Odyssey Communications launches ‘Marketing MOT’ for small businesses

SMEs and business start-ups in line for test on their marketing effectiveness – ‘if you can’t measure it, don’t do it’ says marketing specialist, Shirley Muir

Aberdeen-based public relations and marketing consultancy, Odyssey Communications, which is headed up by experienced corporate communications professional, Shirley Muir has launched a quick and easy Marketing MOT service for companies in the northeast of Scotland that are looking to kick-start their marketing programmes.

‘In a recession, businesses need to be prudent about where they invest their hard-earned cash,’ says Shirley Muir, ‘and often marketing budgets have to be cut. This is understandable when businesses are seeking to be lean and mean, so we have developed a ‘taster’ marketing tool that will give businesses a professional snapshot of where they are right now with marketing – and a recommended route forward.’

Every business that signs up for the quick service will get a one-to-one session with Shirley Muir, comprising an analysis of their business goals and how they are being supported by the company’s marketing activities, plus a review of all current activities and a printed report making recommendations for enhancing the effectiveness of their marketing campaign going forward.

‘For a one-off payment of £500 we will give businesses a starting point for streamlining their marketing and maximising its effectiveness for the company’s bottom line,’ says Shirley Muir. ‘First to be looked at are marketing activities whose impact is unknown. My mantra for small businesses is ‘if you can’t measure it, don’t do it’. Big companies can afford to raise their profile by spending in general ways like big sponsorships, big advertising campaigns and general profile raising, but small businesses need to see an impact on sales when they spend on each specific aspect of their marketing campaign’.

Shirley Muir is a marketing trainer with Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce as well as a mentor for Business Gateway and she is in touch with how many local businesses are matching their tight budgets with their well- focused  marketing plans.

‘I have seen a high level of interest in this product in the short time since I developed it and I can see that it will energise businesses into adopting cost-effective marketing strategies. One of the most cost-effective tools is making the best use of the internet – a business’s web site, its blogs, its online forums, social networking forums like LinkedIn, Aberdeen Business Network, and even Facebook and Twitter for some businesses.

‘But I recognise that business people have businesses to run and they can’t spend all day at the laptop or the Blackberry, so we have to tailor their marketing to suit their business and their people.’

For more details of this offer, please contact

Shirley Muir

Odyssey Communications, Aberdeen

www.odysseycommunications.co.uk

www.odysseycomms@wordpress.com

07730 852331

Writing Settings ‹ Odyssey Communications — WordPress

Writing Settings ‹ Odyssey Communications — WordPress.

Does anyone send holiday postcards anymore?

1890 postcard

With the widespread use of mobile phones, Blackberries, iPhones and mobile communications does anyone write a postcard and put a stamp on it before posting it back to the UK from their holiday destination?

I can’t remember the last time I sent a holiday postcard – it must be a dying form of communication.

Sending photos back to the family via mobile phone or other instant communication tool is much more exciting than waiting two weeks after you have arrived home for the postcard to finally reach your mum.

Mind you, if your mum doesn’t have Twitter or Facebook or a laptop then maybe she would really appreciate a postcard, however long it took…….? I know mine would.

Dress to impress – how do you dress for work?

Alasdair McGill asked this question on his blog and it got me thinking. It got a lot of people thinking….. about smart-smart, smart-casual, casual, scruffy, or whatever. One lady remarked that some people in her office came to work in what she would go to a wedding in.

I like that. I think I used to dress up when I was a child because I wanted to be ‘posh’, and I think I’ve been trying to dress up posh ever since.

But I missed the target when I joined my friends for a walk along the beach in green suede court shoes. How impractical is that? They were unimpressed, so I sat on a seat and watched them walk….  that’s typical of me, I’m usually over-dressed.  My wardrobe is full of wedding-y outfits, and I don’t go to many weddings. But I don’t mind.

It’s not just dress that can impress. One client remarked to me out of the blue in a business meeting ‘Have you always used a fountain pen?’. Well, people as old as me were taught to write with a fountain pen when we were at school, so I expect it’s unusual these days. But I don’t mind being a bit different.

One designer I worked with always wrote his meeting notes in coloured ink, which I think is rather nice. And he usually wrote them in an arty, individual note book.  Long before arty, posh notebooks became fashionable in W H Smith.

Some people want to stand out from the crowd like that and some people just  don’t, but you can never tell who will suddenly do something colourful and standing out.

Like sitting in the front row at seminars.

I sat in the front row at a magic show at the Edinburgh Fringe given by Victoria Wood’s husband The Great Soprendo (good name, eh?) and he picked me to volunteer for one of his tricks, not the sawing off of the head one, fortunately. That’s really why I sat in the front row, and I do it at lectures and musical performances because I feel sorry for the performer if people deliberately distance themselves from him or her.

Perhaps it’s a little gesture of solidarity from me….?

‘SMEs tune in to social media’ says web site

This article is published on smallbusiness.co.uk and gives some up to date statistics on the use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc by SMEs.

More than half of small businesses use sites such as Facebook and Twitter to promote themselves, research finds.

According to a study of 269 companies conducted by PR services firm Daryl Wilcox Publishing, 54 per cent of small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) surveyed use social media for marketing purposes.

Almost three quarters of respondents use LinkedIn, with 64 per cent using Facebook and 63 per cent on Twitter.

A quarter of companies who use social media update the sites every few days and 17 per cent update weekly.

However, most companies’ use of social media is infrequent, with more than half posting updates less often.

Of the firms that don’t use social media, 35 per cent blame a lack of time, 31 per cent say their customers don’t use it and a quarter report that they don’t understand it.

Daryl Wilcox, founder of Daryl Wilcox Publishing, says: ‘The number of companies participating in social media on a daily basis shows the growing importance of this marketing channel.’

But a similar article on social networking warns of leaving behind the customers who have not yet signed up to the social networking revolution – so let’s look after our traditional customers, too, wise words:

Matt Lea, product manager at software company Eleco, says that by using social networking sites the company has reached out to a new demographic. ‘We have found a different target audience by using Twitter, for example, as users tend to be younger. This has led to a 10 to 20 per cent increase in sales, which we can attribute directly to social media.’

But for Lea, traditional marketing tools are still crucial to maintaining its core customer base. ‘We have a lot of customers who tend to be older, high-income bracket earners, and they are coming to us from a ‘pen and paper’ background so for us it’s very important to still be in that space. We don’t want to get carried away and leave our core audience behind.’

New web site for Odyssey Communications

visit our new web site and give us some feedback.

We want to provide ongoing tips for people interested in marketing, hope you find something to apply to your business.

Shirley

Welcome to Odyssey Communications

Odyssey Communications is a marketing, public relations and training consultancy serving businesses and other organisations in the northeast of Scotland.

Based in Aberdeen, its principal is Shirley Muir, a communications professional with more than 25 years’ corporate experience, including head of communications at Fisons plc and at Wood Group.

Shirley worked internationally during her tenure at global communications agency, Burson-Marsteller, for Caterpillar Material Handling, for Southwestern Bell Telecom, Amerada Hess, Apple Computer and a number of other major organisations.