In a society where people are considered time poor, have access to lots of different information through our wonderful fixation with technology and the world wide web, it's no wonder that consumers are using content to help influence their every day life. When referring to content, I am considering information that can come from many … Continue reading Content Driven Consumerism: the new business challenge

For so many of us "budget" can seem a scary word but it is such an important tool for all businesses. Recently I've had the opportunity to work with a small business that had never set a budget and listening to their challenges has really cemented for me how important the budget process is. Not … Continue reading Marketing Roadmap Step 2: Plan your budget

One of the habits that many small businesses can find themselves in is just rotating the same marketing activity over month on month, year on year, without doing a proper business assessment on whether it's working. An assessment can be simple but also very enlightening - and it's important in small business to ensure that … Continue reading Marketing roadmap step 1: assessing your spend.

We've all recently heard about the plastic bag ban enforced by supermarkets to remove the amount of plastics ending in our tips. The response by the supermarkets, and other retailers is after years of feedback from consumers and, of course, enforcement by state government to ban non re-usable plastic bags. This ethical standing by the … Continue reading Ethical marketing – whose ethics do you follow?

Advertising your products and services is so important in a retail environment and, being a small retailer, it allows you to reach out to your local community and entice them to shop with you over bigger retailers. But, just like big retailers, you have an obligation to meet the retailers code of conduct and not … Continue reading Keep your advertising honest.

Today, customers have the ability to access information from sources across the globe which is having a significant affect on how they research and shop for both products and services. The World Wide Web has provided us with extensive resources and placed us, the consumer, in control of our own purchasing and buying behaviour. But, … Continue reading The importance of customer lifecycle management: recognising defection before it happens

Many companies get very wound up in making sure they are constantly marketing their business but sometimes become so busy in the constant push that they forgot the importance of their existing customers. Developing a customer database is so important to business success. It's a simple way to reach your customers, keep them engaged and … Continue reading Communication versus marketing

When many people think about marketing, they immediately go to external channel selection and getting messages out large and bold for everyone to see. This is great if you are wanting to just push your brand, but ensuring that people understand the value of your brand and develop a loyal following is a very different … Continue reading Turning staff into your most powerful marketing tool

Recently a mandatory change has been made within the NSW government that is forcing businesses to change their gift card expiry dates to a minimum of 3 years. Being mandated in NSW, many would assume that this legislation would only affect businesses physically trading in NSW, but the sneaky way that the legislation has been … Continue reading The NSW gift card legislation change – what all businesses need to know