Marketing Trends 2024

What are the Key Marketing Trends for 2024?

By | Digital Marketing, Marketing Trends, Marketing Trends | No Comments

As we move towards the end of the first quarter of 2024, the marketing landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace. We have been asked by clients, what are the latest trends, and how do we stay ahead of the curve? This is crucial for business owners looking to maintain a competitive edge. Therefore, we have put together some key marketing trends you should be aware of this year.

  1. Personalisation at Scale

Consumers now expect a personalised experience. Advances in AI and data analytics allow businesses to tailor their marketing messages to individual preferences, even on a large scale.

  1. Voice and Visual Search

With the rise of smart speakers and visual search technologies, optimising for voice and image search is becoming increasingly important. This means adapting your SEO strategies to be more conversational and image-friendly.

  1. Interactive Content

Interactive content, such as quizzes, polls, and augmented reality experiences, is becoming more popular. These formats not only engage customers but also provide valuable data and insights.

  1. Sustainability and Social Responsibility

Consumers are more environmentally conscious and prefer brands that prioritise sustainability and social responsibility. Transparent and ethical marketing will become even more important.

  1. Video Marketing

Video remains a dominant force in digital marketing. Short-form videos, live streaming, and interactive video content will continue to engage audiences effectively.

6. AI-Driven Marketing:

AI is not just a buzzword; it’s a tool that can automate and optimise many marketing tasks, from content creation to customer service.

As a business owner, adapting to these trends is vital for success. Not sure where to start? Contact us for tailored marketing solutions that keep your business ahead of the curve.

Marketing Planning

DIY Marketing

By | Marketing Planning, Marketing Strategy, SMEs | No Comments

Marketing is a lot of work. If you’re a small to medium business owner with no marketing team, finding the time to do everything you should be doing to promote your business can be a challenge. Social media, content creation, landing pages, SEO, email marketing, and PR; the opportunities are endless. Whilst all the channels are extremely beneficial to your marketing, have you firstly come up with the objectives for carrying out these activities? Do you know and understand your customers and know how to communicate to them effectively? Thinking of all of this can add up to a lot of work.

That’s why it’s no wonder that 53% of companies outsource their marketing according to Harvard Business Review. Whilst no one knows your brand better than you, sometimes it takes an outsider to really understand your brand from a consumer/customers point of view.

If your thinking of outsourcing your marketing follow the below simple steps and put a value of your spending time against these. If you want your business to grow having the right team around you is of great importance:

Step 1 – Research & Planning

Take time to listen to your market (and keep listening)

Step 2 – Positioning and content approach

Put yourself where you want to be seen

Step 3 – Promotional Plan

Create a clear plan and apply it to boost your business.

Step 4 – Lead qualification & management

Quality leads are the lifeblood of your business, so be prepared to identify and nurture leads to convert them to customers

Step 5 – Technology

Make sure you have the expertise to target your brand and reach the right people

The key to all of this, is the remember that marketing should never sleep. It’s important to analyse the results, be prepared to regroup and realign your marketing strategy and most of all KEEP GOING. Roman wasn’t built in a day, and the marketing of your company isn’t either. It’s important to remain on point for your target audience whilst being authentic to your brand.

 

Lawn Care

Jigsaw supports UK lawn care companies

By | Digital Marketing, Events | No Comments

We were delighted to be asked to presented at the Lawn Service “Spring Get Ready Meeting” hosted by Greener Gardens last week, to a group of independent lawn care companies from all around the UK on the Power of Social Media and Digital Marketing.

Our presentation them through our value first strategy, and the importance for fulling understanding your target audience to ensure that the information you are giving is adding value to you customers. Obviously, the lawn care industry is seasonal and effected by the weather – especially with the climate changes we are experiencing. This can make planning your marketing difficult, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have a rough plan in place that you can tweak accordingly.

We understand the challenges that the lawn care industry is facing across the board; and are honoured to be able to advise on targeted marketing to support the industry. We will also be presenting on the Power of Social Media at the UKLCN Conference on the 9th February 2017 in Marlow.

