Are you ready for 2013?

2012 was a fantastic year.  Have a look at some of the businesses we have worked with throughout the year.

   

Marketing your small business just like the big ones!

For large and small businesses, the festive seasons and key celebrations are perfect opportunities for a large proportion of businesses to increase sales.

With decorations streaming the high street, shop window and office blocks; retailers and businesses all over the country (UK) are enticing and communicating their products, services and offers to customers.

We are all being encouraged to buy pressies for our loved ones, our colleagues and our clients.

Prior to the mass use of social media, small businesses were relatively restricted in ways to promote their products and services at cost effective prices.  However, today with a little planning and small budgets, ALL small businesses can implement really simple seasonal campaigns which can be as easily impactful as any large corporation.

Customisation and presentation is key.  Here are some tips to help you catch the eyes of your customers and increase your sales.

1. Create a promotion
2. Create eye-catching marketing tools
3. Prepare your campaign
4. Spread the word through:
   1. Social media
   2. PR
   3. Advertising

Testimony of past events

The volt of personal life experiences contains memories that in the past could only be shared around the dinner table or in boardrooms.

However, the beauty of modern marketing resources allows companies to make these experiences far more accessible internationally – (We say international because our stats show that our readers are from across the world).

KOBM is the geek of Arts and Culture and so much of our inspiration comes from that sector.  So we would like to share a story with you of an event we organised right at the beginning of KOBM’s life in 2005.

One of our clients (let’s call them Ideal) wanted to organise a corporate event for their clients.  The budget was reasonable and the time scale fair.

KOBM brainstormed a great number of ideas, but the one agreed upon was cultural experiences.  This was because Ideal’s client had announced that they were considering international offices, so we thought we would give them a cultural experience from one of their key territories.

From the beginning we knew we wanted to take Ideal’s clients through a journey, – everything from the invitations to the goodies they were going through the journey.

At that time the show Bombay Dreams were the most sought after tickets in town.

so we secured over 30 tickets and created a VIP area where we served Asian nibbles and cocktails before the show.

After the show was finished we chauffeured them to a private 5 course meal by a Michelin star chef and enjoyed the night.

However, we wanted to add ‘additional spice’ to the occasion.  So whilst we researched and organised the event, one of our team had a ‘Working Girl’ moment and read an article in one of the free London Magazines about a new business called ‘Arji Bhaji’.

‘Arji Bhaji’ provided beautifully packed spices and chutneys.  So we contacted them and ordered over 180 items, from which we created bespoke hampers for each of the guests.  These hampers were then delivered to the client’s desks the next morning.

So what happened to the relationship with the client?

Well their contract was renewed for a further 5 years which was worth £1.5m to Ideal.

In direct response to the campaign Ideal’s clients were so happy that they sent numerous thank you messages and one  of the Directors even thanked the CEO for such a great night.  Neither the CEO nor the Director was in attendance.

Marketing is about your consumer. Fact!

At Kind of Blue Media we believe in working smart. We appreciate results and enjoy seeing our clients happy.

Here are a few things we have learnt along the way.

1. Learn the ways your consumer absorbs information and create engaging content to reach their touch points. Make your content attractive so that they respond to you in the way in which you would like.
2. Remember PR is more than just a press release, it is also Public Relations and how you relate to your public.
3. When writing a press release, remember the objective is to write something the editors will find attractive for their readers.
4. Be patient with your consumer.  It is highly unlikely you are the only one that does what you do.  Your consumer is likely to be bombarded with 100s of choices. So repeatedly remind your consumer about who you are and what you do by connecting with as many of their touch-points as possible.
5. Go back to point 1 and put it in a Marketing Plan!

You HEAR but do you LISTEN?

Often it is the simple things that make the greatest impact.  Like LISTENING to what people have to say.

I was in a store and heard a customer discussing with the shop owner about his attitude towards an enquiry she made abut a particular product.

She said ‘Listen young man, I am a mother and a grown woman many years your senior.  All I was asking you to do, is call another store and find out if they had the item in stock.’

They retail assistant smiled and ‘sweetly’ said ‘But we don’t do that.  They are TOO busy’.

Well, the lady left the store and vowed to never return.  It is transparent for all of you who read this and care about your customers; that she was just asking for a little care, attention and to respect her request as a valid one.

There are many businesses that have fallen by the wayside due to bad customer service and not listening to their customers.

Here are a few tips to help busy businesses adopt better customer service.

