Thinking of changing agency? Or maybe you’re hiring some marketing help for the first time. Whether it’s a PR, marketing, digital, DM or any other kind of agency, we thought we’d share our 8 tips for picking a winner:

1. Decide what you need. Before you can evaluate whether an agency can help you, you need to be clear what skills and activities you want them to provide. Think about how you would like to work with them, how you want to communicate, what activities you’re hoping to set up and how much input you need from your agency in planning and coming up with ideas and suggestions for campaigns
2. Come up with a shortlist. There are so many consultancies out there, and plenty who claim to do it all. How do you sort out the most promising for you? A good place to start is with recommendations from people you trust and reviews or contributions in reliable industry media
3. Keep hold of inbound contacts. You’re probably emailed and sent information by agencies all the time. When you’re thinking of working with someone new, you might just find the perfect candidate in your junk mail. If they’re good, they should have targeted you because they think their skills might be relevant to you
4. Take a look at their shop window. Check out their client work (most agencies have case studies on their websites) and make sure it’s recent. See if you can find evidence that they practise what they preach: for instance, if they’re mobile marketing specialists, do they have their own mobile-optimised site?
5. Make the most of what they offer. For a smaller business, an agency with a breadth of experience and skill across several marketing disciplines could be a good bet. Even if you’re only looking for help in one specific area at the moment – such as SEO – you’ll almost certainly undertake other marketing work in the future. If you’ve already developed a good relationship and shared understanding, you won’t have to waste time briefing strangers. Plus a multi-disciplined agency can sometimes act as a marketing department or manager for you, if you don’t have the in-house resources to devote to a campaign
6. Look for a balance of innovative thinking, strong implementation skills and commercial-mindedness. To differentiate your business, your agency needs to come up with effective and distinctive ideas for your business that will deliver measurable results, and put them in place efficiently and quickly
7. Trust your instincts. If you feel comfortable and you have the sense that the key people think in a similar way to you and understand what you’re trying to achieve, you’ll inspire each other and enjoy every aspect of developing successful marketing campaigns
8. Give them a try. Start with a small brief and see how it goes. Don’t commit to a major project or large retainer until you’ve seen for yourself that your agency is capable of doing what they promised, and working in a way that fits with your business approach. The best time to hire a new agency is a little while before you want to kick off your big project – that way you’ve had chance to work with them on something lower risk and check that you’ve made a good choice.

With last month’s sell-out of Apple’s iPhone 4 on launch day, it’s clear that the mobile market is thriving, led both by the ever-present hype and some genuinely amazing technology. Do you know anyone who doesn’t have and use a mobile of some kind?

It’s marketing gold dust – a device that, for the majority of users, is at their side or in their pocket for all their waking hours. But using mobile marketing effectively isn’t easy. Many organisations, while highly focused on online marketing and exploring the possibilities of social media, have shied away from mobile-specific campaigns and sites.

Give it some thought though. Even the simple first step of creating a mobile-optimised version of your website could pay dividends. When your customers are out and about and need information about your services or products, or perhaps want to share them with colleagues and associates, where do they look? When they head for your standard website using their iPhone, BlackBerry or other web-enabled handheld, do you know what experience they’ll have? If your standard site doesn’t adapt well to the smaller screen and variable speeds of mobile data streaming, you could be turning happy customers into frustrated ones just like that.

With a mobile version of your website, you’ll be a step ahead of the competition already. If you provide useful information that customers are likely to want to access in real time, your site is a great candidate to be bookmarked on customers’ mobiles – making it easy for them to return to you again and again. If you sell through your website, can you make it easy for customers to buy from you using their mobiles? The simpler it is, the more likely they are to stay loyal. With so few really good mobile site versions around so far, particularly those with shopping cart technology, just giving customers the capability to buy online over mobile is a differentiator that could drive extra business through your door.

From a mobile version of your website, you could take the next step and look at other mobile marketing campaigns. With GPS and satellite positioning standard on many mobile devices, you can generate advice, vouchers or other information that’s timely and specifically relevant to the mobile user’s location. You can send out alerts, competitions or offers exclusively to your customers or prospects. And you can link to more information on your mobile website, and tie in with social media too.

