Looking to create a ‘customer persona’ to inform your marketing and promotion and wondering how? This post may be helpful as it provides an example. It then lists some questions to consider as you formulate a description of your Bullseye customer. What is the purpose of creating a customer persona? According to Seth Godin the…
Tendering and public procurement represents both a fantastic opportunity for SMEs and potentially a monumental waste of energy, time and resources. For established startups and microenterprises, the unfortunate reality is that tenders simply cannot be ignored. The onus is very firmly on the business owner and senior management to get up to speed with what…
ShowerGem now Available to Buy Several years ago (2016?) I met a young Mayo student in GMIT called Sean McGarry. He had a really cool idea which solved the problem of untidy showers in your bathroom. I went home to tell my wife, Stella about his proposed invention for a new design of Shower Organiser….
The 1-Page Marketing Plan Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand Out from the Crowd- by Allan Dib I recently received this Marketing book in the post for free. I had been asked nicely in advance if I would review it. I like reading business books so I agreed (no fee involved). The book…
Have you ever wondered does SEO, inbound marketing and blogging work for a small business? How important is SEO and content marketing within the marketing mix of a freelancer? I think that the answer is that it has been beneficial for my self employed consultancy and training business based in the West of Ireland. This…
I received an email from Hubspot Academy around the 3rd week of December 2015. The email offered a free online programme to learn all about Inbound Marketing. After undertaking the programme, in short intervals over a few days, I successfully took the test and received my Inbound Certification as per badge on sidebar. This post…
This is the second part of a two part blogpost about books directly focused on Marketing for fast growth oriented startups. My most recent post reviewed the superb ‘Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers’ by Gabrial Weinberg and Justin Mares, 2014 and this post will review Startup Growth Engines: Case Studies on How Today’s…
In December 2013, I wrote a blogpost selecting my four favourite Lean Startup books from the many books on the area of Lean Startup. Since then I have been on the lookout for books more directly focused on Marketing for fast growth-oriented startups. This article highly recommends two such books: 1. Traction: A Startup Guide…
I was delighted to be asked by Kinvarra Business Network to attend a recent meeting to present on a topic of my choice within the area of Marketing. I prepared for a slot of about 40 minutes plus Q&A.  15 Marketing Takeaways  I decided to title my presentation ’15 SME Marketing & Business…
I was delighted to be selected as one of the first contributors to new Enterprise Ireland New Frontiers blog – the post addressed ‘how to craft your value proposition‘. New Frontiers is Ireland’s national entrepreneur development programme, delivered at a local level by Institutes of Technology and funded by Enterprise Ireland. I am delighted…
I recently delivered a Training Workshop on Marketing. As the session concluded, I shared my format for a One Page Marketing plan – both options are free to download! The One Page Marketing Plan is precisely that – there should be no need to go beyond one page. It contains 7 elements: Business Goals SMART…
Public Relations (PR) is coverage of your business in the media – tv, radio, newspapers, magazines and now blogs – as part of their news. While there is no money paid to the organisation for the coverage it does take time, effort and money to get lots of positive coverage for your business. The flipside of course is that not all PR is 100% positive but that is another story. The blogpost will summarise some key points to remember when preparing a press release to promote your business. They are two key stages in the process. The first is to think about an angle that makes your release newsworthy. You then need to write the release in a style and language that suits your audience. The second key stage is distribution of your release. At the end I will talk about the advantages of using a PR agency.
Six factors critical in formulating your approach to tendering in Ireland are discussed in this blogpost. It is critical to select your tenders carefully, read the tender invitation carefully and structure your submission to demonstrate that you meet all the requirements of the tender.
When you meet a potential customer are you confident that you can figure out how to help them to buy from you? Take the listening test to find out if you are a good listener. The biggest challenge facing the modern salesperson – remember every startup promoter is the key Salesperson – is helping potential customers to buy.The more you listen to your customer the more you learn and the easier it will be to create a compelling case to facilitate your customer to buy your product/solution. Do not be fooled, listening is not easy but if you can master the skill it will help your stand out from the crowd.
Marketing Research is hugely important for the promoters of new business endeavours to include: new products; geographic or market expansion of an existing product; or start-up businesses. Secondary research is hugely important for both consumer and business-to-business (B2B) market research. Secondary research lays the groundwork and primary research helps fill in the gaps. By using both types of market research, business owners get a well-rounded view of their market and have the information they need to make important business decisions.
My presentation to Limerick City Enterprise Board Startup Network ‘Marketing : The starting point for Startups’