As a Sheffield based marketing agency, we are aware that there are lots of small to medium sized businesses out there that don’t have much of a web presence. We’ve put together 5 simple but very important things you need to do to have a successful website.

Make your website mobile-compatible

Sadly, lots of small to medium sized businesses websites are not compatible with mobile devices. People are moving away from their desktops at a rapid pace, preferring to browse the internet on the go on tablets and smart phones. If your website isn’t suitable for these devices, for example, not optimised for smaller screens, you and your business are missing out on a huge audience.

Be active on social media

As we know, social media marketing is powerful tool to market your business. By not embracing social media, you are not only falling behind your competitors, but also missing out on a huge captive audience. Your social media accounts also need to be connected to your website!

Have an email link and contact number on your homepage

It is absolutely necessary to have an email link on the home page of your website for consumers to contact your business. Email is a really convenient way of getting in touch, and without a visible email address, you may be missing out on inquiries,  questions from potential customers and even sales.

It is also incredibly important to have a phone number listed on your homepage. Some questions are better answered by phone, and some people prefer to speak to an actual person as opposed to emailing.

Generating phone calls via your homepage makes customers feel comfortable, while not listing a phone number may make people question your legitimacy.

Have an inquiry form built into your website

A form-fill option on your website is a great way to allow consumers to request information. Information inquiry forms should be built into your site, connected to a CRM, an email system, and an ecommerce system. That way, the lead is not just being collected, it’s also being prepared for the business owner to communicate with and generate business via that lead.

Make sure your website is search engine optimised

What’s the point of having a website if no one can actually find it? When people visit a website, a lot of them will have found it through search engines (hopefully!) Key words are essential for being discovered on search engines. This includes keyword research and creation, on-site search engine optimisation and off-site link building. These are all important elements for driving traffic to your website; they will make your site search engine friendly, improve your website’s rankings and allow your business to gain exposure.

As a web marketing agency based in Sheffield, we know how important it is to have these points in place. If you are worried that your website isn’t working for you as well as it could do, or you are missing any of the above, don’t panic – we can help.

Contact us by telephone on 0114 383 0711, email chris@sevencreative.co.uk, or click here to fill out the contact form on our website.

Social media marketing can be a fantastic tool for promoting your business online and marketing your brand. Done properly, social media can generate a buzz that has the power to be seen by thousands if not millions of people. On the other hand, a post that goes bottoms up has the potential to be seen globally.

Here at Seven Creative, we’ve put together a few of our favourite social media successes and fails for you amusement. Enjoy!

Social media successes

Honda’s upside down approach to social media paid off in a big way when they offered $500 to the most active Pinners on the social scrapbooking site Pinterest to take a 24 hour break from the site to promote the new CRV. Ingeniously, they called the break a ‘Pintermission’ and then asked the winners to create a board about all the activities they enjoyed on their day off. Honda reached more than 5.5 million followers of the chosen Pinterest users  with this campaign.

We love the chocolate Facebook thumbs up created by Cadbury too. And no, not just because it looks delicious! Constructed as a Thank you to their fans, a real time video feed of the construction process drove massive fan engagement and resulted in a huge quarter of a million people actively involved in the campaign. They also gained an extra 40,000 fans! I wonder how many more they would have gained if they’d promoted a competition to win the giant choccy hand??!

Social media mega-fails

McDonalds dropped a real clanger with their social media activity which resulted in their campaign being terminated within just two hours. Using the hashtag #McDStories, Twitter users were ‘supposed’ to share heart warming anecdotes about their McDonalds experience. Instead,  tweets about food poisoning, fingernails found in burgers and chicken nugget horror stories went viral. Well, we could have predicted that!

American Apparel’s Hurricane Sandy promotion backfired spectacularly after it offered customers 20% in an email stating “In case you’re bored during the storm, 20% off everything for the next 36 hours.” In reality, those 36 hours turned out to be devastating, with more than 130 deaths, 4 million with no power and billions in damage. American Apparrel apologised saying the campaign came from a good place. Too late, damage done!

Australia’s SellItOnline.com said that it would donate money to Tasmania’s bush fire crisis, but only if people liked its Facebook page. Understandably, an angry fan responded, “Don’t take advantage of this situation. If you’re for real, donate through the right sources. Don’t manipulate social media for your own benefit.” Another wrote, “F*** off with your opportunist marketing trying to take advantage of other people’s tradegy. If you were a decent company you’d just be putting a message up saying you were donating x amount and earning some kudos.” Mmm you’ve got to see their point……

If you’re struggling with social media, and would like some advice on setting up and or managing your businesses social media accounts, Seven Creative can help. We offer a social media set up service, social media management packages, and even regular social media workshops in Sheffield. Contact us on 0114 383 0711, email chris@sevencreative.co.uk or contact us through our website.

Since holding our very first search engine optimisation and social media workshops last week, we’ve been thrilled to receive some fantastic testimonials from those who attended.