Get Moving

Jigsaw assist with GetMoving Launch for Amenity Forum

By | Uncategorized | No Comments

Why Amenity Matters for every one of us

The last few weeks have been manically busy at Jigsaw HQ, we have been working on a new marketing campaign launch for a client – Amenity Forum at their annual conference on the 13th October.

The GetMoving campaign is an initiative to educate the public as to why weed, pest and disease control in amenity situations is so important and how it affects our everyday life. Without it, we simply would struggle to walk down the street, take the train to visit friends or take part in hobbies such as football and golf.

Through producing different marketing materials; including the GetMoving brand, Edugraphics, animated videos, and information sheets, which are targeted towards both the general public and the amenity sector itself, we were able to launch the initial pack of information to help start the education process. With the client we chose 3 different industry sectors initially – Golf, Trains and Streets and Pavements plus an introduction of Why Amenity Matters and how it affects everyday life.

I have included below the Why Amenity Matters video, I hope you find this of interest. If you are interested in finding out more about all of this, please do get in touch and we can put you in touch with the relevant person.

 

 

Make-your-equine-event-a-success

How To Make Your Equine Event A Success

By | Events | No Comments

I’ve attended many Horse Shows over the summer, some of them busier than others. Which made me think about writing this post. Equine events are no different to any other events, it’s all in the planning and understanding your audience. I hope you enjoy it…

So, you’re arranging your first ever show jumping event – great news! Perhaps you’ve booked an international horse trainer to demonstrate at your next big event – the burning question is ‘Now what? How am I going to fill these spaces?’.

If you’re in the initial stages of organising an equine event, you’re looking for tips and tricks to help make your next one a huge hit or you want to break into the world of equine demos and clinics, there are a few things you should consider before, during and after your event to ensure you gain maximum exposure and reach your desired audience.

Understand your target audience

What is your event? Is it a dressage clinic, an equine healing workshop, a Monty Roberts style demonstration, a showjumping competition, an equine massage workshop, a cross country clinic, a positive reinforcement demonstration, a behavioural workshop, or a charity fun ride?

Depending on the nature of your event, you will probably already have a specific target audience; for example, people interested in show jumping may have different expectations to those who are interested in a dressage clinic or those in need of behavioural expertise for their horse. Where can you find these people? I.e. are they active in specific Facebook groups, can you target them in your local tack shop or perhaps further afield in a national or county show?

Once you know who your target audience is you will know how to reach them, why they will want to come to your event and what they want to learn about…

Make it really obvious – offer a solution to their problems!

What can your spectators and/or riders expect to learn or gain from your event? By this we mean tell your spectators exactly what they can expect to gain. What will they learn? Here’s a short list to get you thinking:

  • A demo they can watch – they will learn how to overcome a particular issue.
  • An event they can perform/compete in – gain points and experience; prize money; fun; raise money for charity.
  • A shopping experience – they can sell their product to a huge audience; embark on a fun shopping spree; meet nutritionists and the professionals.
  • Bring their own horse – the horse will be worked on as a case study and they will learn invaluable skills and techniques

For example: Instead of marketing your event as an ‘Amazing Horse Massage Workshop with so-and-so’, use your imagination and really pin point exactly what people will gain from your event. Something along the lines of ‘How to Help your Horse Recover Quickly’ or ‘Massage: The Key to Success’ might be more compelling.

After all, so-and-so might be leading the demo but what does that even mean? Why will Barbara and her friend Emma benefit from their £65 entry fee? You need to persuade your audience that it’s the best idea ever to part with their hard earned cash.

Stay in touch

Once your event is over, you need to keep in touch with previous visitors – sign them up to your newsletter, point them in the direction of your Facebook and Twitter pages. Make it as easy as possible for you to reconnect with them, sign them up to the next event and share live updates on what’s happening and what to expect.

If you’d like help on how to successfully market your upcoming equine event, contact us today by clicking here or giving us a call on 01480 459087.

Benefits-of-Instagram-Marketing

The Benefits of Instagram Marketing

By | Digital Marketing, Social Media | No Comments

Let’s get behind the scenes of your business!

Instagram is a hotbed of activity and a great place to market your business, but are you taking full advantage of this incredible social media opportunity?