Of course, mobile devices are seen as highly personal. Just as consumers are infuriated by cold calling on private home numbers, mobile phone users are very sensitive to intrusion on their number. If you push out information to mobiles, it needs to be information that users will definitely value, enhancing your brand and reputation rather than condemning them as the source of “unsolicited marketing”.

There’s a major challenge for marketers in brevity, too. On the small mobile screen, a few words are all you have, so each one needs to count. The possibilities of video and audio are there – but whether you’re communicating to businesses or consumers, you have to be sure they won’t dismiss your campaign as gimmicky and miss the key message.

For all these reasons, it makes sense to seek expert help with planning a mobile marketing strategy that’s likely to deliver a return on investment. A mobile marketing specialist should be able to recommend, plan and implement applications, mobile sites and campaigns which strengthen customer loyalty by offering genuinely valuable information and functions.

We’ve been developing our expertise in this area for some time now, keeping pace with new capabilities and techniques. But your mobile marketing doesn’t have to be complex. Have a look at the mobile version of our website www.breathe4u.mobi on your phone or handheld. It’s very simple, quick to load, easy to scan through, and – most importantly – it only takes a key-tap to phone us directly from our contact number on-screen.

Whether you’re thinking about taking the first steps into mobile marketing or if you have more sophisticated ideas, we’d love to have a chat. We can help you work out what mobile marketing activities could generate business and reinforce loyalty, and we can call on our content services partners if customised apps or special functions look like a good choice for your business.

Our blog is all about giving you food for thought – ideas and opinions which might come in handy when you’re putting together a new campaign or proposal, or when you’re casting about for some inspiration to impress the boss or to move up a gear with a new marketing programme. We keep our posts focused and waffle-free, so it’s a quick hit of our latest, original marketing thoughts and ideas. Some of it may be old hat to you, but some topics might just get you thinking.

Take campaign timings. Depending on your messages and targets, working around popular holidays, quiet periods and political, economic, social events or sporting occasions can make a big difference to the amount of time and attention people have for your comms.

Yes, lots of people are out of the office in the school holidays or over Christmas. But on the other hand, when it’s quiet in August, workers who are in the office can have more time to look at their mail and inboxes, and be more open to new ideas or trying out new suppliers.

When Budget Day’s approaching, or the financial year-end, many business and consumer minds turn to cost-saving. Without even mentioning the B-word, you can tap into the zeitgeist by pushing your discounts, deals or special rates.

Taking a more obvious tack, tying in with dates and events can help liven up your day-to-day sales and marketing messages and give them some human interest. You can give people something to think about or amuse them as well as plugging your stuff.

In a light-hearted mood, you can go all out for the crazy and random “It’s national shorts-wearing day, so we’ve got legs on our minds…” to raise a smile. Or you can take a tongue-in-cheek, subversive approach: “Had enough of Valentine’s Day? The new accounting rules are a good antidote to hearts and flowers this week.”

If you’re using online or social media, funny or ironic links like these can work really well. In print you need to make sure you use a light touch, so you raise a smile not a groan or cringe. Run everything past colleagues or trusted friends to make sure your sense of humour works for other people too!

Of course the biggest holidays and festivals mean a flood of marketing communications from everyone, so there’s a risk of yours being drowned out. Have a good think about less obvious dates and events to use, so you’ll have the biggest chance of catching your audience’s attention. You could work up campaigns around small competitions, quizzes or offers that use the hook of dates, seasons or events like midsummer’s day, pancake day, election day, or the music festival or party conference seasons.

If you send out newsletters or bulletins, try including a topical section or theming it round current dates and events. That tells your readers that you have something new to say and are all about the real world… even if you do basically want to make more or less the same basic points every time. A different angle each month reinforces your key messages and keeps them interesting.

We’re building up our own event calendar here at Breathe, to use in our client work. It includes classic, unusual, fun and serious events. If you’d like a weekly reminder of potentially interesting dates that could give your marketing and communications a topical edge, please click this link to sign up for our dates reminder.

But what does that mean for your business? Maybe you’re on facebook or twitter yourself, or you’re an early adopter of Google Wave. Chances are though that it’s all about your social and personal life. It’s a good idea to keep business and pleasure separate, for both your privacy and professionalism.

