It doesn’t take an enormous amount of effort to be proactive with your online and offline marketing. Something as simple as sending an e-mail out every week, every month or even every couple of months, can help to keep your business in the minds of your existing and potential customers.
Probably the simplest and most popular example of this (that’s become a viral phenomenon) are ‘Wordless Wednesdays’. The idea is that a photo is published, e-mailed or tweeted every Wednesday with no accompanying explanation. The photo (if selected or edited appropriately) will convey the intended message in a simple and visual way.
Own Your Own Theme
This is just an example. You can adopt this idea, or create your own theme. Perhaps posting a video every ‘Media Monday’ would be your thing. An excellent case in point is the regular ‘Furniture Fridays’ e-mail I receive every week, without fail, from one of our clients, The Contract Chair Company.
The idea is simple to execute, consistent and effective. Every Friday the marketing team uses Mailchimp to send out a visual e-mail to subscribers that showcases one product from their extensive range of furniture. This might contain a offer, an insight, a tip or just an image of a beautiful piece of designer furniture. What really works is that it arrives every single Friday. Friday is a good choice, as it’s at the end of the week, so the pleasant anticipation of the forthcoming weekend is transferred to The Contract Chair Company with the timely arrival of the Furniture Friday e-mail – “Oh yes – it’s Friday. Excellent”.
Scheduling content
Even better, by using a platform like Mailchimp, you can schedule campaign e-mails in advance, so you can prepare several weeks’ worth of e-mails in one morning.
Scheduling Wordless Wednesdays in Mailchimp
Another scheduling platform that we use regularly is Buffer. This allows you to connect a Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn account, all of which receive customised content from you at regular intervals. You select the time of day when you want Buffer to send content out (and the day of the week – such as Wordless Wednesday…). All you need to do then is keep the ‘buffer’ topped up. If you’re browsing a web page that you want to share, you select the Buffer Bookmark and it automatically adds a link and excerpt of the page to the queue. Better yet, the standard version of Buffer is completely free.
Buffering Content
Buffered Content
What Will Work For You?
We’re as guilty as anyone when it comes to neglecting our own marketing. We get so buried in our client’s design work (which is the way it should be) that we rarely get around to working on any of our own. I mean, if you’re busy, why do you need to spend time on marketing? Our answer is that there’ll be times when you’re busy and times when you’re not. If you’ve managed to educate people about your business by being proactive during busy periods, then the down times will be shorter and the busy times longer.
The proof? The fact that you’ve read this post is due to the fact that we made our own New Year’s Resolution this year – that we’d write more (hopefully) useful content for our studio blog. We hope that it’s doing its job.
If you accept the fact that you need to start regularly reaching out to potential clients, then all you have to do is find a method that works for you. Whether this is a regular e-mail campaign, a couple of hours keeping your Facebook Page Fans up to date, or just sending the occasional tweet (you can schedule direct from Twitter now as well), once you get into the habit, you’ll find that people will remember you. And hopefully pick up the phone now and then.
Article by Nick Beresford-Davies, Director of Tinstar Design Ltd
