Digital Britain 2009 - A Growing UK Online Audience

In the House of Commons (London), the Labour Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw (16 June 2009) announced a plan of how the UK will develop and grow the digital landscape. This report affects all homes and businesses with or without broadband and will impact revenue generation in the future.

Currently on the list of developed nations, the UK does not have the highest broadband speeds and we are beginning to fall behind other less developed countries. Worse still, there are many communities in the UK without any access to broadband at all. This is made worse because ISPs (Internet Service Providers) are not willing to invest in the infrastructure of unprofitable areas.

In order to access a wide array of online information, streaming media and use social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook etc, we need to have fast and reliable broadband access. Many small businesses operate from home and according to the Digital Britain Report 2009, currently 2.1 million people (6% of total UK employment) contribute to the digital economy.

It is the UK Government’s intention to make sure that everyone has access to ‘next generation’ super fast broadband by 2012. The downside for UK households with fixed lines is that we will be taxed £6 a year to make this happen. The upside is the potential for growth for businesses that understand the growth potential as more and more of their target markets have online access

As an entrepreneur and business owner it is essential to identify areas that have a potential for growth. Faster and more widely available broadband will provide access to a bigger target market with a new way of promoting marketing messages. The web removes any perceived country borders which can stop business transactions from taking place. Regardless of whether you are UK based or live further a field, a better access to fast broadband in the UK will definitely open up the market place.

Take advantage of a burgeoning UK online audience and demonstrate a level of expertise in what you do - your niche. All of the following online strategies are low cost (if not free) and demonstrate how using guerrilla marketing can achieve specific online goals.

1. Make sure that you have an online presence. A UK Microsoft executive estimated that approximately 50% of UK businesses did not have one (2007). A blog is the place where you can demonstrate your knowledge and expertise but a basic website is better than nothing.
2. Demonstrate Knowledge. Write articles, press releases and blog posts that demonstrate your knowledge on a regular basis.
3. Incorporate multimedia such as audio and video onto your websites and User Generated Content (UGC) directories such as YouTube.
4. Grow your mailing list. Get people to sign up to a free ‘gift’ on your blog/website to gather email addresses. If you have a blog, users can sign up to receive RSS feeds with your latest blog posts.
5. Communicate Regularly - Send out emails about your industry, sector, products and services to you’re your mailing list.
6. Social Networking - Sign up for free Twitter and Facebook accounts, fill in your profile and take part in social media networking with your specific target audience. Give your prospects and clients a way to get to know you better.

Marketing Blind - How To Fail at Growing Your Business

Marketing Blind is an ideal way to fail at growing your business and throw your marketing budget down the drain.   

Many businesses consider marketing to be an additional task that they just don’t have time for. Cold calls and a couple of ads in a local newspaper or a trade magazine are easy to fit in but anything else can be considered to be a big hassle.

After all, if you use your expertise to provide great services and/or products - marketing isn’t really your job is it?  Actually, if you do not have someone to outsource your marketing to, it is your job!

Marketing isn’t just about paying for advertising, having a website or putting leaflets through thousands of letter boxes. A crucial and almost forgotten feature about marketing is having hard cold facts about where your business is now and a crystal clear vision of where you want to be in the future. Marketing then includes the process of transforming your business from where it is now to where you want it to be to achieve your business objectives.

Marketing Blind
I would guess that most of us would never consider driving to a complete unknown destination, if we had no previous knowledge about the route, without either researching the route beforehand or using a map to get from A to B.

If you go away on holiday, unless you have an impeccable memory, you will have your travel itinerary with you to make sure that you don’t miss the flight or go to the wrong hotel. So why would you treat the growth of your business in the same way as an unplanned journey?

A perfect way to ensure that you never increase your profits or get your business out of a rut is to undertake your ‘marketing blind’. That is to know nothing about the position of your business in the market that you operate in and to proceed to implement marketing strategies without any long or short term goals.

