Understanding the Google +1 button

So, if you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks and have emerged, bleary eyed and wondering "What on Earth is this Google +1 button?" Then you've come to the right place.

The Google +1 Button is like… the "Like" button on Facebook, but instead of being for people's posts, updates and photos, it's for the web. Instead of liking a post, you're liking a website, a blog article, someone's profile… anything! To use it, you have to have a Google Account and, in turn, a Google Profile. If you've just got an account, you can still +1 a page, but you'll have to click "Create a Profile" when you first try to use this new feature. Why not try clicking our +1 button at the top to get into the swing of it?

The Importance of the +1 Button

The Google +1 Button is going to be important for many reasons; Google will begin to tailor search results so that if you've got a friend associated with your Google account that has liked a page related to what you're searching for, chances are, Google are going to rank the page they 'Plus-Oned' above the pages that they didn't. The other thing is, even if none of your friends have Plus-Oned a page, chances are the pages that have more will rank better.

It's for this reason, and this reason alone that we deem this new +1 button as very important. People are starting to speculate that if the +1 button kicks off a lot, Google might start to favour the pages using it over the pages that aren’t...

We also know that the +1 button is a surefire way to make sure Google knows about your page. All +1s will be stored, somewhere, in Google's complex database systems, but Google's algorithms will be looking at this list to make sure it is regularly spidering the pages people are 'Plus-Oneing.' (How many of these have we created?!)

If you have any questions, or need any advice, give us a call at 24/7

Learn more on the official Google +1 Page.

Creating a Strong Brand - Small Business

Creating a Strong Brand Name

The name is the brand trigger. When it is said or read or thought, all the impressions, experiences and promises of the brand are brought to mind.

Creating a new brand name, whether is a new company or a new product line, is an opportunity to take a deep breath, take stock of who you are and where you’re headed, figure out what new things you need to add to the marketing mix, and what baggage you may be ready to leave behind.

The following key attributes should be present in every company name:

■Position the company/product within the markets it serves.

■Attract customers and prospects, usually by stating a benefit, specific or implied.

■Be memorable

■Be easily pronounced

■Have positive verbal associations and connotations.

■Be unique, not at all like competitor names.

■Be protectable.

Next is a list with some five things to be considered when you start naming a new company, product or service:

1. Determine How Important the Name Really Is

Having a clever name isn’t always important. Many companies thrive in industries that are based on government contracts, bidding wars, business friendships, etc., and their name is often just a unique identifier to be placed on legal paperwork.

For most companies, however, their name can be an integral part of their marketing process. A clever, memorable name can make a potential client think about the company for a few extra moments, which may be all you need to get the edge on your competitors.

2. Stand Out…

The most common mistake made when naming a new business endeavor is to make it sound like the others in that industry. This is based on anxiety about whether the new business will be taken seriously. In reality, it’s critical that you stand apart from your competition, and that you look to your competitors as examples of what to avoid.

There are literally 30 or 40 wireless companies called Mobile-something — Mobileum, Mobilocity, MobileOne. Make a rule and don’t pick a name with ‘mobile’ in it, if you name a wireless company.

3. …but don’t get carried away.

A name that doesn’t mean anything, or it has no depth won’t work ussualy. A name should connect with something already in the collective subconscious. Don’t forget, you’re trying to make an emotional connection.

4. Test your tolerance for going ‘out of the box.’

If you’re looking for something unusual, usually when it comes down to it, the obstacle is always fear. Make sure that the fears aren’t based on what happens to brands out in the world. It’s like Banana Republic. People don’t see the name and think, ‘Whoa, an ugly racial slur — I’m not going to shop there.’ It’s all contextual.”

5. Don’t involve too many people

Most corporations have no problem delegating marketing and advertising issues to the marketing department, but when naming is involved, especially naming the company itself or key products, suddenly everyone wants to have a say in the process, and it can quickly become politically and emotionally charged. Therefore, it is essential that you keep the number of people involved in a naming project to a minimum, that they have real authority, and that they all understand the ideas outlined above.

Creating Great Sales Copy

What’s the difference between a good piece of direct mail and a “junk” piece?

Not all direct mail is junk mail. A clear message, with a good offer, sent to those who want to receive it is not junk mail. But there are some howlers out there that’s for sure.

