name and Address
• Enter the correct Tax District and Reference Number
• Enter the correct date of birth and ensure it’s in the format DD/MM/YYYY
• Enter employees’ full forenames and surnames
• Enter a double barrelled forename or surname in full
• Only enter an employee’s correct National Insurance number

Avoid a mismatch: prepare your data

To make sure you have the correct details for your employees, wherever possible, check the information you need against an official document such as:

• HMRC and/or Department for Work and Pensions documentation

• Passport documentation

• Birth certificate

If the employee cannot locate their National Insurance number, they can download Form CA5403 from the HMRC website, or they can phone the Registration Helpline on 0845 915 7006.  If the employee has never been issued with a National Insurance number, they should phone Jobcentre Plus on 0845 600 0643.

For more information about getting your employees’ information correct in preparation for RTI, please visit hmrc.gov.uk/rti/dip/get-payroll-right.htm

Mi_si_g or incorerct data

HMRC says that over 80% of data quality problems are connected to employers holding incorrect or inadequate information on employees’ names, birth dates or National Insurance numbers. Currently, HMRC has on its records:

• 824 employees with the surname ‘Unknown’

• 507 employees called A.N Other

• 160 surnames of ‘Test’ and 100 with ‘do not use’

• 128 staff entered Mr,Ms or Mrs ‘Dummy’

• Over 3000 employees with an NI number of AB123456 or AA111111

• 40 employees over the age of 200 years!

RTI - The Big Four Submission Types

Employer AlignmentSubmission (EAS)  What is It?

EAS is a one-off submission that will be used by HMRC to match and align company and employee records against the data it holds. Only businesses that employ more than 250 employees must submit an EAS but small and medium sized employers can volunteer to submit EAS.

What type of Information is Submitted?

•  Company PAYE Reference
•  Accounts Office Reference
•  Tax Office number
•  Employee name and address
•  Employee NI number and tax code
•  Employee payroll ID
•  Employment start and end dates

Full Payment Submission (FPS)  What is It?

FPS is the main and most common submission type. It covers the employee payments and deductions made each time an employer pays an employee. HMRC will use this submission to calculate how much PAYE and NIC liability is due from your business each tax month. HMRC will know via your regular FPS submissions how much your PAYE and NIC liability is. 

What type of Information is Submitted?

• Starter and leaver information
•  Employee initial, forename and surname
•  Employee NI number, tax code and gender
•  Employee address
•  Employee payment information
•  PAYE and National Insurance contributions

Employer Payment Summary (EPS) What is it?

The EPS is only submitted where you need to advise HMRC of any alteration to this liability (such as when reclaiming statutory payments) or where you’re advising of a nil payment.

What type of Information is Submitted?

• Whether no payment is due
•  Statutory Payments Recovered
•  NIC Compensation on Statutory Payments
•  Advance funding obtained from HMRC for tax refunds and statutory payments
•  CIS Deductions Suffered
•  NIC Holiday

National Insurance Verification Request (NVR) What is it?

A National Insurance number is a vital piece of information, which uniquely identifies an employee. An NVR  submission allows employers to validate an employee’s National Insurance number or request one where a new or existing employee does not have one.

What type of Information is Submitted?

• Employee’s name
• Employee’s date of birth and gender
• Employee’s address

When Do I Submit?  What should I do to prepare?

• EAS. Will be your first submission.  You will submit when HMRC invite you to do so.  
  • Ensure that you’ve checked the accuracy of your employee data before submitting for every employee (including those who have left or haven’t been paid yet) from the start of the tax year.

• FPS. You must make a Full Payment Submission every time you make a payment to an employee. The submission must be made on or before the date the employee is paid. If you process a mixture of weekly and monthly payrolls for your business, you must submit an FPS for each one.
  • If you’re a large employer employing more than 250 employees, you must make sure you have already submitted an Employer Alignment Submission.
  • If you’re a small employer and this is your first FPS submission, you must ensure that you’ve checked the accuracy of all your employee data before submitting.

