Starting 2024 feeling cash strapped?

Kickstart 2024 with these ten low-cost marketing tactics that will help your business succeed and make the most of your marketing budget. They only need some effort and time from you to action and put into place.

Here's a guide on how to get started building each component of your online marketing system. Click here to learn what an online marketing system is and why your business needs one.

With Christmas almost upon us, here are 8 timely reminders of tasks you need to get done before heading off on your Christmas break.

1. Update holiday hours

Remember to update your holiday operating hours on your Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business), website and social media.

Don’t know how to set holiday hours in your Google Business Profile? Here’s how to do it.

It’s Christmas!

We all want to celebrate the end of the year with flair. But in the run-up to Christmas, all those deadlines and extra tasks put everyone under pressure but that end of year party is the reward for the collective effort of getting the job done.

We have all experienced the tedium of a poorly planned party and when it is a work function gone wrong, you risk deflating your staff. So here are a few tips to ensure your work Christmas party is a cracker!

1. Plan, plan, plan!

Take a little time to sit down and think about creating a memorable event and while you’re doing it, encourage some team building and relationship enrichment. 

Location, time of day or night, music and entertainment, food and beverage choices, all need consideration. Inclusivity is a key here. Cater for a range of age groups, find a good mix of music or entertainment.  Some of the most memorable parties have amazing themes – think how you can incorporate this into your plan.

2. Create atmosphere

Theme, dress code, menu and entertainment all add to the atmosphere of your chosen location.

Dress-up themes are fun but make sure you brainstorm relevant costuming with other staff members before you confirm. You want a theme that's easy for everyone to participate. It could be as simple as asking people to wear their favourite wacky sweater or you can add to the hilarity by giving people funny items of clothing to wear. Reward full scale costume efforts with prizes. Get buy-in by letting people know there will be prizes before-hand!

Stand-out graphic design is one of the cornerstones of future business growth and success.

While that sounds like a bold statement, recent findings from Adobe show that graphic design and creativity are key contributors to the success of high growth companies.  

As good graphic design can transform your business, here are 11 reasons why you should invest in graphic design.

Assessing and measuring the success of your current marketing campaigns is one of the most important parts of your marketing strategy. By understanding what went well and what didn’t, you can make more informed decisions about where to put your efforts, resources and budget for future marketing campaigns.

Assessing your marketing results can be challenging if you don’t know what to look for. So, let’s start with 5 easy ways to review and evaluate your marketing. We recommend you aim to do this at least once a month.

Emotions hold incredible sway over our choices and actions. Successful brands worldwide have recognised the power of emotions in building genuine connections with their ideal clients. Today, we're diving into the world of emotional impact in your marketing efforts.

Making an Unforgettable Initial Impression

In today's crowded market, your ideal clients face a barrage of brand messages vying for their attention. To rise above the noise, your business needs to strike an emotional chord; otherwise, you risk fading into the background.

Our Science of Marketing series is here to demystify the world of marketing so you can craft strategies and build the marketing momentum needed for your success.

This blog in the series explores the essential steps to elevate a business brand and create a lasting impact. Do you want to know how to light up your business with that unbeatable X factor? Then keep reading.

After a 30-year career in the corporate world, Stu Jones, Licensed Sales Consultant with Harcourts Rolleston decided to put his enthusiasm for property into practice.  Focused on achieving property sales or purchases that delight his clients, Stu’s energy and love of helping people has shaped his real estate business.

This blog was inspired by a recent newsletter from a business colleague discussing how business owners and their employees have been ‘missing in the market’ over the past three years.

They’ve neglected their business networks, stopped going to client, networking or industry events or work from home so think ‘relationship building’ is something they don’t need to do. But while they’ve been missing in action, their referrals have dried up or worse, have gone to other businesses who have continued to build their professional networks.

This got us thinking about how to rekindle former business relationships and here it is.

Join us in exploring the Science of Marketing series! Our goal is to demystify the marketing landscape, equipping you with the skills to formulate strategic plans and foster the marketing momentum crucial for achieving success.

Successful marketing starts with clearly identifying who your ideal clients are and what makes them tick. Many business owners have trouble doing this. That is the focus of this blog.

Most businesses don’t take the time to create their ideal client and end up wasting a lot of money targeting the wrong audience with their marketing. Remember, while it may seem counter-intuitive to narrow down your prospective audience, “everyone” is not an ideal client group; it is a wish list!