Amazingly, Instagram is being vastly underused by businesses despite having 400 million active monthly users as of April 2016! Believe it or not, that’s more than Twitter (320 million) and 4 times that of LinkedIn (100 million) and Pinterest (100 million)*. 

So you’ve got a huge audience that’s instantly accessible, your message is easily deliverable to a vast potential customer base through the use of hashtags, and it’s completely free to use, but yet you still haven’t taken advantage of it? Why is that?

Don’t be scared, it’s just pictures!

Possibly the most common reason for businesses not using Instagram to its full potential is due to the fact it’s essentially a picture based platform, rather than word. Now this can seem scary, but it needn’t be. It doesn’t matter whether you make curtains, create delicious recipes, offer freelance PA services or a Lawn care or sports company, every business has something to offer when it comes to Instagram!

By showcasing up and coming products, offering behind-the-scenes sneak peaks or simply introducing members of your team, new contracts or even where you’re travelling for the day, Instagram allows your audience to interact with your business on a more personal level, where they gain insight into how your business runs and how great your staff really are.

That personal touch

If you’re willing to fully utilise Instagram, you will create a more personable and approachable method of interaction with your customer base, where they can follow you on your day-to-day successes. Regular interesting and relevant (and even not so relevant!) posts on Instagram show your followers that your business is forward thinking and proactive, whilst promoting your core values, ethics and practices for your customers to see.

It’s not uncommon to find that potential clients become more likely to purchase from you if they see that your company’s ethics and beliefs align with their own morals; Instagram is the perfect platform to easily portray how happy and enthusiastic you and your workforce truly are.

Free research and feedback! 

It can cost hundreds if not thousands of pounds to have focus groups and individual testers review your product or service, but Instagram can offer you a range of valuable information for FREE! Simply by spending a little bit of time researching certain tags you may well be able to find posts regarding your company, your product or service. It doesn’t matter whether they’re positive or negative, these little parcels of information are nuggets of gold that give you an insight into your customer profile and help you constantly improve your business – plus it’s absolutely free!

Untapped market 

As we mentioned in the beginning of this post, Instagram is vastly underused by businesses. If you’re not currently using this powerful platform, are your competitors? If they’re not, you can easily gain a huge advantage over them simply by tapping into one of the largest social media platforms currently available!

If you’d like more information on how Instagram could help your business, on training on how to use Instagram don’t hesitate to contact us by clicking here.

 

*Source: http://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/

ow to attract your perfect client

Attract your perfect client

By | Branding, Marketing Strategy | No Comments

Do You Struggle to Attract Your Perfect Client?

 Have you ever worked with a dream client? One who you makes you think ‘I wish all of my clients were like you’. Well guess what? Not every client is of equal stature; some are painfully difficult to work with. Sometimes communication is non-existent/you spend days chasing them for important information, other times they just ‘don’t get it’ and on some occasions they’re just rude and obnoxious.

We all want to work with friendly, open minded people wherever possible, so how can you increase your chances of finding the perfect client and securing that all important sale or contract?

Sharing is caring

Forming long lasting, healthy business relationships in order to promote growth and prosperity is, ultimately, at the heart of every business. In order to gain the ‘perfect’ client time and time again, you need to understand what your business stands for. Once you’re clear about this, you will be able to attract the customers who are aligned with your brand’s ethos.

OK, let’s make this even simpler:

You need to reach out and let your brand’s beliefs, values and character shine through like a bright beacon, just as you would when making new friends.

Getting this right will equip you with the tools to attract the perfect client because they’ll be attracted to you too, after all, you both share the same beliefs and values – simple!

Strong character grabs attention

It’s important to gain authority within your sector; character and authority go hand in hand. You can promote a strong character by sticking to your belief and values. You’ll need to have integrity too – never falter on your values. This might all sound rather easy, but it does take time and dedication to build an unfalteringly good reputation. The results, however, will be worth tenfold.

Putting it into action

Firstly, review your business. What are its core beliefs and values? From here you can start to build the persona of your ideal client and understand who they are and what the best way to communicate with them is.

Ask yourself what tone your perfect client would be drawn to; loose and friendly or formal and professional? Think about the places they are likely to ‘hang out’; this could be Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or Pinterest, for example. This will also tell you about the formats in which to produce your marketing content, i.e. blogs, articles, videos, photos, infographics etc.