• EPS.  You should make this submission when or before the relevant monthly or quarterly liability payment is made to HMRC.
  • Firstly, you must identify whether you need to make this submission i.e. whether you need to inform HMRC of any adjustments to your monthly or quarterly PAYE and NIC liability. If you DO need to make the submission, be sure to make it on or before the date the monthly or quarterly liability payment is due.

• NVR. You can make an NVR submission at any time you need to validate, confirm orrequest an employee’s National Insurance. HMRC will either confirm the National Insurance number is correct or advise that the number should not be used.
  • Ensure that the information the employee has provided, including their name, date of birth, gender and address, is accurate. Do not make up or enter an invalid National Insurance number.

* It is important to note that the information listed is not comprehensive and may be subject to change. Up-to-date information can be found at www.hmrc.gov.uk/rti or sage.co.uk/rti

Changes to Payroll Year End

RTI will change the way Payroll Year End works. Although you will still be required to provide your employees with P60s and complete P11D and P11D(a) forms for taxable benefits and expenses, there will be some tasks you no longer need to complete:

• P14 and P35 submissions

• P38A returns for casual employees

Are you an Accountant?

If you’re an accountant you’ll know that your work is integral to ensuring your clients’ employee information is accurate. Inaccurate information could mean your clients’ employees don’t get paid on time. We recommend that you familiarise yourself with RTI and

review the processes you use to help clients perform key tasks such as taking on new employees or updating existing employee

information. It’s essential that you ensure your clients are providing you with accurate information and that you educate your clients on RTI and how to manage it. 

We’ve received some great feedback on the seminars we’ve already run:

"The seminar has given me confidence to engage in RTI."  "This has been a brilliant seminar."  "The product manager and business

analyst were thorough and I feel confident for future submissions of FPS and EPS in April 2013."

Want to learnmore? Visit sagerti.co.uk for details.

Sage and HMRC: working together for RTI

We’ve worked very closely with HMRC, investing significant resource in ensuring our Sage Payroll solutions are RTI-ready for the HMRC pilot, which began in April 2012. As a result, we’re pleased to say Sage Instant Payroll and Sage 50 Payroll have been officially recognised by HMRC as RTI-ready.

The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP) was just one of the high profile clients to take part in the pilot using Sage.

"Sage has provided simple and easy to use payroll software for over 30 years, consistently meeting HMRC’s stringent payroll standard. We will ensure that all customers with a valid SageCover support contract will receive software updates that will make the transition to RTI straightforward and hassle free." Lindsay Melvin, Chief Executive of the CIPP

"With help from Sage, our experience on the RTI pilot has gone very smoothly and it has given us the confidence and practice to report our PAYE data in real time going forward."

We support all of HMRC’s ambitious efforts to introduce RTI as seamlessly as possible by April 2013.

Expert advice and training

To make sure you’re RTI-ready we’ve developed training and support to guide you through everything you need to know. Whether you use Sage Payroll software or just want to know more about RTI, you can choose from interactive online training or a range of local seminars and workshops with our RTI experts across the UK.

Seminars, Workshops, Online Training

Get ready… all systems go! Preparation is key to success.

Make sure your business is prepared as RTI comes into force. See our check list  below and tick off each of these tasks as you complete them.

• I have read the RTI guidance and understand whatinformation I’m expected to provide
•  I have RTI-ready software from my provider
•  I’ve checked my company details are correct, including:
  •  Name
  •  Tax District and PAYE Reference
  •  Accounts Office Reference
•  I’ve checked my employee details are correct, including:
  •  Name
  •  Address
  •  Date of birth
  •  National Insurance number
  •  Gender
•  I’ve entered the hours normally worked by my employees into my software
•  I’ve added all new employees to my payroll,including casual and infrequent employees 
•  I’ve processed all leavers in this tax year

So, you’re ready to make your first RTI submission, but what exactly does the process involve? Use this

checklist to stay on top of RTI.

