The Seed Newsletter

	May 2007 Newsletter

Welcome! Last chance to take part in our survey and WIN! Welcome to the May issue of TheSeed e-letter with a last chance to win a fantastic theatre break for two in London just by taking part in our survey – click here to have your say. With spring well and truly here, this issue looks at how to spring-clean your marketing campaign with tips and advice on how to refresh your promotional activities. We’ve also got news on changes at TheSeed, plus Top Tips on the easiest way to manage your account with our AutoBilling facility. We hope you find this issue of interest, and please do tell us about your experiences in the survey. The Seed team
	Survey – Last chance to WIN
Don’t miss your last chance to take part in our survey and win a fantastic £250 voucher for a theatre break! As part of our focus on helping SMEs generate new business we’ve launched the survey to find out the experiences and attitudes of companies in their efforts to win new business. The survey is short – just 11 questions - so will only take a few minutes to complete, and all entries will be put into the prize draw! Click here to take part Click here to take part TheSeed Survey 2007
	Spring Clean your Marketing Campaign
With spring firmly upon us, what better time to take a good look at refreshing your current marketing campaign. No matter how long you’ve been marketing, it’s a great idea to refresh yourself and your team with a new game plan. The following steps will help ensure that you have the knowledge and advice needed to refresh and develop a successful marketing strategy. 1) Review and re-plan Step one in refreshing your marketing campaign should be to look back over the previous year. Look at sales figures, past activities, trends, successes and failures, and use them to your advantage. Re-assess exactly where your business is up to, and whether new marketing opportunities are now opening up to you. For example, you may not have been in a position to place an advertisement in a leading trade publication 12 months ago, but now might be a good time to take that step. Look back over any problematic periods you experienced and make plans now to avoid these re-occurring. Assess the marketing activity that worked for your business and when it worked best, then use this information to accurately plan for future months. Don’t assume that what worked in previous years will work again. You should be constantly looking to refresh your marketing mix, while keeping an eye on both your sales figures and market trends to help refine the planning process. These steps will help to keep your sales consistent and your income stream steady. 2) Refresh your web presence There are almost 38 million people online in the UK alone, making websites a fundamental form of marketing for the SME. An out of date website equals an out of date marketing strategy, so keeping your site fresh and up to date should be high on your list of marketing activities. Include recent and relevant news items appropriate to your target markets. Change case studies and articles regularly to keep your site looking new and well maintained. A potential new sales lead will soon lose interest if your site appears disorganised, chaotic or poorly looked after - a sure fire way of losing potential clients to the competition. You should also look to refresh your online marketing activities. Is your search engine optimisation (SEO) fully up to date? A fully optimised website can work wonders on your search engine rankings, directing more traffic to your site and generating more awareness and interest in your company. Take another look at your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Pay-Per-Lead (PPL) options. Are your PPC keywords still relevant to your business and is it time to extend your PPL profile to attract new clients from different business sectors? 3) Research Research any events taking place over the coming year that could prove valuable to your company. Useful events such as seminars, conferences, exhibitions, and awards, can provide you with opportunities to promote your business, make sales and develop the all-important business networking process. You should also be up to date with recent events in your market, and ideally those of your target markets to give you a competitive edge. Reading appropriate trade or industry press will keep you informed on industry developments. Take a look at what other companies are doing and where the market is heading. This will enable you to maintain a fresh and up to date approach to your business, keeping up with market trends and staying one step ahead of your rivals. Do you know your competitors as well as you did six months ago? Are they doing anything differently? What changes have they made to their businesses? What’s happening in the markets of your customers that may impact on them? Competitive intelligence is not only useful for marketing, pricing, and managing, but will provide you with invaluable information that can be used to give your company a real advantage.
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		Top Tips
	For an easy and convenient way to manage your account with TheSeed.com, why not try our AutoBilling facility? When activated, AutoBilling automatically tops up your account with the chosen amount whenever your account reaches a balance of £30 or less. This is a quick and ideal way to guarantee that your account never runs empty so you never miss out on those top business leads. For further information visit www.theseed.com.
		The Seed Continues to Grow
	To support our customers we’re expanding our team further with the appointment of Business Studies graduate Kim Edwards as Customer Services Administrator. Kim will be responsible for customer support at The Seed, helping manage accounts, advising on lead generation enquiries and ensuring that all of our clients maximise the potential from the new business leads they receive. We have also promoted Liza Fisher to the role of Account Manager. The new position will see Liza take on responsibility for the management of customer accounts and technical support for clients. We are very pleased to welcome Kim on board and look forward to Liza continuing to support a growing number of Seed customers.
		Leads this month
	Below are a selection of sample leads generated over the last month. These example leads should give you a taste of the type of leads you will receive if signed-up to TheSeed.com. Public Relations (PR) Wednesday 9th of May 2007 12:24 I am the UK Trade Communications Manager for ******** Tobacco, the market leader in an extremely controversial category. I would be happy to hear from agencies happy to consider our Trade PR programme. Thanks Additional notes from TheSeed.com: I contacted Iain and talked to him about what he was looking for. He gave me some background information and stated that they have had a PR company for the past 10 years but would like some fresh input and so are thinking of changing PR companies. They are looking for a company that is able to deal with TRADE PR and is comfortable representing a very controversial company such as one in the tobacco industry. If they do start using another PR company it will hopefully be for the long term, like their last company and would like the project to begin in October of this year. They currently have no budget allocated but are interested to find out about the costs involved. lain stated that his decision of changing to another company will be entirely dependent on the sales pitch from the PR company. They are looking for nationwide coverage through their PR company. Also required are good solid connections to the industry and he will be asking about them, for example good links to magazines. Contacted by Kim on 2007-05-10 at 12:05. Email address confirmed. HR Services / HR Outsourcing Wednesday 16th of May 2007 19:05 HR services, including recruitment, recruitment advertising, contracts, design of benefits packages, salary structures, job descriptions, more recruitment Additional notes from TheSeed.com: I spoke to Robert and he says that he would like to outsource the entire of the HR proceedings as they really need some help recruiting new staff and they don't know how to go about it and most Architects are hard to come by. He is the best one to talk to and can be contacted on the number above. Has not set a budget as of yet. Contacted by Kim on 2007-05-17 at 11:59. Email address confirmed. Advertising & Marketing Services Friday 18th of May 2007 14:31 To run a 3 months TV advertsing campaign on independent channels covering glos, wilts, hereford, worcs, i.e. ITV 2/3 Sky history + Channel 4 countdown advertising slots. Please can you give me quotes as soon as possible. Additional notes from TheSeed.com: I talked to Diane and she gave me some additional information to use. She said that they would like the advertising to start within the next couple of months and the best person to talk to about this is a gentleman called Mr Roffiter contactable on the number provided, they are looking at quotes at the minute to find out how much it will cost as they have not set a budget. Their target audience is mature older generations who watch older TV, example UK TV history etc. As well as television they would like to advertise in newspapers like the times. They are not on their own with this advertising campaign, they are aided by an additional organisation AHIP who they are doing the advertising for, but will be in the background for this process. They are trying to make people aware of their service, to people who could benefit from it. Contacted by Kim on 2007-05-18 at 02:55. Email address confirmed.