Free Marketing Audit - The Situational Analysis Tool
If you do not monitor all of your marketing activity i.e. make a list of the media tools used, the budget spent, the profile of your target market, the number/cost of leads, and number/cost of customers, and revenue generated you will never know if your activities have met any of your business goals.

The Guerrilla Marketing Manifesto ‘Situational Analysis Tool’ is available for download free of charge - http://www.entrepreneurmarketingblog.com/free-marketing-audit/. It will take you through the process of how to:

1. Review the market that you are operating in. Is it new, old, growing or in decline? Can you enter a new market or should you exit an existing one?
2. Conduct research and find out what your customers/clients think of your products and services.
3. Review the internal and external conditions that affect the successful growth of your business and its profitability.
4. Consider whether your products, services and marketing match the profile of your customers and clients. Are any changes needed?
5. Review the features and benefits of your products and services. Should you launch new products, develop existing ones or withdraw from the market?
6. Recognise the intrinsic link between pricing, value and perception with your position in the market.
7. Have a clear brand identity which is promoted through all of your marketing activities.
8. Know the strengths and weaknesses of your planned business growth activities i.e. understand where the opportunities are that can be exploited and the downfalls that should be avoided.

After a Marketing Audit - The Next Step in Marketing
So if you want your marketing to succeed and do not want to throw your budget down the drain, you cannot keep doing the same marketing activities regardless of whether they work or not. The definition of madness, or so they say, is to keep doing the same thing expecting a different result.

You must complete a marketing audit by reviewing everything that you are doing, analyse the results and set objectives and goals to be met in the future. All of this information can be fed into a long term marketing strategy where you set your business goals over a 3-5 year period. You can then develop a short term marketing plan to ensure that you keep on track with specific marketing tools to be implemented over a shorter period of time - typically a 12 month period.

Marketing is about having a vision that can be translated into action - ‘Marketing Blind’ is the antithesis this. You must only take action based on knowledge and information (your gut feeling won’t hurt either!). So, before you pick up the phone and take another call from a sales executive flogging advertising space or spend another penny on advertising that you have no idea will work, take stock of where you are now so that you can achieve your future goals

Guerrilla Marketing Intro

Guerrilla marketing, aimed at small businesses and entrepreneurs, was introduced to the world in the early 70’s by the now legendary Jay Conrad Levinson.

In his international best-selling book, not surprisingly called ‘Guerrilla Marketing’, he outlines how to clearly define a seven step guerrilla marketing plan.  He also lists hundreds of low/no cost marketing ‘weapons’ (tools) which can be used to promote your business.

 
Guerrilla Marketing for SMEs
           
The term ‘Guerrilla’ in this context is a marketing methodology well suited for creative small businesses (SMEs) with smaller budgets.  This is in contrast to ‘traditional’ brand marketing used by big businesses with money to burn.  The Guerrilla marketer has a ‘can-do’ attitude and knows that building trusting relationships and rapport with prospects and customers is at the cornerstone of any successful marketing strategy. 

Using a warfare analogy, the ‘guerrilla’ uses non-traditional techniques to outwit the opposition i.e. by combining a selection of marketing ‘weapons’ to grow profits with a unique array of ideas.  The guerrilla knows that the best battles include surprise attacks so marketing campaign ideas must be ‘out of the box’ – subterfuge at its best! 

Low or No Cost High Impact Marketing Techniques

The guerrilla marketer also knows that marketing must also have a high impact even if it is cost effective.  With technology at the core, the guerrilla marketer understands the psychology of target audiences and knows that communicating with prospects on a regular basis produces more meaningful results over the lifetime of the relationship. 

As a guerrilla marketer you must:

• Have a plan and stick to it.
• Know your market and create a relationship with your target audience.
• Promote the benefits of what you are offering and demonstrate value.
• Use a variety of low or no cost high impact marketing techniques knowing that online tools are essential.
• Operate within a niche - be a big fish in a small pond.