1. You’ve checked your company and employee data.

2. HMRC confirm your migration date, giving you 4-6 weeks’ notice.

3. You make sure your payroll software is RTI-ready.

4. Migration day – Submit your Employer Alignment Submission (EAS).

5. Add any new starters who’ve joined your business since your EAS. Process and update your payroll. Process leavers.

6. Submit your Full Payment Submission (FPS).

7. Month end – Check if an Employer Payment Submission (EPS) is required.

8. Ongoing Full Payment Submissions and Employer Payment Submissions (if required).

9. End of Year process.

To see the Full White Paper click here

Improve your business in just one hour a week

Do you struggle to stay on top of your business finances?

Here is FreeAgent's guide to help you.

We recon that if you dedicate just one hour a week to your busness finances, you won't just save time on the admin work, but will have a chance to work through all those bigger-picture financial questions.  Ready to Go?  here's our simple plan to make bookkeeping anxiety a thing of the past.

1. Schedule one hour a week to devote to your business finances.

2. Complete your weekly checklist

3. Do a two-minute task every day

1.  Pick your hour a week.

The most important step is to create a routine for managing your books. For many businesses this can be as simple as dedicating an hour a week. Remember to block off this time in your diary and set reminders so you don’t forget.

2.  Your weekly check list

• Keep up to date with your invoices.   If invoicing is taking too much of your time, think about automating parts of the process. With FreeAgent you can set up recurring invoices, and even set unpaid invoices to chase themselves.
• Manage your bills.  Keep a record of outstanding bills to suppliers so you’ll always know who you owe, how much you owe, and when to pay.
• Reconcile your bank transactions.  Stay on top of your bank transactions so you have an up-to-date view of your cash flow. You can upload your bank statements to FreeAgent or set up an automated bank feed, then just “explain” each transaction.
• Check that your projects are earning enough.  Where’s your time best spent? Record all of your costs and unbillable time against your projects to get the full view. In FreeAgent, use the project profitability area to spot your most valuable projects.
• Learn one new thing about your business.  What secrets is your business hiding from you? Turn detective and consider things like reviewing your pricing, understanding seasonality in your business, and monitoring what your competitors are up to.

3. Two-minute daily tasks

• Record expenses as you go.   Do you have a receipt in your wallet right now, likely to be forgotten or lost? Take a quick snap of  that receipt on your phone - in FreeAgent you can upload it as an expense entry.
• Track your time on the go.  Going into a client meeting? Track your time there and then, before you forget. FreeAgent’s mobile-friendly time tracker makes this easy. Remember to also track time you don’t charge a client for, so you can measure your project’s profitability.

Dedicating time to your regular bookeeping every week puts you in a better position to tackle the big challenges for your business, like paying taxes and planning for growth.  FreeAgent helps you every step of the way, letting you forecast tax commitments, track your profit and cashflow, send professionally designed invoices and manage expenses. 

http://freeagent-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/downloads/1hr-checklist.pdf

Optimise your pricing

Getting your prices right is essential. If they're too high, you'll put off potential customers. Aim too low, and you'll throw away potential profit and risk making customers believe your products or services are inferior to higher-priced competitor goods.

Here we explain how to set an 'optimum' price, which allows you to maximise profit after your costs have been paid.

Do your market research

Having sound knowledge of your market – potential customers and competitors – is essential when setting prices.

You need to know how much potential customers are prepared to pay for your products or services. If they already buy similar products from someone else, find out why and how much they spend.

Also find out how much your competitors charge, but never simply match a price unless you know you can afford to. A competitor could have lower overheads than you. Conversely, if you're confident you're offering better quality or additional benefits, customers might willingly pay more.

Calculate a breakeven figure

When setting prices, you need to work out your costs. Begin with all 'variable' costs (eg materials, electricity, packaging, etc), which are linked to volume (ie the more you make or sell, the higher they are).

'Fixed costs' – often called overheads (eg rent, business rates and wages) – stay the same, regardless of volume. Work out what proportion of these must be covered by the product or service you are pricing.

Add your variable costs to your fixed costs and any research and development costs. Then you'll arrive at a 'breakeven' figure – the amount you need to recoup. Sometimes an overall breakeven figure is divided by volume to create a unit breakeven figure.