• Take ownership of peoples queries as if it is your own.  Never say it is not my problem or it is not my department.  If, it is not your department, just let the customer know your name and say you will find the appropriate person to help them. You can implement this same strategy over Facebook and Twitter. It really reflects well on your company.

•  Under-promise and over-deliver.  If the problem you have requires a response out of your control, even when it is in your control. If you believe it can be achieved in 24 hours, offer a reply within 36hours.  That way when you reply within 24 hours, it reflects positively on you and your business.

• Do something because it JUST MAKES SENSE.   Sometimes common sense can resolve a whole heap of problems.

The reason for contacting you….

Years gone by, before caller ID, I recall Elders always mentioning the fact, that there was a time when you picked up the telephone and heard a familiar voice and the first words to come to mind would be  ‘What do they want now?’

Before caller ID

The familiar voice on the other end would be one of woe, needing assistance or in a desperate state of affairs.

Today, when you look in your inbox and you scroll through your 100s of emails you receive, you will suddenly spot the name of a person you had not heard from in awhile.  Before reading the message, you know that they are asking you for something.  They are plugging their event, raising funds for a new scheme or cursing the world about how their failure is down to ‘our’ lack of support. (We all know people like that!)

Your business should be aware of its tone. Your business is an reflection of you.  So, bear in mind that Marketing  is not Sales – Marketing is about building relationships, communicating and engaging with people, letting them know you are there for them in your capacity.

No-one likes to feel like the unwanted email or the unwelcomed call, so occasionally just connect with people and say hello and let those around you remember you for your character.

It is the little touches!

When putting together an event, it is the little touches that make all the difference.  KOBM we love the little touches, because we know it is those things that people do not notice  integrated into the event, but would notice if absent.  

Recently, we organised the launch event for one of our newest clients and it was amazing how it was the little things that made the biggest impact.  It is the attention to detail, that ensured that the holistic experience for the guests was a positive one.

From the invitations to the goody bags guests received as they left.  People need to leave with a lasting, fond, emotional memory of you and your event.

Go to bed poor, wake up rich

Every night I go to bed in the hope that one or two things would happen. 

1. I would dream about how to make it. 
2. I would dream the lottery numbers. 

However, the main thing I would also always pray for is that my dreams would be inspiring and come up with a great concepts or idea to help me become the great success, I knew I was capable of becoming.

This log/blog is about openness and preparation.  It is about preparing yourself to going to bed poor, waking up rich the following morning. 

This log/blog provides you with tips and ideas I had and executed to ensure that I was maximising my talents and God given gifts to achieve ‘Spiritual, Emotional, Physical and Financial wealth’ and that is the thing.  Wealth is not just about the financial it is a holistic thing that combines the Spiritual, Emotional, Physical and Financial’.

1.  Go to bed prepared

Every night before going to bed there are always a few things that help me with the mindset of wealth creation and success.  I start by being prepared for wealth the following day.  So I have a number of things in mind.  1.  That great idea or dream will come to me in the night and it is my responsibility to remember it.  Therefore to remember it I have a notepad or paper and pen besides my bed each night.  I want to ensure that as soon as I am conscious or out of sleep mode, I can take advantage of my dream and night memories.

In addition, I always make a decision that whatever happens, I will physically get up and act on the message or dream I have received.  What I mean by that is simply, when you are wrapped up in your warm and comfortable bed, it is often difficult to drag yourself up and do what needs to be done to make your dreams become a reality.

A prime example of this is this blog.  I was very comfortable in my bed when this idea came up.  I knew immediately that it was more than just a note that I could jot down in my notepad, I had to get up and write it all out and that is what I did.

One of my many favourite stories is the tale of Samuel.  One night, when Samuel was a boy, he heard a voice calling. He thought it was the old priest Eli, but Eli said, “I didn’t call you; go back and lie down.” Samuel heard the call again, but Eli still said it wasn’t him. When Samuel heard it for the third time, Eli said, “It must be God. Go back and listen.” So Samuel went back, and God spoke.

Another example of bedtime preparation is the author of Twilight – Stephanie Meyers – From StephanieMeyer.com  I have extracted this segment .

 “I know the exact date that I began writing Twilight, because it was also the first day of swim lessons for my kids. So I can say with certainty that it all started on June 2, 2003. Up to this point, I had not written anything besides a few chapters (of other stories) that I never got very far on, and nothing at all since the birth of my first son, six years earlier.

I woke up (on that June 2nd) from a very vivid dream. In my dream, two people were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her immediately. For what is essentially a transcript of my dream, please see Chapter 13 (“Confessions”) of the book.