“Thanks very much for the information I gathered at the social media review last week, I must say I came along with the usual reservations that you have about whether the whole thing might be very ‘techy and geekified’ and not relevant to our market, but it was brilliant.

Excellent practical advice that was superbly delivered and will be a benefit to me in my day to day work. I really got a great amount out of the day. The training was excellent; I would highly recommend Seven Creative to others.

The SEO and social media review was informative and most importantly relevant, with plenty of information given. Any business that did not take you up on this fantastic social media review is really missing a trick, now all I have to do is get off my backside and put your wonderful advice into action!”

Brain Drury, Blue Funk Hypnosis

“Thankyou for inviting me along to one your internet marketing seminars, it was very enjoyable and informative, and done in  such an informal way that I’m sure put everyone who attended at ease, whether computer literate or not.

After listening to your team it soon became apparent, not only how much opportunity social media can offer companies in gaining new business, but also how well Seven Creative understands these markets and how to use them to your clients’ advantage.

I would recommend anyone to take advantage of your future workshops, as it won’t cost them anything to do so and will surely help them understand where social media fits into business and how it can help them drive more traffic towards their business.”

Simon Platt, Utility Warehouse Authorised Distributer

Don’t forget, we’ll keep you posted on future social media and search engine optimisation workshops in Sheffield – watch this space! If you would like to find out more about our social media management packages or our SEO packages, please call the Seven Creative team in the office on 0114 383 0711 or contact us via our website.

Thursday 7^th February marked an important date in the Seven Creative calendar. We held our very first search engine optimisation and social media workshops at The Workstation in Sheffield!

It was a pleasure to help lots of new people and some familiar faces get to grips with Search Engine Optimisation and Social Media. With a full day of 30 minute slots, we certainly had our work cut out for us!

The staff at Seven Creative spent the day helping local business people learn more about using the internet to boost their businesses. We are proud to say that the event was a huge success and we’ve received some very positive feedback.

Simon Platt, a utility broker from Sheffield, said “It’s not often you get any kind of advise nowadays without having to delve deep! I really liked their approach.”

Karen Bird of Kurly Bird Event Management attended the workshop with her sister Sarah Green from Fable, the Sheffield based Epilepsy charity. Karen said, “Both Sarah and I came away with lots of ideas and found the time really productive.”

Among the many visitors that dropped in throughout the day was Daryl Williams, founder of GlassBox Photography.  Daryl said, “It was a really helpful session. I’ve come away with plenty to think about and the skills to be able to make changes to my website to win the war against Google!”

We were really kept on our toes as a wide variety of different businesses came through the door. Joy Harrison of Murphy’s, a company specialising in natural products made from essential oils and herbs for horses and riders, filled our last slot of the day. Joy said “It was so nice to be pointed in the right direction. I love working on my website and teaching myself marketing, but it sometimes feel like it’s an awful lot to do. I really appreciate Seven Creative’s help!”

We will be holding regular workshops throughout the year on a variety of topics including search engine optimisation, social media and blogging, and will keep you posted regarding dates and times here on the blog, our Facebook page and via our email newsletters. We also offer social media management packages and SEO packages, which are perfect for those who don’t have the time to do it themselves.

For more information, contact Chris at the Seven Creative office on 0114 383 0711 or contact us via our website.

Here is the latest article from Tano Rebora, our guest business writer from Icon Business Solutions.

Management in all business and organisational activities is defined in dictionaries as the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively. Management comprises planning, organising, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organisation (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal.

So there it is – people; goals and objectives; using available resources effectively, efficiently. Note that it does not say where (other than organisation or effort) so by implication, anywhere and at any level of human activity.

All ‘professional’ people immediately stand to attention and see the implications applied to business whilst rejecting that such notions exist in any other field.

Dictionary definitions continue by stating that the word derives from the latin ‘manu agere’ to ‘lead by the hand’ and this is at the base of management skills; it is about giving direction that is stronger than just a passing suggestion yet not an order and also implies that the person doing the leading knows where he is going and is going first, willingly, to where the follower is being lead. The leader is not asking the follower to do something he is not willing to do himself.

But let us move sideways for a second and leave fuzzy people ‘things’ to one side and let us consider the much harder, more concrete ‘business management’ first.

What do we mean by ‘business management’?

Well, if an enterprise is to be managed effectively and efficiently then at least the Board must know what the correct corporate vision and mission is, mustn’t it? Otherwise, if there is no understanding of what the business is to have achieved in a specific time period the chances of success are hugely diminished.

It is much easier when both are present because this can lead to planning achievable objectives in realistic times. It’s the point at which the ‘Executive’ strategic level manages the tactical to achieve long term aims.

Business Management – Goals and objectives

It stands to reason that, if there are reasonable vision and mission statements then good management dictates that appropriate, preferably numeric, objectives can be derived from them for the Managing Director/C.E.O./Owner to ‘own’ and be responsible for delivery in measurable timescales. This can then be cascaded down the organisation, irrespective of the depth and complexity of that organisation.

