Remember the saying, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"? Sound advice, right? It was then, and when it comes to marketing budget management in today's digital world, it still is! Unfortunately, there is so much more going on today than there ever has been. Can you imagine running a business back before the internet where you had maybe three or four places where you could invest your marketing budget? You could run an ad in the local paper (after all, who was going to buy your product from the next town over, let alone the other side of the world?). If you have the addresses you could run a mail shot, or an ad on the local radio. Maybe you could rent a couple of billboards. And you'd have a listing in the Yellow Pages. After that, however, your options were pretty much exhausted. In today's world there are a multitude of marketing avenues open to every business - above the line, below the line and online - and the savvy marketer..

As much of the world goes back into lockdown, many small business owners have the twin forces of time on their hands and procrastination running wild. It's been a while. Things were supposed to be better by now, and the light at the end of the tunnel is still a long way away. You know you should be doing something... anything... to keep your business ticking over, but you're not sure what. Well, here are 5 things you can do over five days that will put your business in front of your potential customers without having to spend budget you don't have. DAY ONE : Activate or update your Google My Business listing If you search for your own business you should see the info box to the right of the search results. When we search for Advent Communication - this is what we see: See the link that says "Own this business" - if you haven't already claimed your listing you can click here. If you have previously claimed your listing and..

Being stuck at home - even if you can still work - tends to leave you with some "down time". We are delighted to announce that we have taken advantage of the forced lockdown to run through our paces at the Mailchimp academy - and we are now officially certified! Mailchimp is much more than just an email platform - there are powerful ways to leverage your mailing list to grow your client base - and we can..

As marketers we are expected to come up with ways to "put a positive spin" on things, keep driving traffic to websites and make the phone ring. No. Matter. What. Today, the elephant in the room is Covid-19. My inbox is still filled with announcements of new product launches, webinars and seminars. Special offers and, frankly, a number of things from what can only be described as marketing vultures piggy-backing on tragedy. We are based in Spain. Today is lockdown Day 12 - and the numbers being published currently show no signs of slowing down. And yet my facebook feed is offering me a test drive of the new Ford Focus, poolside bed reservations at a local beach club - opening soon, according to their ads - despite the government decree that prevents them from opening and me from visiting. Some of the marketing I am seeing now is clearly scheduled activity which someone has presumably forgotten to pause (I hope that is..

One of the things people are continually telling us is that online Content is King. Even Google tell us that it is relevant, original content that their search engine looks for online. As a result many businesses literally busy themselves creating content. And that's good thing - provided you think about the best way to structure your activity. The way Google and other search engines work is based upon relevance of content to the searcher's search terms. Thus, if you search for blue widgets, the search engine will look to offer you links to content about blue widgets. But the search engines do not simply list all the content that has "blue widgets" lost within it. They are becoming ever more sophisticated, and they understand not only the context of the content but the relationships between similar pieces of content. For this reason we treat content as worker bees that we send out into the wider world to bring value back..