Ignition CBS Ltd

“A very clear explanation of what Internet marketing and social media is about. Heard all about it but did not understand it. Now I can see how I could get involved and benefit from it. All I need now is the expertise and I will be back to get it.”Christine Flanigan - Personal Hearing Solutions

“Fantastic, more than useful. With our limited knowledge of this area you have pointed us in the right direction as where to go now, thank you!”Sydney Gillett - The Imaging House

“For someone new to these subjects, they were informative and well-explained. With the offer of follow-up advice I now have the tools to help build my business idea.”Michael Haworth - Target Safety Training

“Attended all three seminars and found them extremely interesting. I came away with practical tips and ideas that I can use. I would definitely recommend these seminars -they’re informative and provide an excellent impression of Ignition.”Rebecca Mayhew - VEKA Plc

“Excellent- both in terms of relevant content and engaging presentational style. I took away tips that I can act on immediately. I’ll let you know how it goes!”Caroline Chesworth - Mad Science

Business Development Director (Designate) Vacancy

November 13, 2009 at 1:00 pm | In Employment

We are looking to recruit a Senior Marketing Professional / Director Designate with a view to taking a leading role in the business over the next 2 – 3 years. The ideal candidate will have a minimum of 3 years senior experience within an agency environment. We are looking for someone with enough drive, motivation and experience to develop new business opportunities and clients. We are looking for a “hunter” not a “farmer”.

Crucial Experience:

• Must have experience of working in an agency environment / structure.
• Very entrepreneurial personality with a desire to push the company forward and succeed (The role will focus heavily on developing new business – so this needs to be proven and evidenced).
• Previous client-side industry experience would be good- but someone who has later moved on to work in an agency environment.
• The successful candidate will have the gravitas required to successfully operate at board director level with clients.
• A solid understanding of how a marketing business operates is essential.
• A good understanding of Internet marketing and technical issues is important, such as SEO / SEM.
• Previous experience within a Business Development role is preferable – as the successful candidate will be tasked with bringing in new business and developing new relationships right from the start.
• Must be ethical and honest – as we pride ourselves on the high quality service we provide – and the long lasting relationships we develop.

Attributes we seek:

• Motivated, driven, enthusiastic, confident, results driven.
• Self belief, single minded focus, tenacity, positive thinker, organisational skills, stamina and desire to succeed, leads from the front, ability to visualise success, self disciplined, proactive approach, supportive partner or family, creative thinker.

If you think you fit the bill, send me your cv with current salary and expectations and we’ll take it from there
andychemney@ignitioncbs.co.uk

More on “marketing in a recession”

March 18, 2009 at 11:55 pm | In Sales & Marketing

Our monthly seminars on how to market your business through the recession have been getting really good feedback. For those who can’t attend, here’s some of the main points:

Recessions provide real opportunities – there’s always reduced “noise” in a recession, which means that new products and services will have greater impact.
Instead of focusing on tactics to manipulate customers in a recession, focus on how your customer needs or wants have changed (because they will have!). Ask “what do my customers want in a recession. What problems can I solve for them?” – NOT “how can I sell them more of my stuff?”.
You must set aside a marketing budget - however small. This will actually SAVE you money because of the 5P’s (Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance).
Focus on getting faster rather than getting perfect - costs rise as projects and campaigns get bogged down in detail and you need to be quick off the mark.
Don’t assume too much - customer responses to economic problems are not pre-determined - price is not always a major concern.
Now is the time to really ensure that you follow all your marketing plans right through to the very end. You can’t afford to lose interest or let it drop down the list of priorities. Remember 3 out of every 5 campaigns are never finished – make sure yours are, and you’ll always be one step ahead of the competition.
Remember you’ve got a 70% chance of selling more to existing customers, a 40% chance with lapsed customers and just a 25% chance of getting business from a new customer – so get your priorities right!
Now is a great time to really reward customer loyalty - pleasing customers doesn’t have to be expensive, just surprising.
Remember when you do get face to face with a prospect YOU ARE NOT THERE TO SELL – YOU ARE THERE TO SOLVE A PROBLEM. Concentrate on finding the prospects’ “pain” and on finding a solution to them.
If you’re reading this and you’ve not been to one of our seminars, we’d love to see you at the next one. Give us a call, send us an email or fill in the form on our website.