At a simple level there are three basic levels of hierarchy in any business – the operational, the ‘Management’ (tactical) and the Executive (strategic). For the ‘one man band’ – all three need to be considered and applied. Therein lies the basis of many company failures – but that’s for another time.

All three levels need to be accountable and all the objectives must funnel upwards and downwards to fulfil the success criteria for the business.

Setting the goals/objectives and measuring people on their achievement against them is at the heart of ‘business management’.

All different functions must be managed on this basis, as example:

Sales:

• Director: KPIs based on company revenue, company profit ; departmental profit; territory cover; Wins vs Losses; client satisfaction; team performance. All, as appropriate dependent on market, sector, high value vs low value, timescales and other factors.
• Manager: KPIs on team sales target; profit target (as above); client acquisition; territory coverage; client satisfaction. The above constraints apply.
• Salesperson: revenue, profit (if applicable), number of new Accounts

Marketing:

• Company/departmental/sector revenues; number of suspects and prospects created totally attributable; competitive positioning (wins/losses)
• Sub divisions of these depending on structure and responsibilities.

Operations/Production

• Company revenues and profit margins
• Number of units produced
• Efficiency of equipment and employee levels
• Health and Safety
• ‘Returns’

Other functions such as Financial/Legal and Human Resource should be similarly treated as should any sub-functions for example; Product Development, Product Marketing.

The above list is not complete and it is not intended to be. It is just an example of the sort of tangible, concrete objectives that can be measured.

There are tomes written on how to set these and Peter Mayer (Attitude is Everything) describes good objectives as being SMARTERS (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Ethical, Rewarded and Satisfying Strategic goals.). There are other words used for the acronym but I choose to finish on the last one for good reason – Satisfying Strategic goals.

Everything that everyone in any company does is focused on getting the business forward today (operational level), tomorrow (Management tactical) and in the future (Management Executive).

So, all employees now know what tune they are marching to at every level but how does anyone know how different people are performing, individually, departmentally and at company level to ensure company success?

People Management – Not so ‘fuzzy’ stuff, then ‘fuzzy’ stuff
Well, the answer to the above is – no-one does, unless there are proper Human Resource processes in support.

How many companies, again, at any level, have these? In my experience – very few.
Rarer indeed the ones that have the end to end processes that guarantee performance such as:

• Hatch: Recruitment -attracting the right people at the right time and the capacity to tell the difference in measurable ways (there you go- there’s a good SMARTERS objective for HR people already!).
• Batch: Appraisal – setting the correct objectives and regular meeting to match objectives achieved with those set out. In the process also identifying ‘high flyers’, succession planning (both measurable) as well as non-performers and documenting all for action etc.
• Dispatch: No easy way to put this one – but the actions taken must be, again, set against proper well documented situations, ethical and with respect for all individuals.

Well, that was non-fuzzy but what about fuzzy stuff?
Have you noticed that some people just manage to get more out of other people than others might do?

What do we call that? Leadership? Charisma? The innate or developed (there’s a question!) capacity to ‘lead by the hand’ (please re-read previous introduction).
People/Managers can spend a lifetime blithely managing by objectives and not totally understand how to get the best out of their people, always managing to make their own objectives without understanding how they can do more through their ‘fuzzy’ people management skills.

No matter how well the company may be doing and may be business managed these are the ones that, typically, make the best sales to the most loyal client base; may need less human resource in production to achieve best output; may hire or help hire the best people in the marketplace….the list is endless.

Oh and who measures them? They may well be managed by people who, let’s repeat here, people who ‘always manage to make their own objectives without understanding how they can do more’. Perhaps understanding this and hiring for ‘fuzzy’ traits is what makes good companies great.

From Maslow through Herzberg to Goleman and beyond there has been tremendous work done on people motivation through the years precisely focused on this.
Companies are made from the top down but without the right business and people management skills with the right processes they will never be successful.
So if any of the above resonates – act on it, for that is the role of management in business!

This article was written by Tano Rebora and was originally published on the Business Matters blog.

Tano offers free, no commitment Business Health Checks, which will guarantee companies with business building strategies upon request. To find out more about Icon, visit the website at https://www.iconbusinesssolutions.com or email Tano Rebora at tanorebora@iconbusinesssolutions.com

All you have to do to is find us a potential Social Media client! 

If they go on to sign up with one of our social media packages for the minimum 3 month term, you can have your pick of one of these fantastic gifts.

Here at Seven Creative, we offer a range of social media management packages that can be tailored to suit all businesses. We can set up and write blogs, manage your social networking and take care of your email marketing.

So who do you know that wants to bring their business into the 21st century with the power of social media, but doesn’t have the time or knowledge to do it themselves? Refer them to us and you will be rewarded!