Does Extensive Advertising Always Create a Successful Business?

Which choice?

An old widow’s dilemma.

One hot summer’s day a sprightly old widow looked out of her window and thought, ‘I must look at the outside window frames. Sam always looked round the windows in hot weather. He dug out any rotten wood and filled it in. Then I did the painting.’

With a heavy heart she went outside to inspect the Georgian style windows. Sure enough there were several windows where wet rot had settled in.

‘I’ll dig that out. Put a bit of filler in,’ she said to herself. ‘Saw him do it often enough! Painting will be easy after that.’

She rummaged about in Sam’s old tool box. There it was!

‘That’s the thing he used to dig out with,’ she thought.

She vigorously hacked away at rotten wood until she had dealt with all the affected areas in three windows.

Mopping her brow she stood back and looked at her work.

There were large gaping holes and some of the beading round the frames had fallen out completely. Panic set in! How to fill the holes? How to replace the beading? Her heart began to flutter. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Offers for “New Customers” Only?

Special offers for “new customers only”? What about our existing loyal customers?

Do we give special offers to “new customers only”? Is it an insult to our existing customers? Our loyal clients are like precious jewels to be cherished. Making an effort to retain existing clients is worth a lot more than spending all your marketing budget on acquiring new ones.

Could we learn something from the old days before the modern craze for “special offers” existed? Read the rest of this entry »

Influence is a Powerful Tool

The gift of being able to influence others brings with it a moral responsibility.

We can influence someone else without being aware of what we are doing.

Any parent of a newborn child has the automatic gift of being able to influence the way that child is reared. A drug -taking mother may be so wrapped up in her own world that she neglects the needs of her own child. She is unaware of her own influence. This will affect the child’s health and emotional development.

Someone can influence us without us being aware of it ourselves. Read the rest of this entry »

WordPress Websites vs Traditional Static Websites

We often get asked about the benefits of a WordPress (dynamic) website, as opposed to a traditional (static) website. Some of our clients want to know what the two terms mean, what the differences are and what the costs are.

What is a WordPress website?

We usually respond that WordPress is the best option to choose. WordPress was originally intended to be a blogging platform, but is now used regularly to build informational websites. It is a content management system (CMS), which means the user has full control of editing and creating content, without the need to go into the code.

WordPress has a number of already designed ‘themes’, meaning it’s very easy to have a website without any need to code at all. The code has already been done for you. Unless you want a bespoke custom theme, you can find one of the free or paid ones, and use it straight away and already have a well-designed nice website. Read the rest of this entry »

Luck or Hard Work?

What is more important in becoming successful in life, luck or hard work? Many people would say, “a bit of both.” I would argue that luck has a minimal part to play in creating success and that, “I was unlucky,” is often an excuse for lack of hard work. This may sound harsh, but often a lot of enjoyable, idealistic planning goes into a dream project but not enough realistic hard work. Read the rest of this entry »

The Importance of Identifying a Niche Market

I am delighted to have a post from Guest Blogger, Pierre Parnell, of ProGro Business Consultancy.

In my 10 years experience of working with clients, it has become apparent there are some business owners who have defined their niche market and have a clear picture of whom it is they are marketing to, and then there are those which haven’t.

Business owners tend to be somewhat reluctant in wanting to create and target a niche market as they view niche marketing as narrowing their sales which could cut into their profit margins. Naturally these business owners fear the idea of ‘niche marketing’. Read the rest of this entry »

Richmond Business Expo 2012

We arrived at 11am, ready to set up our stand before entry to the visitors began 2 hours later. Already at 11am cars were parked outside the stadium and exhibitors were making several journeys from the (far away!) car park to the Rose Suite with their things!

It was buzzing with energy inside the exhibition room. Lioness Marketing arrived at the same time as everybody else, so we were all setting up our stands at the same time.

I’d love to give a big shout out to Delivery Express – a Twickenham-based courier company – who had their stand next to ours. Martin was a great help in sticking our posters on the velcro boards, to ensure they were nice and straight! Throughout the day, Martin and I had a lot of conversation so needless to say I have made a friend and contact from the event. Delivery Express also had a very large selection of chocolates which they were generous in sharing with us!

We really enjoyed the exhibition. It was fabulous to see so many local businesses come together – we really got a feel for what was happening in the local community. One visitor even said to us, “there’s so many businesses from Teddington here. I live in Teddington – I really have no idea where everyone is hiding!” Read the rest of this entry »

My Favourite Link Building Strategies

Google uses incoming links to measure the popularity of a website. If many websites refer (link) to your website, it most likely means your website has some great content that is worth reading. Therefore Google will consider the website an authority.

Incoming links are a massive factor in SEO and it’s vital to schedule time to increase the number of incoming links to your site. However, not all links are the same. With link building, the phrase “quality not quantity” certainly hits the nail on the head. Read the rest of this entry »

The Importance of Keyword Research

Before you start your website, you should have a clear idea of what the content is going to be. Before you even write a word, you need to consider the target reader. Think about how people search – which words and phrases do they use? For example, a person looking for a pizza restaurant in London will probably not type in “pizza”, “restaurant” or “London”. Instead, they will most likely type in “pizza restaurants in London”.

Think about ‘Keyword Research’ from the very beginning. As well as basing your website layout around your content, you also need to base your content around your keywords. Read the rest of this entry »

Exhibiting at the Richmond Expo 2012

Lioness Marketing are very excited to be exhibiting at the Richmond Expo in Twickenham Stadium on 19 April 2012. The exhibition has been running for 4 years and is expecting up to 100 local businesses across South West London to be showcasing at this lively and fruitful event!

It’s FREE to visit – so do come and stop by stand 81 and visit the online marketing team at Lioness Marketing. We’ll be doing lots of fun and quirky things, so don’t miss out!

• Come and get a free 5 minute social media or SEO health check on your website
• Take away a coupon for a free 45 minute consultation Read the rest of this entry »