It costs five to fifty times more to find a new customer than sell more to your existing customers.  We’re working with a lot of clients helping them to increase sales and this is nearly always one of the best places to start.  It’s a common fault – and we’re probably guilty of it ourselves! [...]

Recently I ran a PR and social media workshop in York for tourism businesses with Denise Howard OBE, director of Welcometraining.  All the participants were finalists in Visit York’s Tourism Awards. Entering and winning awards is a great way for businesses and organisations in any sector to achieve effective and low cost PR.  You can [...]

At the beginning of March, the Guardian released its new TV advert. We’ve since used the YouTube clip of the ad in client meetings, workshops and LinkedIn discussions to help illustrate how the media landscape is changing – and show senior professionals why social media should be integrated into business strategy at the highest level. [...]

Earlier this year we decided to look at new markets – and to go to Dubai.  How do you go about researching and winning new business from an entirely new market?  Here is how we did it – from a standing start in mid January.  What worked?  What didn’t?  We share it all with you [...]

In a tough economy many businesses are taking a long hard look at what they spend on sponsorship.  Not just because marketing budgets are being cut, but also because companies are considering whether certain kinds of sponsorship are appropriate in austere times and, importantly, what’s the impact on business goals? So whatever sector you are [...]

This infographic of the Charity 100 Social Index illustrates a six month study of how well charities are using social media and how this correlates with their financial performance. Cancer Research UK comes out top for its combined brand strength and financial strength. As the infographic shows, it is not just volume that determines the [...]

I have attended two events in the last week that shed very different lights on public relations and what people believe PR is about and does. It made me wonder what businesses are buying when they decide to hire a PR consultant. With colleague Helen Standing I attended a session called How to Find the [...]

Are you desperately trying to drive your customers to your Facebook page to ‘like’ it, take part in competitions, comment on your products and services and tell their friends about you? After all, they are on Facebook anyway so you might as well go to them, right? But whilst you’re driving all that traffic to [...]

In the last month several people have mentioned how they’ve been contacted with email requests from people they don’t know – but often through people they know a bit.  I got into a discussion with one of these people about this whole issue of email introductions and we came up with a list of why [...]

Twitter started life as a purely social tool.  It was quickly picked up in the consumer market and it is now being used in the business to business and professional markets. But Twitter hasn’t kept pace with what business users need to make it a strategic communication tool.  A number of our clients are using [...]