Ideal Marketing Company Blog

Marketing Seminar at the Angel Hotel

Free Marketing Seminar – November 2009

What can you do to minimise the marketing mistakes that can happen when you launch a new product, run an advert or send out a direct mail campaign? ‘12 Reasons Why Marketing Fails’ is packed with simple ideas that will help you to avoid the 12 most common errors that spell disaster for your next marketing campaign.

If you want to avoid the wasted money and missed opportunities for growth that can result, book your free place today.

You can also find out more about the ‘Marketing Mentor’ programme and how you can enrol in it for no charge as it is currently fully Government funded.

Details about the free Marketing Seminar at the Angel Hotel, Market Harborough

Date: Thursday November 12th at 5pm

Location: The Angel Hotel, High Street, Market Harborough

Duration: 5pm for a 5.15 start till 6.30pm

Parking: Free in The Angel car park behind the hotel

Please e-mail Helen@idealmarketingcompany.com to reserve up to 3 places or call 01858 44 55 43

Phone seminar

Thanks to everybody who joined in on the Marketing Mentor call today. Pleased to say that we were able to give out some useful ideas and I think everybody listening found something useful to takeaway with them.

To find out of you qualify for free funding for the marketing mentor programme (if you employ between 4 and 200 staff you probably do) call 01858 44 55 43.

Marketing Seminar in London

Looking forward to a new marketing seminar that I will be running next week for the Mace Group at their head office in Camden North London.  Sorry – this is a private seminar for Mace staff only.  I will be running a similar seminar in Market Harborough in early November

Market seminars leicester

Special Seminar on Brand Development and Protection

The most valuable brand in the world is google with an estimated value of $100bn (source: Millward Brown report 2009), this is a staggering sum and google relies almost exclusivity on brand awareness to promote its business.

In the current economic climate customers are increasingly turning to trusted and well known brands whether they are seeking cheaper products at supermarkets such as Aldi or for new and exciting technology such as Apple.

As a business your brand is essential in a competitive market. This is why our second seminar in the series looks at how to protect your brand and how to develop your brand.

The Seminar will consist of the following two presentations:

Alastair Campbell, The Ideal Marketing Company:  Creating a Powerful Brand – What are the simple lessons that every company can introduce when looking at the critical area of branding?

Jason Hathaway, Edward Hands & Lewis Solicitors: Protecting your brand – trade mark registration, passing off and other related legal rights.

The seminar is on 24th September at the Leicester Space Centre starting at 8.00 am and will finish at 10am.

I would urge you to book early as we are expecting a good turnout.

To book a place please e-mail alastair@idealmarketingcompany.com

Northampton Marketing Seminars

Just arrived back from a morning seminar I was asked to run for the FSB in Northampton.  The event took place at the Northampton cricket club.  With around 60 business owners present it was a goodoppertunity to talk about the ’9 steps to successful marketing’ that I recently completed a tips booklet on.  If you were one of the people there I hope you found it useful.  I actually recorded the talk and plan on creating a CD and transcript out of it later this month.

Thanks to Tara Carlile-Swift who sent me the following feedback from yesterday’s event:

“Once again Alastair’s speaking style captivated, inspired and challenged our audience who ranged from start-up businesses to established SME’s. His down to earth approach to marketing is refreshing. Our delegates left with real advice they can implement straight away – which is why Alastair’s style is so relevant in the current climate”

Tara Carlile-Swift

Tara Carlile-Swift
Founder – East Midlands Business Live! & New business live!

www.embusinesslive.com

Busy week next week with a free evening seminar on Tuesday and a full day seminar on Thursday.  If you are one of the busness owners attending I’m looking forward to meeting you there.

Thank you to everybody who came to The Business Club meeting on Tuesday evening.  I was asked to speak on the ’9 Steps to successful marketing’ which I’m pleased to say received very positive feedback.

If you have never been to a Business Club event, I would suggest you try one of them.  They run in Leicester, Northampton, Peterborough & Hertfordshire.  The format of the meeting works well and all the events I’ve spoken at have been very well attended and seem very well liked by the members. I’m due to return to run another marketing seminar / marketing talk at the Leicester event again this June.

marketing seminar

Have you got a ‘shark’s mouth’ approach to marketing?

In my marketing seminars, I sometimes talk about the term a ‘shark’s mouth approach to marketing.  What do I mean by this?

After the film ‘Jaws’ was released in 1975, most people who saw it felt at least a little twinge of fear the next time they ventured into the sea. However, despite all the image problems that the shark has, the shark can teach us a couple of useful lessons. It’s certainly not to do with PR – sharks get pretty bad PR in general – it is to do with the principle behind a shark’s mouth and how we can use this idea to our approach to marketing.

A shark’s main weapon in staying alive is its teeth. Most sharks have about 3-5 rows of teeth at any time. The front set does most of the work. The first two rows are used for obtaining, killing and cutting up prey; the other rows rotate into place as they are needed. These sharp pointy teeth will tear open a passing fish, boat or other shark. However during some of these attacks, sharks will often lose a tooth, which may remain embedded in the flesh of its victim.

Losing the odd tooth wouldn’t be a big problem however as it happens quite regularly, and the shark has two ways to overcome this.

First of all it has lots of teeth – a single toothed shark would not be such a terrifying sight if it tried to suck you to death with it’s gums. However many companies are, in effect, a ‘one toothed shark’ as they have only one main way of marketing their business. Over the years they have stopped putting the effort into finding what marketing works for them and now rely on only one or two methods. A shark’s mouth is such an efficient ‘killing machine’ because it has so many sharp teeth in it. How many different marketing channels do you have working for you? Are you in effect a one tooth shark?

Secondly, sharks have the ability to re-grow their teeth. A shark has seven replacement teeth behind its visible tooth. That means when its tooth gets knocked out, there are plenty more waiting to take its place. From a marketing point of view, this is a good lesson in resilience and results. Every time we try a piece of marketing activity – say a direct mail letter – we get a result. It just might not be the result we want. At that point, many people just give up. I once worked for a company that told me ‘direct mail doesn’t work for us’. Within a few months were sending out thousands of direct mail letters each month, and generating hundreds of enquiries. Don’t give up on an area of marketing too early. Your first attempts might not work out, but be prepared to use a few extra ideas that you have in reserve.

Action Points:

1. Look at how many ‘marketing teeth’ you have – actively capturing new clients. Is it time to develop some new ones?

2. Have you given up on a marketing area before giving it a proper chance to work? Could you have some ‘hidden teeth’ which will give the project some bite that lie buried just under the surface?

Book a free place on my next marketing seminar or find out how you can enrol on the complete marketing mentor programme for free by calling 01858 44 55 43 or e-mail charlie@themarketingmentor.co.uk

Free marketing seminar on April 28th

We are now around 70% booked upfor the next free marketing seminar at Hothorpe Hall on the evening of April 28th.  Full details are on the seminars page or at www.themarketingmentor.co.uk.

The evening seminar lasts just over an hour and there is a chance to network, win a bottle of champagne or just to sit and learn about low cost marketing ideas.  People have come from London, Manchester and Birmingham to attend my previous marketing seminars, but most people come from Leicestershire & Northamptonshire.

If you would like more details call 01858 44 55 43 or e-mail seminar@idealmarketingcompany.com to reserve a space – and bring up to 3 people with you.