Why is email marketing effective for businesses?

Email marketing is a valuable tool for any business, large or small. Studies show it’s one of the top ways of driving conversions, as well as being a great means of building your brand. Let’s take a closer look at why email marketing is so effective for businesses…

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Landing pages and automated newsletters – how a VA can help

Our West Yorkshire franchise has recently had a number of requests for support with landing pages and newsletter automation. Landing pages are great for increasing conversions, and newsletters are a great communication tool. Best of all, once your automation is set up, it’s easy for you, your team or your virtual assistant to run email marketing campaigns without having to start from scratch each time.

In this blog, we look more at landing pages and automated newsletters, and how virtual assistants can help you.

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What is a digital marketing strategy and why do you need one?

By Marie Peters, Regional Director for West Surrey

2020 has seen an increase in time spent on line by all age groups, with UK adults now spending over 4 hours a day online.

People are spending more time on social networks to connect with others as well as catch up on the news, whilst newspaper print sales plunged during lockdown. Consumers and businesses alike are always online and you need to be able to reach them there.  

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How to write a creative brief

If you’re new to outsourcing, you might not have written a brief before. The prospect of crystallising your business into a few sentences for a graphic designer, copywriter or other creative to work from may seem daunting. However, by staying focused, you can write a great brief that will translate into work that builds your brand.

Here are six questions to ask yourself as you’re writing your brief:

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5 unconventional marketing ideas for you to try

Unconventional marketing gets noticed. Most people hit “skip ad” on YouTube, but those same people might watch it to the end if it really caught their eye. That said, going completely over the top can be dangerous – it’s important to keep our marketing under control or we’ll end up promoting the mistake not the product. Fortunately, our marketing VAs know just how far to go. Here are five of their ideas that are unconventional enough to get noticed, and have solid business sense behind them as well.

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Build a photography style guide for your brand

Photography is a key tool for any business – you can use photographs on your website, marketing materials and social media. So does your brand’s photography have a distinct style? And if so, have you ever put it into a style guide? Perhaps you know what you like and you style your photographs accordingly, but if you ever need to brief somebody else or hire a photographer, having a formal style guide can be very useful. 

Fortunately, today is World Photography Day, so this is the perfect opportunity to build a style guide for your brand’s photography! If you’ve never written one before, here’s a short guide to get you started. 

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5 ways a virtual assistant can help you during lockdown

Virtual assistants can provide invaluable services to businesses at the best of times, and especially so right now, when many people need extra support to keep their businesses running smoothly during lockdown. Remote, flexible working is the comfort zone of the virtual assistant, and that’s why we’re well placed to help you adapt to these extraordinary circumstances. Want to know more? Here are 5 key ways a virtual assistant can help you during lockdown.

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Continuity, reassurance and value for money – why savvy business owners repurpose their content

A little while ago, we were invited to a celebration lunch with one of our clients. During the lunch, the company’s marketing manager told us she had been approached by the Sunday Telegraph who wanted to do a piece about them. The marketing manager was delighted that the VAs had created such a wealth of blogs and factsheets for her to draw on – all she had to do was copy and paste the right paragraphs and send them off to the journalist. We were delighted too – it’s this kind of repurposing that makes content marketing great value for money, as well as empowering our clients to take their own action.

Even if you haven’t been approached by a Sunday paper (!) it’s still a great idea to repurpose your blogs, factsheets, ebooks and social media posts.

Here are some of our favourite ideas:

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How to make your customers fall in love with your business

Some brands achieve something magical: they inspire an impressive amount of loyalty in their customers, which in turn can lead to invaluable word-of-mouth marketing for the brand. As a business owner, you might be wondering how you can bottle this magic for your own business, so this Valentine’s Day we’re bringing you 4 top tips to help you encourage your customers to fall in love with your business!

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