Here is a quick list of things that make for a dreadful sales letter:

• Poor targeting that consigns the piece to the bin – immediately
• No copy on the envelope that encourages me to open it and read more
• Contains copy that only talks features and not benefits
• Copy that doesn’t follow the AIDCA principle (Attention, Interest, Desire, Conviction, Action)
• Doesn’t get to the main point within 3 paragraphs
• Littered with poor grammar and punctuation
• Line lengths that stretch from here to infinity
• No subheads to make me want to read on and on and on and….
• Printed in an unreadable typeface that’s so small I need a magnifying glass
• Type printed over a picture (with a drop shadow) because it looks “trendy”
• Doesn’t repeat the offer several times (because the writer assumes I’m an elephant and never forgets what I’ve just read)
• Doesn’t put explanatory captions under any pictures or illustrations (because the marketer knows what they are and assumes the reader is as knowledgeable as he is)

Stick to these and you won’t go far wrong

6 Things to try to improve sales

Things that can be done quickly to improve your sales today!

So a quick blog today on how to make a few tweaks to your sales and marketing approach which can result in some major shifts in fortune. So here are the Igneous Marketing top tips for today!

1. Your Website’s navigation

There’s little point having lots of wonderful, valuable content on your website or blog, if people can’t find it.  Many sites have pages within pages and information on the same subject, which is scattered all over the site.  Keep your site clean and clear.  Make sure it loads nice and quickly and that all your links work.  The easier your prospective clients can navigate your site, the more likely they are to find what they are looking for, and get in touch with you / buy from the site.

2. You need to make it easy for people to contact you via your website too.

That DOESN’T mean a contact box on a contact page, where you tell people they have to give YOU their email address, name, company name etc – just to get in touch.  Many people (me included) will not do that!  If that’s the only way for people to contact you, I can assure you 100% that it is losing you business inquiries.  To be easy to contact, give people your phone number, email address, social networking accounts and if you want people to trust you, I suggest you put a postal address down too!

3. The benefits of using your services need to be easy to understand.

This means short, information rich content that’s written in plain English.

4. Make it easy for people to trust you.

Use testimonials from named people, who had great experiences with you.  If you have won an award or reached a certified level of achievement within your industry, make sure people can easily see it.  You need to mention associations and affiliation to breed trust

5. Let your Personality shine through
If you use your blog or social networking accounts as a way to broadcast what you think, rather than engage people and communicate, you will attract very few inquiries.  Prospective client’s find it a lot easier to email or call a potential provider, if that provider is personable and approachable. Be human and make it easy for them to see the real you.

6. Make it easy for people to call you.

This means never, ever using a premium rate phone number or cell / mobile number as your contact number.  No one wants to have to pay you, via a premium rate number, to find out about your services.  Many small businesses use non-standard numbers because they want to disguise where they are located, in case it puts people off.  That’s nuts.  I suggest you use a normal number.  Mobile phone numbers, when used as the only contact number, make you look less stable.  As a consequence, this will reduce the number of calls you receive and by extension, the number of inquiries you get.

Don’t forget to visit our brand new marketing bundles page – everything you need, every month for one low monthly payment – talk about ROI!!

Why a small business MUST use the power of PR

We often get asked why PR? What can PR do for my business that advertising or marketing can’t.  Whether you are a small business, start-up company, or simply expanding into a new country or geographical area, PR is an important tool for you. Here is what we think…

Credibility – Public relations holds a powerful position in the communications suite. One of the major impacts of PR is media relations, which assists you in achieving editorial coverage. People in your target market may see editorial as an independent and objective evaluation of your company. Due to the perceived objectivity of editorial coverage, PR is said to hold more credibility than other forms of marketing communication. Editorial coverage is trusted more than running an advertisement.

Cost Effectiveness – Public relations can be less expensive than other forms of paid communication, even if you hire an external public relations agency rather than performing this task in-house. Whilst you are paying for the services of a PR specialist, what you are achieving in the way of media coverage and changes in public perception may have otherwise cost you much more.

Exposure – Media coverage achieved through PR is likely to be more extensive than that which you would achieve through advertising, given a similar budget. Specialist PR people know which media to target for which message (and often have cultivated incredible contacts), what content the media want, when to pitch them which story and what is the best way to deliver your message.