Anorax choose Ignition

January 19, 2009 at 9:09 pm | In New accounts

Back in  October 2008 we were approached by imaging specialists Anorax to build an online image approval solution for them. We launched the site back in December 2008 and have just learnt that it’s resulted in Anorax winning over £60K of new business! We’re well chuffed. There are already a lot of commercially available image approval systems in the marketplace but our solution is quite unique and built for speed and ease of use.

Marketing Seminars

January 19, 2009 at 8:59 pm | In Latest News, Sales & Marketing

Our monthly marketing seminars are becoming increasingly popular. During January we’ll be running three different seminars: Marketing in a Recession, Prospecting for New Business and Internet Marketing. If you’d like to attend one of these seminars please give us a call on 01706 222456 or fill in this form.

Simple Search Engine Optimisation

July 3, 2008 at 1:35 pm | In Search Engine Optimisation

Over the last couple of years there has been a massive growth in the use of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques and it’s easy to get confused about what is good practice.
In essence, Google ranks web pages based on two things: relevance and popularity. A page is relevant to a search term if that term shows up in the title and body of the page and a page is popular if plenty of other websites link to it.  It’s crucial that the text on your site includes the words and phrases that best describe your web pages but they also need to be words that people currently search with. They are useless if the average person won’t enter them into Google.
So make a list of what you think are your keywords for each page of your site, then type this web address into your browser https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal - you’ll be able to check with Google what actual words and phrases people are searching on.  Additionally search engines have decided that if other sites are linking to your site, it must be a winner; therefore, it deserves a boost in rankings. There are two main types of links that work best to increase your link popularity: links from other sites that focus on the same keyword phrases your site focuses on, and links from relevant categories industry-specific portals.

Here are some other basic things you can do to help your site move up the rankings.

1. Find out how well you rank online.
Go to www.alexa.com, which will tell you what position your website holds against all others. The goal will be to make that number lower.
2. Submit your site to search engines.
Do it personally; avoid “submission services” or software. You only need to do it once. Google’s site submission page is at: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl.
3. Place relevant keywords in the title tag
The title tag is the text that appears at the top of the browser when a webpage loads and it tells the search engine what your page is about. Don’t use too many keywords, or make it too long. And always ensure the title tag text appears in the body of the page.
4. Avoid relationships with link farms
Links are important but don’t ever pay money for a link from another site. Google is cracking down on this link farm activity and it could demote your website position if it thinks you’ve been trying to artificially boost your rankings.
5. Use alt tags on images
Alt tags “tell” search engine what your images are. This will help them index your pictures and better serve readers with text-only web browsers.
6. Build a site map.
A site map helps spiders crawl pages more quickly. Google loves sites that have site maps.

FREE MARKETING SEMINAR

In September I’ll be running a seminar on online marketing strategies for anyone that’s interested. As last year, I’m keeping numbers low (max 15 people). If you want to come, please contact me via our form and I’ll add you to the list.

Tips On Email Marketing

March 10, 2008 at 10:40 am | In Sales & Marketing

More and more of our clients are looking to employ email marketing as part of their marketing strategy but are unsure as to best practice. In this article (which first appeared in the March Issue of LBV), we look at some key tips.1. Start with a killer “subject line”Your email subject line motivates the user to open your email. If it is dull or meaningless, it’s not going to be opened. Avoid teaser subject lines that entice people to click to find out more - they don’t work. Anything vague, cute or clever is also likely to be dismissed. You’ve got 6-10 words to put across your message so get straight to the point but avoid words that are commonly associated with spam emails such as SEX, FREE, ££.2. Quality content gets quality responsesYou’ve written a great subject line and managed to persuade your reader to open it. Now you’ve got to deliver great content that will get a response. Web users are so goal-driven and impatient that content needs to provide fast answers and be useful to the user. Your email needs to be short (no longer than 2 paragraphs or it just won’t get read) and to the point. The two main questions asked by the user when judging content are ‘what’s in it for me?’ and ‘how does this help me solve my problem’ – answer either of those in your email and you’re onto a winner.3. Timing is everythingChoosing what day and even what time you send your email is crucial. There are exceptions but generally an email launched at lunchtime-to-mid-afternoon and about midweek will normally find audiences at their most receptive. Don’t email early in the week as anything superfluous arriving at that time is likely to be deleted quickly. Equally, an email arriving late on Friday is unlikely to get serious attention.4. Good email design is importantWell-designed, eye-catching email pays dividends in any marketing campaign as it presents your message in the best light and draws traffic to your website. Use good design to guide readers through the email - leading them to a call to action. The email should be easy to scan so users can decide what they want to read. Elements such as a contents panel or ‘in this issue’ panel can be useful to help users navigate.4. Stay LegalRemember that under UK law, email marketing to individual subscribers requires:1. Prior consent (opt-in), or an existing customer relationship2. Clear identification of the sender3. The provision of an address that the recipient can contact to withdraw their consent (unsubscribe)P.S. This article only covers the real basics but if you want more information on email marketing or any aspect of marketing and design you can contact us here.