Equipped with your strengthened set of beliefs and core values, you’ll be able to portray your personality across all of the marketing you produce and you’ll attract the perfect clients.

The missing piece of the jigsaw

Don’t worry if this all sounds a little daunting because we run brand review days for clients of all sizes with the aim of taking the stress away from analysing something so close to you. Oftentimes it becomes all too much to evaluate how your own business portrays itself.

Once your brand has been revised we can then build your Audience Personas. This includes researching photos of your perfect client and working through your biggest ‘pain point’ in order to work out the best way to communicate with them.

Equipped with the knowledge required to effectively connect with your perfect client, we can build a successful marketing campaign packed full of carefully created content in order to generate those all-important online conversations, which lead to positive sales.

For more information on attracting the perfect client, building successful marketing campaigns, plus much, much more, sign up to our newsletter at the bottom of our page, or give us a call on 01480 459087.

Content Flow Model

Content Marketing Strategy

By | Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy | No Comments

Content Flow Model

Building a successful marketing campaign is great fun and it can take your customers through a structured journey that ultimately leads to a sale of some kind. The flip side is that creating your content calendar takes a lot more than merely deciding what you’d like to talk about each month and putting pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard).

A successful marketing campaign needs to specifically target multiple audiences in order to broaden your customer base and ultimately build your profile. Creating a comprehensive Content Flow Model will enable you to tap into different audiences and markets by creating relatable content that they’ll find interesting.

You have multiple audiences

A great way to think of this is similar to how you would go about marketing a pair of headphones; runners will be interested to know how well they stay on your head whilst moving about, musicians will be interested to find out how well the speaker performs, and teenagers will be interested to find out if they’re waterproof, easy to pack into a backpack or if they’re endorsed by a celebrity. This is obviously highly stereotypical and a runner may also be interested in the performance of the speaker (for instance), but for the most part, each specific audience group will have certain criteria they are interested in.

Now, you could attempt to create each piece of marketing content into a ‘one size fits all’ where you endeavour to cram in as much information as possible in order to reach out to each audience group, but you’ll likely find that this will end up alienating your target market and very few people will actually relate to your content. Instead, the key is to segregate your audiences and target them individually. 

Effectively target each audience

This is where the Content Flow Model comes into play. Once you’ve narrowed down your key target audiences and researched what they’re interested in, how they prefer to digest marketing content and their typical online habits, you’ll be able to map out how to effectively target each audience. From here, you can follow where each audience is within the ‘customer lifecycle’ in order to provide them with the next step in their journey to bring them one step closer to a sale.

Utilising a Content Flow Model also allows you to monitor the use of different media (blogs, articles, newsletters, infographics, etc.) at a glance so that you’re not relying heavily on one type of media, but instead making the most of each media’s individual merits and strengths.

Keep connected

A further (and very important) benefit of creating a Content Flow Model is keeping existing customers up-to-date and interested in your latest innovations. Whilst gaining new customers is imperative for growing your business, creating a loyal following and enjoying repeat custom can go a long way to boosting public perception of your business and growing its standing within your chosen market.

For more information on how a Content Flow Model could help your business thrive and break into new markets or attract new key demographics, click here to enquire how we can help or give us a call on 01480 459087 and talk to a member of our friendly team.

Recycling-your-content marketing

Maximising your content marketing

By | Content Marketing | No Comments

How To Recycle Your Content For Maximum Effect

Content makes the world go around. Okay, so maybe we exaggerated a little there, but content is certainly a huge part of modern business. The burning question is, how can you make the most of it? Sometimes coming up with new, exciting and interesting content for your followers to read on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis can seem quite a daunting task. Wouldn’t it be great if you could make the most of each idea without constantly repeating yourself?

Don’t throw it away, recycle it! 

The chances are, the majority of your followers won’t read every single piece of marketing content you put out on the world wide web (unless you’re a celebrity with a mass following), so how do you ensure each nugget of gold that you give away reaches them?

Recycling (this does not mean copying and pasting) your content through blog posts, newsletters, images, videos, web pages, emails, tweets, articles, infographics and flyers not only gives you the best chance of reaching your intended audience, but it also allows you to create different approaches that will appeal to different target markets.