Flexibility – Public relations has the benefits of being flexible in message content and being responsive to news. A skilled PR professional can turn around media releases in reaction to news or crisis situations within hours

Check out our site for some PR ideas

10 Common Small Business Marketing Mistakes

If you’re a small business owner, you’ll usually have to wear a number of different hats during the day to day running of your business and it’s not easy to be an expert in many different areas.

Marketing your business effectively is critical to its short and long term success, so here we’ve identified 10 of the most common online marketing mistakes small businesses make.

Not identifying a target market

Before you do any marketing at all, it pays to have a clear idea of who your product or service is aimed at. When it comes to designing your website and writing the content for it, you need to appeal to the people you want to buy your product or service and connect with them.

Not doing enough research

If your small business is offering a new or innovative product or service, how do you know that people will either need it or want it? The time to find out is not when you’ve had a website designed and spent a fortune on Google Adwords with little or no return; it’s at the planning stage.

Building a poor quality DIY website

In 2009, almost £50 billion was spent on internet retail sales in the UK, so if you want a share of the online market, your website will need to be up to scratch. There’s fierce competition online in almost every market sector so a poor quality website that looks homemade will not do you any favours at all.

Communicating features rather than benefits

Confusing features and benefits when it comes to website copy is a very common mistake. Let’s say you were selling golf balls online, a feature could be that they have a titanium core but why would that interest the reader? The benefit would be that you can hit them longer distances which of course would appeal to most golfers.

Advertising once and giving up

It’s widely accepted that people often have to see an advert or brand name 6 or 7 times before they will act on it. So if you decide to advertise your business online via Pay per Click, it pays to run a campaign consistently rather than doing it once and deciding it’s the wrong way to market your business.

Copying your competitors

Whether you’re trying to compete at a local or national level, copying your competitors is never a good idea whether it’s having very similar content on your website or using the same words on your Pay per Click adverts. Be innovative, do something different and people will notice your business.

Focusing all your attention on getting new business

It’s all too easy as a small business to concentrate on gaining new customers and forgetting about your previous or existing ones. Email marketing is a cost effective way to communicate with your client base and help keep them as loyal customers.

Not advertising when you’re doing well

If you fail to market your business when things are going well then you will find it difficult to expand as well as potentially missing out on lucrative orders for the future. For example shutting down a successful Pay per Click campaign or deciding to stop emailing past customers doesn’t make good business sense.

Having separate online and offline messages

It’s important to treat your online and offline marketing as one overall strategy. Too many small businesses fall into the trap of not combining their marketing efforts and end up with a haphazard approach that’s confusing to customers.

Failing to measure your marketing results

If you don’t measure your marketing results, how will you know what marketing efforts are worth continuing with and what’s losing you money? A simple “How did you find us?” option on an online contact form or analysing your Pay per Click statistics regularly can help you measure your return on investment.

Ethical Marketing

Marketing has expanded far and wide in the past few years. The continued growth of social media marketing and rise in mobile marketing will see this trend increase rapidly in the coming months. The internet is often seen as a dark and scary place with tricksters, hackers, cheats and swindlers hiding behind each click. Therefore,  it’s more important than ever to be trustworthy. As a starting point, here are the Igneous Marketing seven rules for ethical marketing:

1. Tell the truth. Don’t write or say anything, anywhere, that isn’t true. True is not a relative term—it’s black and white. If it looks grayish, don’t say it.


2. Say it nicely. Don’t write or say anything, anywhere, that you’d be ashamed to see on a billboard or on the front page of the newspaper.


3. Give credit and say thank you. It’s so easy to get information and much of it is free. But if you use information from the Internet, credit the source. If possible, link to it.


4. Protect your customers. Never use a story about a client, even if you’ve removed the name, without asking for permission.


5. Treat your blog like journalism, not marketing. Pretend the editor at the The Times is going to fact-check you.


6. Use ghostwriters with integrity. If the ideas come from an expert, and a writer builds an article, blog post, newsletter, or seminar content from those ideas, it’s the expert’s work.


7. Respect your competitors. It’s just bad form to say negative things about competitors. Differentiating your company means saying positive things about yourself that are truthful, can be supported with evidence, and make a difference to clients. Don’t lie to get competitive intelligence. Instead, consider asking your clients who switched or employees who moved. Follow competitors on social media, and set up Google alerts.

Don’t be tarred with the same brush – make sure your website or social media presence is seen and trusted