Pricing methods

Now it's time to think about profit. Two pricing methods are commonly used – cost-plus and value-based.

The cost-plus

The cost-plus approach involves adding 'mark-up' to breakeven. Usually expressed as a percentage of total cost, knowledge of your market or industry norms can help you decide how much margin to add. Mark-up can be higher when demand is stronger, if competition is scarce or when costs are low.

Be aware of the limitations of cost-plus pricing. It assumes you'll sell every unit. If you don't, your overall profit margin will be lower.

Value-based pricing

ralue-based pricing requires sound knowledge of how much value customers attach to a product or service, which could be significantly higher than cost.

Remember that, for services, value-based prices need to be structured. For example, if you are called out in the early hours, you should be able to charge customers more than for call outs during normal hours. You might also be able to charge more for weekend or holiday time call-outs.

Consider VAT and other factors

You might need to think how applying VAT will impact on your prices. Selling at odd values rather than whole pounds (eg £9.99 instead of £10) is a common ploy to make prices seem more attractive.

As part of your overall pricing strategy, you might keep margins modest on some products to gain higher margins on sales of others. You might need to calculate a separate price for different territories or types of sale (eg online or trade sales).

Changing your prices

If your knowledge of your market leaves you feeling your calculated price is too high, to reduce it you must slim your costs. Protect your margins, wherever possible.

Generally speaking, setting a high price is better than going too low. Then if you have to make changes, customers will accept a price reduction much more favourably than an increase.

Remain agile and carry out regular price reviews. Your costs, customers and competitors can change quickly, which could well mean you need to alter your prices. Few prices remain fixed for long.

BHP Information Solutions 2012

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Category: Finance

Keywords: pricing strategy, margin, cost-plus, variable costs

Our partner FreeAgent has lots of useful information about managing and claiming your expenses. Here Chief Accountant Emily talks you through claiming the costs of working from home.

Are you one of the many self-employed people in the UK that carries out work from their own home? If the answer’s yes, then there’s good news for you: you’re entitled to include part of the running costs of your home in your accounts, which will save you some tax. Hurray! Now - how do you work out how much you can claim? 

Two potential methods for calculating business use of home

If your business is eligible to use the new simplified accounting method, then as from 6th April 2013 you have two options to work out how much to claim for business use of home.

If your sales are under the VAT threshold, which at the moment is £79,000 a year, and you are a sole trader or in a partnership where all the partners are individuals rather than corporate bodies (so if you are in a partnership and one of the other partners is a limited company, that’s not you), you’re eligible to use the simplified accounting method, and one option this method allows is a flat rate calculation for business use of home.

The flat rate method

This simply asks you to look at how many hours a month you spend running your business at home, on average, and then include a fixed amount in your accounts for business use of home.

The amount varies with the number of hours per month you work at home, as follows:

25-50 hours: £10 per month

51-100 hours: £18 per month

101 hours or more: £26 per month

Using this method will certainly be quicker than working out your actual costs, but the figure might not be as high and so you could save time but pay more tax.

The second method, which is the method you’ll have to use if your business is not eligible to use the simplified accounting method and which is also the method that has to be used for accounts dated up to and including 5th April 2013, works like this. 

Analysing the costs method

If you want to claim part of the actual running costs of your home in your business accounts, then how much you can claim depends on the type of business you have and what work you actually do at home.

For example, if you’re a freelance decorator you might spend an hour or two a week writing up your books at home, but spend the rest of your working life at your customers’ properties. But if you’re a self-employed PR consultant or web designer, you may well do the vast majority of your work at home and only occasionally visit clients.

HMRC say that you need to apportion the running costs of your home on a “fair and reasonable” basis between the private element of that cost - the part that relates to you actually living there - and the business element. But how do you do this?

One method is to work out how many rooms you have in your home, and identify how many of those rooms you use for business - and also calculate how much time you actually use these rooms for business.

