Brightfire

Content marketing is a new and emerging marketing strategy that is quickly becoming a major consideration to be included in a companies online marketing toolkit as the traditional methods of marketing become less efficient and so more costly.

The web allows companies and brands to showcase their expertise and (continue reading…)

Since 2008 Ford has put in place a Social Media strategy including multiple Social Media channels.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Flickr

They claim their “Jewel in the Crown” is the Ford Fiesta Movement that involved selecting 100 socially vibrant individuals who were provided with the European version of the Ford Fiesta 18 months prior to it being manufactured and released in the USA. These socially media aware fanatics were encouraged to share their experience with the Ford Fiesta over the 6 months on their Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube channels.

What were the strategies that Ford implemented to create viral awareness without one dollar of traditional marketing spend? (continue reading…)

Anyone engaged in sales and marketing activity will have made many cold calls in their time. But for us at Brightfire the number of cold calls we make and expenditure on mass media marketing have reduced dramatically in the past,  yet sales have increased and business is much more interesting. Couldn’t you find a better use of your time and money?  Think of how your life day-to-day sales routine could change if you were calling only prospects who you know actually want to buy from you. At Brightfire we know that many firms still – despite all the media noise and hype out there – have not realised it’s a digital world and the old rules have been thrown out the window.

So how would you optimise the online presence of your business  to drive inbound enquiry for new customers and not have to cold call again or buy expensive mass media? Here are a number of strategic considerations to drive traffic to your ecommerce  website, enquiries to your email inbox and make your phone start ringing: (continue reading…)

An interesting commentary from Paul Greenberg in CRM:

Marketing is the art and science of getting the attention of a prospective customer and keeping it until she buys something; sales is the art and science of getting that customer to make the purchase. While the disciplines remain distinct, the two need to work as a coherent team to accomplish the objectives of a 21st-century organization. That means they need a unified vision, and their efforts need to be coordinated as if driven by the same (continue reading…)

It’s pretty common. A small business owner comes to us looking for help promoting his or her business. We suggest using Twitter as a way to find new leads, build relationships and as an overall way to cost effectively market their business. The small business owner then turns around, tilts their head and responds, “Twitter? What can Twitter do for me?”

Well, We’ll tell you. Below are 80 ways a small business owner can use Twitter to build and market their business.

Build Credibility

1. Answer common customer questions
2. Share insight and opinion
3. Pass on interesting links/posts
4. Tweet links showing your company featured on other Web sites or mainstream media
5. Tweet often to keep your brand in customer’s top of mind
6. Share high quality content that is relevant to your customers needs
7. Share information about your organization that customers, colleagues and others may be interested to know
8. Promote competitors when they deserve it
9. Tweet links to Slideshare presentations or videos of speaking engagements.
10. Promote upcoming speaking engagements
11. Mention awards you’ve won or accreditations you’ve earned
12. Be the one to break the news in your industry
13. Livetweet events

(continue reading…)