So more than ever the money that you spend on marketing needs to be highly targeted.

So where should you spend your money? Well according to a recent report by Forrester Research – social media is the place to spend it read more about it here .

What do we mean when we say social media?

• Social networking
• Blogging
• Word-of-mouth

Not sure what Social Networking  is – then please spend a couple of minutes watching this simple video – it’s great. As you’ll see from the video it’s great – and social networking is not just about Facebook, there are now many business networking sites that are great including www.linkedin.com and www.ecademy.com.

As with any networking marketing it requires time but also some planning as to how to get the best out of it so be prepared to look around, decide which sites are best for your business and then get going. You might decide that joining forums may be the best thing for you – they are a great way to get your brand across and also your expertise in a given subject. Here’s a brand new one if you haven’t already seen it - www.forum.launchlab.co.uk it’s worth going on and registering – it’s in its infancy so keep an eye on it!

If you haven’t started blogging yet (other than reading ours!) then now is a great time to get going. It’s relatively cheap to start and very easy to do and to be honest once you get going with it it’s a little addictive! Make sure you include good links back to your site, but also ensure that your content is within an RSS feed (Really Simple Syndication) to really get the benefit from it. (and come back soon as we are writing some good stuff on ‘blogging for business’ shortly).

Word of mouth – it’s what businesses have been doing for ever but now with internet technologies it’s getting even easier to track and measure. You could try an online recommend a friend scheme, email marketing member-get-member offers as well as having ‘email to friend’ on every page – and they are just some very basic things to get you thinking.

So are you ready to forge a direct relationship between your brand and your consumers? Using social media allows you to leverage measureable online tools at an affordable cost.

Want to know more? Get in touch we’re always happy to help. www.prodo.com

Everyone and anyone can watch your video clips on YouTube. They can view first-hand accounts of current events, find videos about their hobbies and interests and discover unusual and quirky things.

With access to video so easily accessible (with most mobile phones now having simple video recording facilities) it has never been easier to capture something digitally and now YouTube provides an outlet for them.

Businesses were pretty quick to realise the benefit of YouTube and large corporate have dedicated marketing spend to creating items specifically for this media. Google pretty quickly saw the potential of the site and in November 2006 bought it.

If you still think it’s not for you – then think again. We’ve put together a few simple ideas that you could use to demonstrate how you could take advantage of YouTube to potentially millions of untapped customers.

  •   Use it to simply and quickly demonstrate one of your products – see this example of how easy and cheap this is to do (but very powerful) – a small, specialist tea room in Bristol. http://www.attictea.co.uk/filtervideo.htm
  •   Use it to help with recruitment – video clips of team building events and demonstrate what a great place it is to work at

  •   Use it to demonstrate your expertise in a given area of business – see this fantastic example of a video to clearly and simply explain a complex subject http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU

  •   Use it to portray your brand or just to make your customers smile – and you can’t beat the Easter Bunny dancing to MC Hammer! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJHZIfs2Iss

So what do we mean by ‘happy’? It isn’t just about being cheaper, faster, bigger than everyone else, it is a basic premise that delighting your customer should be a big part of your communication strategy. By writing it down and agreeing with your team what it means and how that should translate into actual communications means that it becomes integral to your core values.

Sometimes it’s understandable that you can’t always keep customers ‘happy’, but by keeping the ‘happy principle’ in mind when dealing with customer complaints you will be surprised at the difference this could make.

Putting yourself in the shoes of your customer (the seek first to understand rule) could make the difference between them switching affinity and ultimately taking their business elsewhere and you retaining a hard won customer. Handled swiftly, effectively and professionally a complaining customer could become a future advocate and therefore a win-win for everyone.

So what else can you do to keep customers happy – well we thought we’d give you some ideas that we’ve built into our business that never fail to work:

1. Keep the phone lines going – it is so tempting to just resort to email as the main method of communication, but we’ve found over the years that a good ‘chin-way’ on a regular basis with our customers really does help build relationships, makes the customer feel valued and ultimately leads to happier customers.
2. Admit when you are in the wrong – transparency and honesty is key, a simple apology and an admission of failure to do something is likely to mean that you can ‘ride’ through a problem and ultimately retain your customer and in some cases have a stronger relationship at the end of it.
3. Delight them with something unexpected – now this might seem small, but a simple lollipop in with an invoice and a personally signed comp slip saying ‘thank you’ goes a long way in making the relationship feel personal.
4. If it is a b2b relationship think about your customer and how you can help their business – providing them with good quality leads and introducing them to other clients who might benefit from the relationship – good old fashioned networking but with your client in mind.