How To Write Sales Letters That Sell

March 9, 2008 at 3:45 pm | In Sales & Marketing

Here’s the text from our latest column in Lancashire Business View Magazine ­ hope you find it interesting. My last two columns were about website improvements but this month I want cover something else that should be in your marketing armoury: How to write sales letters that sell.I’m prompted to do this by a client who recently experienced the difference that a well-crafted sales letter can make to response rates. You don’t have to be a direct selling company to benefit from these tips ­ use these basics whenever you are trying to get a response from a prospect.1. Write for as long as it takes to tell your story.Firstly, lets bust one enduring myth: Long letters don’t get read. Oh yes they do! In test after test, long letters outperform short letters. The more you tell the more you sell. Long letters work because short letters rarely address enough benefits, concerns and objections to motivate your reader to action. Don’t be afraid of writing long but do make sure your message is interesting.2. Start with a killer headline that grabs attention.I don’t think that I can emphasise the importance of writing winning headlines enough. Without a headline, your sales letter is doomed to failure even before it starts. Over 5 times as many people will read your headline as will read your sales letter. If your headline is weak, hardly anyone will ever even SEE your sales letter.3. Your first sentence should also be attention grabbing.You must instantly involve the reader. Make a startling statement. Tell an interesting story. Hit an emotional ‘hot button’ or just state the offer and get to the point.4. Present your offer on the first page.If you don’t give your offer in your headline or first sentence, you should put it somewhere on the first page. Be clear and specific about what your reader will gain by responding.5. End the first page in mid-sentence.Whether it’s curiosity or just an urge for closure, cutting a sentence in two at the bottom of a page helps encourage readers to turn the page and finish the sentence. You can also use this technique on successive pages where the reader must turn the page over or go onto a separate sheet.6. Always include a P.S.When a prospect picks up a letter, they look first at the signature and next at the P.S. Thus the P.S. provides such a vital selling opportunity that almost every sales letter should include one.I hope you find these tips of use. By the way, if you’ve got a sales letter that you are currently struggling with, email it to me. I’ll look it over and send you back some pointers.

Improve Your Website

March 9, 2008 at 3:44 pm | In Search Engine Optimisation

Here’s the text from another article on website improvement.

1. Why can’t I find my site on Google?
Probably because no one has ever told Google that your site exists! Remedy this by submitting your site to Google here. Only do this once (Google doesn’t like multiple submissions) and be patient, there’s usually a two-month queue.

2. You said that having ‘links’ to my site was important in improving search engine position. How do I know how many sites are linking to mine?
Type link:www.yourwebsitename.co.uk into Google (where www.yourwebsitename.co.uk is your actual domain name). You’ll get a list of the links you have. Generally, the more links, the higher your site will be ranked. You can also use this trick to see which sites are linking to your competitors! If you’ve got no links ask your existing suppliers to link to you, you can do the same and everybody wins. Or email me and we’ll link to you.

3. How much of my site is Google actually indexing?
It’s vital that Google indexes (’sees’) as much of your site as possible. Check it here by typing site:www.yourwebsitename.co.uk. If Google is only indexing 1-2 pages you’ve got a problem (easily solved though). If Google is indexing your entire site, you’re doing a good job.

4. I want to start a ‘pay per click’ advertising campaign to drive more traffic to my site. How much will this cost me?
Go here and then click on ‘Keyword Assistant’. Type in your keyword to see the number of UK searches for that word in the last month on the Yahoo network (Google competitor). Now click on the ‘View Bids’ tool and again type in your keyword. You’ll now see how much existing advertisers are paying for each ‘click’. Multiply the price by the number of searches and you’ll have a rough monthly advertising cost. Done well, this form of advertising can be extremely cost effective.

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