It’s pretty easy to set up a twitter account or facebook page for your company, to post youtube video clips, contribute to or set up discussion boards and run a blog. The hard part is finding ways for them to help your business grow. The whole point of social media is that it’s immediate and up to date, so if you’re not regularly adding content and info, or commenting on current issues, you’re not likely to achieve much.

The trick is to treat these media like any other channel. Get over that feeling that they’re gimmicks, or for teenagers. The research tells a different story. The average age of twitter and facebook users tends to be late 30s. These days, most consumers and professionals are technology savvy to some degree and share the expectation of having info right at their fingertips whenever they want it, and being able to get in touch in the most convenient way at that moment.

So, don’t skimp on skill or planning. Handling your social media is like any campaign: you need to keep your key messages in mind and have interesting angles and approaches to attract attention. Come up with topics to tweet about so you have something new to focus on each day or week, have a programme of info, pictures and updates for your facebook page, and get input from all around your business – from the MD to product developers. It’s all about building and cementing your reputation and brand: showing that you’re knowledgeable and up to speed with key topics, being responsive to customers and building up goodwill with current and future customers.

Running competitions or giveaways through social media is a great way to attract new fans and followers. Offer a bottle of champagne to the writer of the best caption on a picture, ask for tips in an area of expertise. If there’s an incentive, however small, your followers are more likely to let their associates know about you, so you’ll gain more interest. Make sure you can handle a large response if you do this – take-up rates are not as predictable in social media, and sometimes things can take off in a way you’d never have expected.

Seek views as well as pushing out your own. You can learn about new developments, hear how customers react to your products and take the opportunity to correct misconceptions or turn dissatisfied customers around. On twitter, set up searches so you’ll know whenever your business or product is mentioned, so you can respond to or join in with relevant discussions. Find out about any discussion boards or forums that your customers and suppliers use and contribute helpfully to queries and debates.

Here’s a summary of our top tips:

• Set up one or more twitter accounts for your business separately from any personal twitter activity
• Keep a steady but useful flow of comments and info going out through your social media
• Add interest and currency to your website with feeds of your business tweets or status updates
• Seek input as well as putting out your messages – you are part of a community and the communication is two way
• Competitions and freebies are a great way to attract followers and fans
• Keep an eye out for the next big thing, social media-wise

Internet Explorer has never really interpreted web standards as other browsers do, there is always something in doesn’t do quite as the others, some small spanner always gets chucked in the works for good measure. IE has struggled for sometime to keep up with the other browsers. In fact IE 6 is has inspired several web campaigns to phase it out see the BBC website. They are all better than IE at web standards, rendering speed and quicker at releasing updates. Explorer is fast becoming the unpopular nerdy boy in the corner, whose idea of cutting edge style and fashion standards seems to come from its mum, bless it.

But what about IE9? I hear you all ask. Well….I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Development of this browser is still in its very early stages but Microsoft has already released some details.

HTML 5…
…Microsoft says that it will interpret HTML 5 responsibly. I suspect this means it will pick and choose which features to support and we will find ourselves in the same boat as previous versions of Explorer. Struggling to get it to render web standards properly.

Javascript…
…they are trying to catch up to the other browsers speed wise, and Microsoft say that IE9 will achieve this. But by the time they release it the other browsers may have moved on.

CSS..
…will be much improved, including rounded corner support which will make web designers lives much more bearable and open the web up to improved site designs all round (excuse the pun). Other browsers have been supporting CSS styles and rounded corners for sometime now, which makes IE seem like the slow second cousin.

Hardware Acceleration…
…Explorer does seem to have its act together here it will use Direct X hardware acceleration which will speed up graphic rendering and interpretation of AJAX.

I really hope IE9 will catch up or even surpass other browsers in its speed and standards support as I think this will be better for all of us, leading to better looking, faster websites and help the internet become all that it possibly can. I really hope it does, as another disappointing appearance from IE just might be the end for it. Browser statistics in December 09 show IE8 at 13.5%, IE7 at 12.8%, IE6 at 10.9%, Firefox at 46.4%, Chrome at 9.8%, Safari at 3.6% and Opera at 2.3%. With this growing trend in a few years IE may no longer exist.