How likely is it that you will want to watch the next episode of House whilst sitting at your laptop? well according to stats it’s incredibly likely. In the UK we already spend more time in front of our computers than we do in front of our TV’s. So is it just about giving us more choice, or is it more about ensuring that the advertising revenue, which would appear to be in decline on most TV platforms being able to reach new audiences via a different media?
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Borders in America has teamed up with online publisher Lulu to trial this very system in some test stores.

Can’t wait for the trial to arrive here to publish your own book?! No problem! You can do everything online right now with Lulu. But be warned, your creative juices will start flowing as soon as you visit the site! The options are fantastic making the whole process quick and simple and you can even use their online calculator to get a price.

So, no need to worry about getting yourself an agent – if you believe you could be the next JK Rowling, your novel could just be a click away!

- Pippa Adams, Managing Director

Working in Marketing has been compared to working in a zoo as it can be incredibly manic and very noisy - we at Prodo look at it a bit differently…

We don’t just manage the zoo but try and include animals in our daily working life (and we don’t just mean the internet marketing team!). The most popular animal within the Prodo team is of course Prodo’s Chief Entertainment Officer – otherwise known as Ramsay the dog. Ramsay is currently unrecognisable by our clients as he has had his flowing locks cut ready for the spring – but he is enjoying being petted daily by the Prodo team.

Animals were again the order of the day for the Prodo employee Christmas away day – although these were made of clay! The clay pigeon shoot was a great day for all and most employees proved themselves a crack shot (naming no names). In fact BDM Paul Verinder’s tremendous score led to rumours that he had been secretly practising for months…

We at Prodo are passionate about marketing and passionate about having fun and believe that creative marketing is at its best when employees love the job they do. Our SEO team (headed up by another top shooter, Simon Hetherington!) focuses on producing fantastic and creative Search Engine Marketing solutions and currently has a vacancy for an experienced Search Engine Optimiser.

So, if you want to join a thriving and creative team that cares about marketing whilst having fun then look for more information on this role or other career opportunities at the careers page on the website.

PR Web In Plain English

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

Blogs in Plain English

Free Hugs Campaign

1) Wondered where Bruce Willis is when you need him!

2) Reassessed all the things they haven’t done – or as likely what things they would have done differently.

So for those of you who instantly thought of 1) it’s not real and according to Wikipedia it’s not possible! And for those of you who were in the No. 2) camp we think you will like this. If nothing else it should make you smile and realise that all is well with the world!

Listen to the news on any given day and you would be forgiven for thinking that you have a better than average chance of being killed that day by bird flu, binge drinking or drinkers, released mental patients, or quite frankly anyone you may bump into that day. But apart from rapping our kids up in cotton wool, we take most of these things with a pinch of salt. However, mention that the earth is just about to NOT collide with an asteroid and everyone starts frantically planning their last hours.

The fact is that nothing holds the same fascination and excitement as getting obliterated from the face of the planet in a huge fireball. Especially, when its likely that everyone in western Europe is going with you. We don’t so much have a fascination with death, more with all the things we would do if we all had at least fours hours notice of an impending mass termination. The fact that most of these things would involve some sort of Star Trek teleporter system never seems to bother us as our imagination runs riot, and it does make you wonder what we are all waiting for.

Now I’m not advocating that everyone drops everything immediately, but if you are harbouring a deep desire to break free of the shackles of corporate life and exercise your god given right to free enterprise then why not do it now. We were lucky this time, by all accounts the asteriod missed us by only a few hundred thousand miles, which in space terms, is about the same as me throwing an apple at your head and hitting the bloke next to you. Next time we might not be quite so lucky.

NB: Prodo would like to point out that we do not have any expertise in the field of astronomy, nor do we advocate throwing fruit in the office.