With strong economic growth forecasts and a new year ahead, start to plan your future now. You only live once, and you deserve to lead the life you've always dreamed of! (I know this sounds a bit tacky, but I mean it!)

Have a look a the Time Management matrix below. Before reading on, decide where you spend most of your time.

Now let's have a look at...

Where do typical small businesses spend most of their time?

Check out the quadrant below - they spend most of their time in the "Urgent / Not important Quadrant. Interuptions, mail, urgent matters, phone calls etc. Do you relate?

Now read on below this diagram...

Where high performance businesses spend most of their time (see below).
As you can see, they spend a large part of their time planning, preparing, relationship building, but also 'true recreation', doing the things you really want to do and are important to you. Isn't that what life is all about?

The reason most people spend a lot of time in the Urgent/Not important quadrant is that they've never learned to plan consistently.

Well, here's the good news: even if you're a small business and you have to be a 'jack of all trades', you can still learn the skills to grow your business you want to have, and lead the life you've always dreamed of.

It's not rocket science, but if you feel you need help, we are EXTREMELY excited to have developed our BEST programme ever.

The first one we're running is for Tourism Businesses and we'd like to invite you to join us (Note: up to 50% New Zealand Trade & Enterprise funding is available.)

Download the flyer below and don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions!

Till next week, Marijke

Did you know that women influence 90% of all travel decisions  - and close to 90% of all consumer buying decisions as well… (the guys reading this will probably nod…)

Girls like to shop, that’s no secret. We also think differently than men and make buying decisions in different ways men do.

A few things to remember:

Human connections are the key to attracting women to your product or service. They communicate to forge relationships based on mutual values and interests. Avoid over-automation (i.e. forms etc), focus on one-on-one experiences and facilitate story telling.

Women like detailed information to absorb & digest. Women use smart shopping skills and do a lot of research before buying. The pre-purchase process is much more important to women than it is to men. Create a culture committed to helping customers determine the best choice, not the quickest sale.

Women also comparison shop. They gather data through reading and research, and compare your product against competitors.
Women set priorities according to the needs of those most dear to them, so identify ways they can support family members with purchases.


Ask yourself:

Is your marketing meeting those needs?
Does your website provide enough detailed information? Does it encourage your customers to communicate with you?
Does it say anything about the people working in the business?
If not, do something about it!

Have a great week, Marijke

Do you send out email campaigns or email newsletters?
I found this cool infographic online and thought you might find some interesting facts in it!
Take note of the things that apply to you and use them next time you're sending out an email campaign!
Till next week, Marijke

PS: I'm looking for a black Labrador puppy (female): if you know if any litters, let me know!: [email protected]

When you spend money on advertising, whether online or offline, you want to make sure you get a return on investment.

So, how do you know your adverts are working? It’s easy: you have to build in ‘something’ that allows you to measure it!

More and more businesses are spending money on online advertising. The great thing is that it is very measurable! If you look at your referrals through Google Analytics, you can see exactly what websites sent you traffic. 
 
Measuring the return for of offline marketing activities (such as print advert in magazines and newspapers, direct mail etc.) can seem difficult.

Here is a tip that will make it easier to measure the
effectiveness of your ads.

ALWAYS have a call to action. The easiest is to direct people to your website. 
 
Don’t just send people to your homepage, as you can’t track the marketing activity that way.

Of course, if you have a short term campaign and you see a spike in direct traffic to your homepage that day, you can estimate the impact of that ad. But if you’re running multiple
campaigns, you can’t give credit to each individual ad.

So, how do you solve this?

All you need to do is get people to go to a specific landing page instead of your homepage. For example: http://www.marketingwhizz.com/spring-special.html

By creating a special page, you can see exactly how many people are coming to your site because of that ad. 

But, you have to give them an incentive to go to that page otherwise they may just search your brand name online. Nothing works better than some sort of special that isn’t offered anywhere else.

You'll now be able to see how many people are coming to your site because of your ad. 

Keep track of what works and what doesn’t so you can make an informed decision the next time you advertise in that publication!

Till next week,
Marijke