The New Year is almost upon us and now is a great time to make sure your brand and marketing are in good shape for the year ahead. Here are a few pointers to help you.

Test, test, test!

If you aren’t already fanatical about testing your marketing campaigns before rolling out en masse then make testing your New Year’s resolution as it will save you money and make your campaigns more effective.

Make sure your brand shapes up

Carry out a brand audit to make sure your brand is being used consistently and accurately and reflects your brand promise. Check out your competitors to make sure your brand still stands out from the crowd.

Maximise the impact of your communications

Use a multi-channel and integrated approach to your marketing communications to get more bang for your bucks in 2010. Try out a new marketing channel every month and remember don’t forget to test first! With everybody going digital in 2009 there are opportunities in printed media for 2010 as it has become a less crowded space.

Make creativity your best friend

Be creative and innovative in your marketing to create and underline your point of difference to generate more sales and marketing opportunities. Don’t keep churning out the same stuff – dare to be different!

Be aware of how Google’s major indexing update will affect your website traffic

Responding to increased competition from Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, Google are about to launch a major update that will affect the search visibility of your website. Search is moving into real-time social media: Being able to get info on breaking events is clearly a priority for Google and Bing, with both Twitter and Facebook launching real-time search engines, they needed to respond.

Review your website

Make sure your website and blog are up-to-date and are still relevant, fresh and inspiring. Are there areas that could be improved or changes that you have been putting off due to budgetary constraints. Now may be the time to invest to get these things fixed. Remember Google loves the sites that are kept bang up-to-date. Don’t give your customers a reason to click off your site and click on your competitors.

Respond promptly on your social media networks

Monitor your social networks constantly and respond promptly to your customers comments especially when the comment could be damaging. If you wait too long to respond people will speculate and come to their own conclusions as Tiger Woods recently found out. Timely and appropriate responses can often turn an angry customer into an advocate for your business.

I hope you have found these tips useful and if you have any other tips you would like to share with our blog readers please leave a comment below.

Web 2.0 and particularly Social Media are hot topics at the moment and we are finding clients are asking us how they can use it to enhance their marketing. So we thought we would put together a short overview along with some useful tips for implementing in your business.

Let us first define Web 2.0 – ‘Web 2.0 refers to a second generation of web development and design which facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications such as social networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashup and folksonomies.’ (Definition by Wikipedia, itself part of Web 2.0)

Social Media

The term social media covers media which is created by people in text, audio and video formats and is shared and distributed over the web. The most well known and well used are:

Blogs
You are on a blog now! Came from the term web log and is a publishing website that provides commentary and news on particular subjects and visitors can leave comments. Click for more information on business blogs.

Podcasts
Podcasts are audio broadcasts that can be created and shared online often on a blog or web site.

Video Blogs
As you might expect these are blogs that have video posts instead of written content. Like a written blog visitors are encouraged to leave their comments about the ‘vlog.’

RSS
Short for Really Simple Syndication, RSS is a web feed format that when visitors subscribe they will be automatically informed of updates to a web site or blog

Social Networks

There are hundreds of social networks out there on the web, in fact I have unearthed many I hadn’t heard of before whilst carrying out my research for this article. The most well known and well used are:

Facebook
Very popular social networking site and the 5th most trafficked site worldwide with 60 plus million users. The majority of users are under the age of 25 but its fastest growing demographic are those that admit to being over 25. You can create a profile for yourself and/or your business and share personal and business information.

MySpace
The largest membership of any social networking site currently with over 300 million members ranging across a wide spectrum of ages. MySpace isn’t viewed as a “professional” social network such as members do with LinkedIn or, to a lesser extent, Facebook.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is aimed at the business professional who want to network with other professionals and with possible employers and has over 43 million members in over 200 countries.

Ning
Ning offers an easy-to-use technology platform that lets you quickly and easily create your own social network. This site is growing fast with over 1.3 million Ning social networks created and more than 30 million registered members.

Other Social Networking Sites
The networks already mentioned draw on members from all social backgrounds but there are some sites that focus on a specific audience eg Hi5 is popular among Latin Americans and BlackPlanet focuses on African Americans.

Collaborative and Community Tools

Collaborative and community tools allow your customers and partners to create content with you. They are excellent ways to establish and share knowledge and can help strengthen communication between all parties.

