In our previous posting, (Social Media: Using Social Media for Business), we discussed the benefits social media can offer businesses and why businesses should be adopting social media as an integral part of their marketing activities. In this post, we build on that and look at some of the basics of social media which businesses [...]
The rise of social media – the Facebooks and Twitters of the world – is inexorable. Social networking is creating a new communications paradigm that in is challenging traditional sales and marketing techniques. Should small and medium sized businesses get involved in social media? And, if yes, what are the benefits of doing so? (or [...]
Build it and they will come…. If only online success was that easy. Unfortunately, it isn’t. Yet, this is one of the most common misconceptions that small and medium sized businesses have about the internet. There are thousands of examples of websites littering the web, where businesses have spent a lot time, effort and money [...]
Failing to plan, is planning to fail…. Or, alternatively, one of my favourites: “prior preparation prevents piss poor performance” Like everything else in the business world (and the wider world for that matter) – planning and preparation is critical for success. Marketing is no different. However, the majority of small businesses rarely involve themselves in [...]
Over the next couple of weeks or so, if your lucky (or is that unlucky), might be longer, we’re going to do a series of blog posts on some marketing basics, with a particular slant towards small and medium sized businesses. As you may already know, Hot Lemon offers practical marketing advice and consultancy as [...]
Yes, it’s another SEO checklist. This is the basis of how Hot Lemon assesses websites for SEO and usability (they are both important for an effective small business website). Much of this will be reiteration of previous posts and diatribes, little is likely to be surprising (well as long as you have read up about [...]
Further to my recent blog posting on blogging – “The blogging guide” – a real life situation has come up – as they do – which helps demonstrate the real world value of blogging for businesses. The situation: wanting to say too much……..
Somehow, my previous blogging post got lost in the ether. So, here, the complete guide to blogging for small businesses. Well, when I say the complete guide, lets say an abridged guide that still manages to get all, well most of, the relevant points across. Blogging for business Blogging is now a very established part [...]
An increasing number of small businesses are now taking a more active interest in the online marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO) of their websites – be it by blogging, PPC (pay per click advertising – for example Adwords), Facebook, Twitter or by link building. All of these are, for the non-technically minded, are easy [...]
In other blog posts recently, I have made mention of the “customer proposition”, when developing online or traditional marketing content. I thought it would be worthwhile to expand on what I mean by customer proposition. What is a customer proposition A customer proposition is a clear and concise definition of what your business offers your [...]
Branding, or more accurately corporate identity, is critical for small businesses looking to expand. A strong corporate identity (almost a brand but not quite), can help businesses in developing their markets, expanding into other markets and building the trust of their customers. Identity? In terms of identity, we are talking about how your business presents [...]
Choosing the right web design agency can be a make or break decision for many small businesses, it can mean the difference between a website which works for them, or a website that doesn’t. Or, in more succinct terms, the difference between a website that supports the business and one that costs the business (time, [...]
The home page of your website is the most important page of your website. But is there an ideal home page layout? The simple answer is no, there isn’t. The “perfect” home page will depend on a wide range of factors, and what would be perfect for one visitor won’t be for another. Variables which [...]
Email marketing can be one of the most effective forms of marketing for small businesses – however, if not done well, it can quickly become one of the least effective, as well as potentially exposing the business to reputational and legal risk. So how can a small business make email marketing work for them, and [...]
Further to a previous blog posting – where I briefly talked about making false savings – I thought I would take the opportunity to expand on that a little. Now we all know the market is very competitive out there, and that like the government, we must all make cost savings as and when we [...]
Many small businesses find marketing a challenge. Not because it’s intrinsically hard or difficult, more because it’s not their specialism. Their specialism after all is running their business, not marketing their business. But where should a small business start? Hot Lemon has developed another list of some handy marketing tips and tricks to help small [...]
Further to my own experiences, and some high profile cases in the media, thought I would jot a few lines about the importance of small businesses owning their online presence – specifically, their URL. Unfortunately, this is too a common issue to ignore. Your website is not yours! Believe it or not, most small businesses [...]
Whilst reading an article on cost-effective marketing one of author’s key arguments was don’t try to save money where it would be visible to your customers. Specifically, make sure that the customer facing side of your business meets, if not exceeds, the expectations of your customers for your business. This is all related to professionalism [...]
Last week saw Kent 2020, one of the largest B2B exhibitions outside of London, which I had the pleasure of attending (as a delegate this year unfortunately). However, like all exhibitions that I have attended (and that’s a fair few), there were a lot of exhibitors that were simply not making the most of the [...]
Building on our previous post – SEM for small businesses, which provides some of the background on search engine marketing and why it’s important, this post dives straight into the subject matter on hand to offer Hot Lemon’s top ten tips on search engine marketing for small businesses. All of these top tips have been [...]