Just remember that it’s not a good idea to use any part of your home solely for business activities all the time and never use it for any private activities, because capital gains tax will then be due on the part you use just for business if, and when, you sell your home. Instead, try to make sure that your work space serves a dual purpose - for example, my own office at home is also my music room, and I could easily prove that to a visiting HM Revenue inspector because there’s a piano in there.

So, say there are 10 rooms in my home. I only use one for business, and 90% of the use of that room is for business. So I would add up all the costs I can claim, and multiply that by 1/10 and then by 90%, to get my accounts figure for the business use of my home.

But what running costs in my home can I actually include in my accounts?

Costs you can claim

Here are some of the costs you might incur to run a home, which you may then be able to claim part of in your business accounts: 

Mortgage

If you’re buying your home through a mortgage, you can claim a proportion of the interest only - not the capital repayment. 

Rent

You can’t charge your business rent when you’re self-employed, because legally you are the business. But if you’re renting your home from a landlord, then you can claim a proportion of the rent for your business.

Council tax

You can claim a proportion of your council tax cost. However, depending on how much you use your home for business, you may have to pay business rates rather than council tax. 

Light and heat

You can claim the business proportion of your gas and electricity costs for lighting and heating in the room(s) you use for business.

Telephone and broadband

Remember that what you can claim for your telephone and broadband is not apportioned on the basis of the number of rooms in your home, but on what your actual usage of the line is.

You can claim the full cost of all your business use of the line, and a percentage of the line rental, based on how much you use it for business purposes and how much is for personal use. 

Property repairs

If a property repair relates solely to the part that’s used for business, you would include this cost in your accounts in full, subject to the business use of that room.

So for example, if the ceiling in my office/music room was repaired and that cost £200, I wouldn’t need to divide that by 10 because the repair was only for that room – I would just multiply by 90%, and include £180 in my accounts.

If the repair is to the whole house, for example a repair to the roof, you can include that in the same proportion as you would the rent or council tax – so in the example of my 10-room house, the repair cost x 1/10 x 90%.

But if the repair is just for a part of the house that’s not used for business - such as replastering of a kitchen - then you can’t claim any part of that repair in your business accounts.

Water

If you use a lot of your home water supply for business - for example if you run a car valeting service - then you would need to apply to the water company for this to be separately charged, and you could claim the full cost.

But if your water use for your work is only minor, you can’t claim any of the cost for your business.

 Claiming costs of working at home is not as simple as it initially sounds. If you’re in any doubt as to what you can claim, you should seek further advice from an accountant.

For more information FreeAgent, visit: http://www.freeagent.com/

Managing your expenses day-to-day

Keeping on top of expenses can be a big hassle when you’re just trying to get on with your work, especially if it’s grown into a big pile of unprocessed paperwork!

So in this guide, FreeAgent’s chief accountant Emily will walk you through the basics of recording, claiming, managing, and storing your business expenses.

What are expenses?

“Expenses” are business costs that you pay for yourself, which the business may later reimburse you for. Examples would be if you used a personal credit card to buy a train ticket to go and visit your client, or if you bought a stamp at the post office and paid with your own cash. The long name for expenses is “out-of-pocket expenses”.

Record your expenses daily

The best time to record an expense is as soon as you spend the money - whenever possible, take two minutes out of your day to record expenses on the go. For example, if you’re waiting on the train platform, use those two minutes of downtime to snap a photo of your train ticket on your mobile and upload it with your expense entry to an online accounting system like FreeAgent.

Review your expenses weekly

At FreeAgent, we believe that spending just one hour a week on your business’s bookkeeping gives you a real head start towards keeping your finances in good order. Try using our weekly checklist method to stay on top of any expenses that you haven’t already recorded, and to stay on top of how much is going in and out of your business.

Consider storing your receipts online

You may be surprised to know that you don’t have to keep that big folder of receipts - HMRC say that they are happy for business owners to store expense receipts electronically, so long as the electronic copy includes both the front and back of any receipts that have information on the back, such as terms and conditions. For digital storage options, consider using a service like Depositit.com.