Wikis
Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites, to power community websites and collect information from a large group of people. Wikipedia uses wikes to create its entries.

Forums
An internet forum or message board is an online discussion site and is the online equivalent of a traditional bulletin board. A forum allows members to initiate and participate in online conversations.

E-Commerce/Rating sites
A great example of this is www.amazon.com where you can buy products and you are encouraged to write reviews of the product. E-commerce sites can be effectively used in conjunction with other social media such as blogs and Facebook profiles.

Micro Media Formats

This is emerging technology and micro media formats are small “bite-sized” pieces of information that can be created and shared on your social media site, or in your social networking profile

Widgets
Widgets are codes that you add to a Web site, blog or social networking profile that pull information or media from another source and redisplay it on your blog, Take a look at Breathe’s blog where we use a widget to pull in the latest marketing news

Micro-Blogging
Micro-Blog’s allow you to send others short messages and links and can be used via your mobile phone. Twitter is the most popular micro-blogging service and enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers.

What can Web 2.0 and Social Media do for your business?

Connect and forge relationships with your customer

Social media provides a unique opportunity for you to listen one to one with your customers and create true dialogue. Find out what they are thinking and saying about your brand and engage in that discussion.

Build awareness and reach

The enormous reach of social media will substantially increase awareness of your business and its products and services.

Target distinct markets and demographic groups

The trick is to create awareness where your customers are online by carefully segmenting and aligning with the social channel that they use.

Test market your ideas

Use Web 2.0 and social networks to test market your ideas and gain valuable one to one feedback directly with your customers.

Manage your reputation online

You can use social networks to manage your reputation online but beware it is very important to be completely transparent and honest in your communications.

Some useful tips

• Don’t launch straight into Web 2.0
• Research and understand the differences between each channel
• Investigate the demographics of each social channel
• Create a strategy with goals and objectives
• Allocate enough time and resource
• Make your content engaging and encourage feedback don’t just regurgitate your sales messages

Have you used Web 2.0 and social media successfully? Please post a comment and share this information with our blog visitors.

• Be sure of exactly what you want to say. Clarity of thought aids clarity of writing.
• Think of who is going to read the copy. Picture a person holding the written item and reading it. Imagine where they will be sitting and how they will be holding the item.
• Consider why the person will read this copy. Remember that they know nothing about you and may know little or nothing about your product or service. What advantage will they gain from reading what you have to say?
• Think of your key message. What is the single most important idea you want to convey to this person?
• Think of the key supporting messages. Present these in order of importance after you have presented the key message.
• Consider your corporate style and identity. How does your message fit within this framework? How can you take advantage of your key corporate messages to support your own messages?
• Be concise and direct in your writing. This will be helped by clarity of thought. Use shorter sentences and paragraphs of two or three sentences. Try to convey one message within one paragraph.
• Use headlines and subheadings to convey your key messages quickly. Many people skim through commercial literature, reading only headlines and subheads. Call-out selected sentences/quotes that emphasise your key messages.
• Use jargon only when appropriate. Unless you are writing for people who will actually understand and appreciate the use of jargon, avoid it altogether. This is where a clear picture of your audience is essential.
• Write in the way you would speak to someone. When you have finished, read your copy aloud. If it does not read smoothly and conversationally, amend it until it does.

As a result, the look and feel of collateral that carries the Brand is also important, because customers judge every interaction with your company against the promise, or expectation, that the Brand offers them and they will decide very quickly whether your business lives up to its promise or not.

Successful Brands stand for something – the something is the special quality that differentiates your business from everyone else in your business space.  Weak Brands deliver little or no meaning or differentiation.

When building your business, start by understanding the value you are offering to your customers, together with what makes your offering different to everybody else’s; and use that as the starting point for developing your Brand.

Two secrets to Brand success:

1. Ensure your Brand gets your special message across at every customer interaction
2. Live up to your Brand message

If you can do those two things – you will have loyal and happy customers – and we all know what that means!  A successful business!

(Article kindly provided by Andrew Dugdale – Director of Sales Assessment.com)

The Sales Assessment Branding and collateral were designed by Breathe Marketing.

Find out more about Breathe on branding.