Different strokes for different folks

Much the same as some people prefer to sit down with a newspaper and a cup of coffee to digest the news rather than read it online through their smartphone whilst on the tube, individuals will be drawn to different forms of advertising media.

Without going too much into key demographics, you need to consider each form of content and who is likely to be interested in it. Generally speaking, younger audiences will be interested in short, snappy and colourful images and videos, whilst older audiences will likely want to read more information through a blog post or article, rather than making an impulsive decision.

Now, as you would imagine, these different forms of media will overlap and appeal to a common audience, and that’s great! It’s always good to remind people that you exist and you’re helping tens/hundreds/thousands of people improve their lives one way or another; just don’t bombard them! By utilising a wide range of media platforms you’ll find that your audience increases greatly, whilst all of your content remains relevant, interesting and captivating.

But wait, there’s more…

Not only is recycling your content a great way of reaching multiple audiences, it also allows you to measure the effectiveness of each media format so that you can tweak and perfect future content, advertorials and marketing strategies in order to increase its efficacy and ROI.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively recycle your content, create superb marketing strategies and turn your social media channels into hubs of pure excellence, contact us today by clicking here.

Digital-Marketing-Strategy

Digital Marketing Strategy

By | Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy | No Comments

5 Simple Steps To A Digital Marketing Strategy

The digital world can often seem scary, full of potholes to dodge and protocols to learn, but by following our 5 simple steps you’ll be on your way to a successful and profitable digital marketing strategy in no time!

  1. Set a goal

    What do you want to achieve? By setting ambitious, achievable and measurable goals, you’ll give the campaign momentum and inspire yourself and your team to smash through the targets you set.

  2. Design a clear path for customers to follow

    Take them on a journey of discovery and exploration. If customers can’t find what they were looking for, or don’t stumble upon something interesting and useful, the chances are they’ll find somewhere else to go instead. Just like a road network, the path you design for your customers to follow needs to be easy to understand; it needs to make navigation easy and ideally needs to throw in a few welcome surprises along the way. Not only does your path need to be super easy to follow, it also needs to be compelling, interesting and informative, otherwise your potential customers will likely take a wrong turn and take themselves to your competitor!

  3. Drive traffic to your website

    Your website is the hub of your online marketing strategy. Whilst social media sites are both a quick port of call for consumers to see what you’re up to and how you operate, they’re really only a precursor to a website visit. By driving traffic to your website from social media platforms, as well as SEO, and Google Ads, you’re not only opening up the library of media they can access (blog posts, articles, videos, photos, newsletter sign-ups), but you’ve already invited them along your path to purchase!

  4. Create a compelling call to action

    Get them excited about your business and give them a reason to find out more! If a business states ‘We’ve got a new sports drink.’ are you likely to instantly go and find out more? Probably not. But what if they said ‘We’ve already helped 1 million athletes improve their recovery times with our new thirst-quenching sports drink. Click here to find out how you could improve your recovery.’ – you’d probably be more intrigued, wouldn’t you?

  5. Pop in an effective enquiry bait

    Everyone loves a freebie, and by giving someone something that’s really helpful and useful it’ll add value to your paid-for services. Now remember, even though it’s free it still needs to contain lots of juicy, valuable information. Whilst testimonials are great, people don’t necessarily want to solely read about how you’ve helped others; they want step-by-step instructions for one of the exercises from your new video, a recipe from your new cookbook or a really cool alternative use for your new product. This is your time to be creative – let your imagination run wild!

So now you’ve got your 5 simple steps, it’s time to think about tone and content. These are both highly important when it comes to enticing people in, and plays a part in your overall marketing strategy.

Think logically about what content your target audience will be interested in and what tone they will associate with best; someone looking to buy flea treatment for their pet will likely be alienated by a host of medical mumbo-jumbo, and it’s implausible that a pharmaceutical company will instantly be compelled to buy from you simply because you’re offering free theme park tickets for the whole family.

Keep your content and tone relevant to your audience and you’ll find that your marketing efforts are far more effective.

For more information on creating your own digital marketing strategy, get in contact with us today, alternatively check out our FREE Bi Monthly Digital Marketing Seminars to learn more.