Marketing to everyone results in lots of mixed messages so no one knows who you are, what you sell, and what you stand for. By trying to be everything to everyone, instead of something to someone, you end up being nothing to no one. 

This blog discusses the steps needed to craft your ideal client persona and finishes with a quick start worksheet to help you define it.

Stand-out graphic design is one of the cornerstones of future business growth and success. 

If that sounds like a bold statement, then think about Apple, Nike and Virgin or home grown brands like 42 Below, Xero and Icebreaker.

Great graphic design has played a key role in creating memorable branding that has helped these companies become household names.

In fact, according to Adobe's latest survey of rapidly growing businesses, 63% of marketers stated that creativity and design were the top contributors to hypergrowth success.

We all understand the power of search engines, like Google or Bing. They present us with results that are most relevant to the search terms we enter. For instance, if you search for "eggless brownie recipes," you won't be shown "egg fried rice recipes," even though both contain the words "recipe" and "egg."

When it comes to optimising your website for search engine optimisation (SEO), you need to create content that aligns with the keywords or phrases your customers are searching for. Otherwise, you're investing valuable time and effort into work that goes unseen.

When it comes down to it, if the customer doesn’t purchase your product or service, nothing else matters. You may have a great idea or offering, but if you can’t get customers to notice you and purchase, then you’re in trouble.

It’s important to remember that marketing is not just advertising, or selling, or persuading. It's about having the right combination of smart strategy, a thorough understanding of who is actually buying your product or service and a brand story that opens all the right doors. 

The secret to marketing that works is the science of what makes your customers buy and an actionable plan to reach your ideal customers with the right message, at the right place, and at the right time. 

Amazing what drinking craft gin with friends on a balmy summer’s day, smelling the sea breeze and watching the sun setting over the ocean leads to! Joy and happiness as well as the inspiration for our new brand colour palette. But more on that later...

A great brand connects your core purpose or your why with who you are, what you do and how you do it. As your business changes and evolves, it’s important to make sure that your brand identity is still aligned with your business and fit for purpose.

If you are targeting new customers, delivering new products or services, entering new markets, or quite simply, your logo is outdated, a rebrand or refresh may be needed. We’ve refreshed our brand to better align with our why. Here’s what led to the changes.

The general idea of collaborative partnerships is that two heads are better than one when it comes to solving challenges. They are a great way to introduce your business to a new market, expand your business and referral networks and offer new products and services to your customers. Leveraging the strengths and abilities of others can also help fill your skill and capacity gaps so you can focus on what you do best.

While collaborative partnerships are an excellent way to grow your business, often the hardest part is developing them! Here’s our short guide on how to get started and make your collaborations effective so they work for you.

Assessing and measuring the success of your current marketing campaigns is one of the most important parts of your marketing strategy. By understanding what went well and what didn’t, you can make more informed decisions about where to put your efforts, resources and budget for future marketing campaigns.

Assessing your marketing results can be challenging if you don’t know what to look for. So, let’s start with 5 easy ways to review and evaluate your marketing. We recommend you aim to do this at least once a month.

We’ve all seen the small statuettes of the three wise monkeys, one covering his eyes who sees no evil, another his ears who hears no evil, and another his mouth who speaks no evil. But what has this to do with gaining testimonials?

The proverb has many associations with being of good mind, speech and action. Which is exactly what testimonials will do for your business. Testimonials prove that your business is reputable, that the good things people hear about your business are true and that you can do what you say you can do.

The three monkeys approach to gaining testimonials is simple and easy to remember - LOOK, LISTEN, ASK

You’ve succeeded in getting lots of leads, converting as many as possible into clients, and maximising the price of the initial sale. So far, so good! But there’s one more key step which is maximising the lifetime value of these customers.

The name of the game here is retention. Keeping your existing customers happy so they buy from you time and time again is critical for increasing profitable sales in any business. In fact, existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products and spend 31% more, on average, than new customers. Those are stats* that are hard to ignore!

So let’s get right into some easy ways to keep your customers happy and coming back for more. Here’s how with our top 7 tactics:

Marketing is all about making sure your business stands out from the rest. Over the holiday period, your mind will surely drift from thoughts about delicious food and keeping your tan even, to thoughts on how to promote your business and rise above the competition.

To help you and your business succeed, we have put together ten low-cost marketing tactics for you to consider over your break. They’ll help you connect with your customers and make the most of your marketing budget.