Though I had a million things to do (i.e. making breakfast for hungry children, dressing and changing the diapers of said children, finding the swimsuits that no one ever puts away in the right place, etc.), I stayed in bed, thinking about the dream. I was so intrigued by the nameless couple’s story that I hated the idea of forgetting it; it was the kind of dream that makes you want to call your friend and bore her with a detailed description. (Also, the vampire was just so darned good-looking, that I didn’t want to lose the mental image.) Unwillingly, I eventually got up and did the immediate necessities, and then put everything that I possibly could on the back burner and sat down at the computer to write—something I hadn’t done in so long that I wondered why I was bothering. But I didn’t want to lose the dream, so I typed out as much as I could remember, calling the characters “he” and “she.”

From that point on, not one day passed that I did not write something. On bad days, I would only type out a page or two; on good days, I would finish a chapter and then some. I mostly wrote at night, after the kids were asleep so that I could concentrate for longer than five minutes without being interrupted. I started from the scene in the meadow and wrote through to the end. Then I went back to the beginning and wrote until the pieces matched up. I drove the “golden spike” that connected them in late August, three months later.

It takes time to be prepared, but once you are, you’re certainly on your road to wealth creation.

Register with us at info@kindofbluemedia.co.uk and we will keep you updated with the next instalments.

What are you waiting for?

In 2005 when Kind of Blue Media was first founded, it originally started out as a production company with a marketing twist.  A few years later, it subsequently became 100%  marketing company. 

To make that transition to become a marketing company for the Arts and Culture sector was a massive decision.  7 years on and we are still riding the waves, working with great people and doing some fantastic things.

During the transition from a production to marketing company, many people advised us to close shop and get a 9 – 5.  Personally, it was not an option. Apart from the fact that we believe that to achieve great success, you need to take greater chances, most importantly it was an opportunity to carve out something unique for ourselves in this twisted world!

As we work and thrive we sometimes meet people who tell us about their missed opportunities.  In the words of the fabulous Beverly Knight ‘Shoulda, Woulda,  Coulda are the last words of a fool.’

People like people who try, seize opportunities and strive to be their best.  So it is a breath of fresh air when we work with our clients and we hear about their dreams and aspirations, but most importantly, it is great to hear from those that are putting their plans  into action.

So what are you waiting for? Grab your opportunities with both hands and enjoy the calculated risk.  The worse that could happen is that you have to restart again – and that is not that bad!

What do you mean by marketing?

 At KOBM, we work with so many clients that interpret the word marketing in so many different ways.  Some mean advertising, some mean (PR) – Public Relations (actually more specifically Press Release), some even think in regards of direct-mail as marketing.

Fit and Funky leaflet

Toulou Organics Launch Night

Combining literature with events

In fact all of the above and more are aspects of marketing.  However, instead of focusing on the tools of marketing, clients should concentrate on the real question of: what are the business and customer goals? What are you trying to achieve by letting the world know what you do?

KOBM has consulted and worked with clients in and outside of our core market of Arts and Culture.  we spend hours advising business owners and managers on the best ways for them to promote and publicise their business.  According to our clients, we have a real good knack of cutting through the bull and focusing on the point – the objectives of the business.

In our opinion, the only objective of ANY marketing company is achieving the client’s business and customer objectives using the most appropriate marketing tools available. 

So if you feel your core audience and client base respond best to directmail and Facebook, then that is what you use.  Large, businesses can be far more impactful using a wide cross section of marketing tools, because they can dedicate resources to make them work well.  However, smaller companies need to use their marketing hours far more profitably. 

Look at the tools you use to promote your business and services are you:

• Maintaining them appropriately
• Maximising its benefits
• Creating a consistent tone with the rest of your business identity

Welcome to KOBM’s world

Congratulations!  You have arrived to the Kind of Blue Media blog page, KOBM World!

Do you know the kind of things you will find here? 

Well, we will be speaking to the influential people in the Arts and Culture industry, people who run big organisations and have a say in those that get hired and fired.

We will be speaking to the people who coordinate/book or create the events that are aimed at entertaining, informing and developing audiences.

We will be reaching out to the audience – basically everyday people,  discussing  issues surrounding arts and culture and its importance in our society.

We hear it said and asked so many times – who is your audience?  9/10 the response is everyone.  Really are you sure?

Well we aim to find out.

So welcome to the Kind of Blue Media blog page we hope you have fun here!