Posted by Jason Harling on Friday 9 January 2009
New Year, New Resolution
The start of every new year sees people making their resolutions to become better/ fitter/ happier in their lives, although sadly many of these have already been set aside hours let alone days after they have been made, without so much as a murmur of protest.
Here at breeze we are going to try to last a little longer than that, and so our resolution this year is to ensure our clients and associates become better informed in their marketing activities, ensuring they are as effective as possible. To that end, we have spent the Christmas and New Year period planning various topics and areas that we are interested in, and researching them as much as possible to ensure we have the most up to date advice and information available. Keep checking back over the next few weeks to see our latest resources so that our efforts will not be wasted!
Now that we have all settled in to 2009, I have had quite a few conversations with people about the year ahead, and unsurprisingly have found great concern about the impact of the economic downturn on their businesses and jobs. The need to maintain awareness of your brand and message out in the market amid the financial pressures that come as a result of a slowing down of business remains as challenging as ever. However, I do continue to remind these people that there are potentially still huge untapped resources in their business that could well provide the momentum they are looking for, in a cost effective way. Too often, I still hear of internal opportunities to drive marketing activity that are not yet being exploited, and yet for a small investment, they could provide the most efficient use of marketing time and effort. People are often still blinded by the association of marketing to advertising, and assume that large budgets are always required to make a difference. That simply isn't true.
I have also this week met with two companies who are interested in using digital marketing to raise their profiles. Sadly, despite both companies investing in their websites (one last year, one in mid-project), there is every chance I will have to explain that I cannot add value to these companies with any recommendations of activity until their websites are built correctly. One of these companies' websites is in fact invisible to the search engines to all intents and purposes. I am saddened by the fact that there are still so many people providing web development services who have so little understanding of the internet, and how to take advantage of it.
Ah well. Bring on 2009.