You can also upload your receipts to an online accounting system like FreeAgent and attach them to your accounting entries. This doesn’t just save you space, it also makes it easier to trace back the receipt to the entry in your accounts if you, your accountant, or HMRC has a query on that transaction.

Keep expenses separate from other costs

When you’re recording expenses, it’s really important to keep these separate from costs that were paid for through your business’s bank account. For example, if you pay for a train ticket on your business debit card rather than your personal credit card, remember that this cost would need to be recorded as paid by the business rather than by you. It’s not an out-of-pocket expense, because the business paid for it directly.

This may sound like extra hassle that you don’t need, but it is important because if your records are ever inspected by HMRC, the first thing they will look for is whether what your accounts say is in the bank matches what actually is in the bank. If you’ve put costs in the wrong place, these figures won’t match.

It’s also important because sometimes you have to report these figures differently for tax, for example if you are the director of a limited company and you have to report your expenses to HMRC on form P11D.

Make sure your categories are consistent

It’s harder to make informed business decisions if you don’t post your costs consistently into the same category in your accounts. For example, if you put your car park ticket charge into “travel” one month and “motor expenses” the next, it’s much harder to see whether your car parking costs are mounting up higher than you want them to be and if it’s time to switch to travelling by train, bus or bike.

Try printing out a cheat sheet for any expenses that you might not remember where they go, and keep it handy when you’re processing expenses.

Taking the time to set up a good system and then just dedicating just a few minutes a day can go a long way to making your expenses much easier to manage.

FreeAgent is a Simple Ways To Grow partner and provides online accounting tools to help you better manage your business finances.

Read more about how they are working with Simple Ways To Grow

FreeAgent, the  award-winning online bookkeeping and accounting system for small businesses and freelancers, outlines five handy tips to remember when setting up your invoice template.

Branding 

Your invoice is a document that you send out from your business, so make sure that it reflects your brand. Think logo, colours, fonts, and wording of the item descriptions and of your payment terms. For example, if the brand message you want to convey is “fun and quirky”, make sure your payment terms are not written in lawyers’ English.

Legal information

There is some information that you must legally include on your invoices. 

If your business is a limited company or LLP, your invoices must show its Companies House registered number and address, and if you put the name of one director / member on your invoice, you must include the names of all the directors / members.

If you’re registered for VAT you must include your VAT number on your invoices, and comply with HMRC’s rules about VAT invoices.

For sole traders who are not registered for VAT, you’re not subject to legal requirements like these, but I would say it’s best practice to keep to the same rules as for VAT invoices, except of course that you would not charge VAT. This is to help make your invoices look most professional and avoid any queries from either HMRC or your customers. In particular, if you use sequential numbering for your invoices then HMRC can easily see that you have reported all your income.

Price 

It’s important to make sure “The Price is Right!”, because otherwise you could find yourself in the very embarrassing position of either having to ask your customers for more money, or give them some back.

When you include your quote in your invoice, make sure you use your most recent pricing -

and don’t forget any discounts or special offers that you might have promised to all your customers or to just this particular customer.

Remember that if your business is VAT registered, HMRC say that you must include the price per unit on your invoices.

Description

Avoid queries from customers by making the description on the invoice of what you are selling them as clear as you can. If a customer has to phone up to query an invoice, they may see this as poor service on your part, and it may also mean they take longer to pay.

Payment information

Make it as easy as possible for customers to pay you. Include your bank account details on your invoices if you are taking payment from online banking or by BACS. If you send your invoices by email and use a service such as PayPal or GoCardless to collect payment from customers, include a link when you email the invoice, so that customers can pay with one click.

Remember that it’s for you to decide how quickly you want to get paid. Set your payment terms and make sure your customers keep to them!

Make sure that your invoices are clearly laid out with all the information a customer needs. Your aim is to make your customers’ lives as easy as possible, because that way they will come back and buy from you again. Remember, happy customers are more likely refer more people to you!

FreeAgent is a Simple Ways To Grow partners.

Click here to find out more about its online accounting tool.