About Nicola Macdonald

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So far Nicola Macdonald has created 111 blog entries.

What are you going to do differently this year?

By |2019-12-04T14:53:39+00:00January 3rd, 2019|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: |

I'm not one for making New Year's resolutions, but I do like starting the year with the question, "What am I going to do differently in by business this year?" Sometimes the answer is a new marketing approach and other times it's creating a new service or packaging up an existing service to make it extremely attractive and a no brainer! If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. That saying always makes me feel nervous! If I don't try something different, I'm nervous I might miss out on something really great. Also,

How to review your marketing activities

By |2021-01-27T18:43:26+00:00December 10th, 2018|Categories: Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tips|

Reviewing your marketing activities Before you start to plan your marketing activities for the coming year it’s really helpful to understand what worked and what didn’t during the previous year. This will allow you to make some important decisions, such as: Stop wasting time and money on activities that are not delivering a return Come up with ways to improve activities that are showing a degree of success Continue with activities that are working well See the gaps! What haven’t you tried that could make a difference in 2019? Did you achieve the marketing results you were hoping for? This

5 ways to rebuild your email marketing list after GDPR

By |2018-07-06T11:32:22+00:00July 6th, 2018|Categories: Uncategorized|

Suffering from a depleted emailing list? Observing the emails coming into my in-box in the lead up to 25th May and the launch of GDPR, was like watching a game of poker! A few businesses revealed their hands early sending re-consent emails, which seemed to trigger a chain reaction of ‘if they’re doing it, I guess I’d better too’, until there was an explosion of re-consent emails, more than you could keep track of. What I found really interesting was the businesses that showed their hand in the last week by sending a different style of email, thanking their contacts

Case studies: Basking in reflected glory

By |2020-04-24T14:50:29+00:00June 1st, 2018|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: |

I enthusiastically encourage business owners to create case studies. They are a fabulous way to tell a story about the brilliant job you do for your customers. If your product or service is complex (or the subject is somewhat dry or boring!), you need to find an alternative way to explain what you do. When this is done using real life examples, it's so much easier for a prospect to understand how you can help them too. A case study shows your prospect: You understand their situation You empathise with the issues they have You can offer a perfect solution

What’s your marketing score?

By |2018-03-29T14:52:25+00:00March 29th, 2018|Categories: Uncategorized|

How would you rate your marketing efforts? You may have a good idea about how focused you are on marketing your business. But, how do you know if it’s enough? Are you doing all the right things? How could you improve? Here’s a quick, fun quiz to find out how diligent you are about marketing and if you’ve got most of the marketing bases covered. The questions are easy and multiple choice. Just make a note as you go through of whether A, B or C reflects your circumstance most closely. At the end, add up how many of each

How to write a case study

By |2018-01-29T17:29:04+00:00January 29th, 2018|Categories: Uncategorized|

Shine a light on your best work Have you ever noticed that tell-tale sign, as you’re telling someone what you do, as their eyes glaze over? A completely blank stare. You know they really don’t get it. So, you try a different tack. You start describing how you’ve helped a particular customer. You describe them and perhaps their business and the problem they had. Then you explain how you helped them resolve it and the great outcomes they’ve achieved. What a difference in expression! No more glazed eyes. You see a nod of the head, a smile and a connection

Tap into your accidental winners

By |2017-11-28T16:29:46+00:00November 28th, 2017|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: |

If you were to review the different types of services you provided during 2017, I wonder if you might find an accidental winner? What do I mean by an accidental winners? There's an exercise I ask the attendees of my marketing planning workshops to do before they arrive. I get them to prepare a list of all their clients throughout the previous 12 months along with the services they purchased.  This has turned up some interesting surprises over the years. A photographer realised that quite a significant number of couples who booked her for their wedding asked if she could

How will GDPR affect marketing?

By |2017-10-26T14:25:14+00:00October 26th, 2017|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: |

I seriously don't want to hop onto the GDPR bandwagon! Everywhere you turn there's a webinar, seminar or blog post about the new General Data Protection Regulation that comes into force on 25th May 2018. There's no use putting our heads in the sand, there are 'things' that we'll all have to put into place to comply. We must accept this and get on with it. But, get on with what? What do we need to do? Well, as I said there are lots of experts out there disseminating information. I've seen some shockers, too! The trick is to find

Free business book

By |2017-10-01T13:19:03+00:00October 1st, 2017|Categories: Uncategorized|

A Business Book with a difference I'm so happy to be able to offer you this free business book, thanks to my friend, Chris Thomason. I've mentioned before the power storytelling as a means to deliver your marketing messages. The power of storytelling When you meet someone networking, describing how you've helped a client makes it so much easier to understand what you do, rather than reelling off your services. Case studies are another great way of describing who you work for, how you help them and the benefits and results you deliver. Starting a blog article with "Imagine..." allows the reader

5 ways to grab attention…quickly

By |2017-08-30T13:20:11+00:00August 30th, 2017|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: , , , , , , |

It's becoming increasingly difficult to grab attention in a world that's getting 'noisier' by the day. To be successful in grabbing attention we need to be a little more creative and I'm not suggesting throwing cold water over your prospects! 1. Infographics grab attention Infographics are a great way to grab attention quickly through colour, images and design. Steve Oakes of Turquoise Creative has published an article called Make it snappy with Infographics. Come back and check it out. Infographics entice the viewer to take a closer look and piques their interest to find out more. As Steve says, infographics are great for “Coaxing

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