A Moment to Pause in the Turmoil of Troubled Times

If the economic calendar looks relatively quiet this week, which it does, it does not mean that things will necessarily be any more settled in the real world.

It will be worth checking that the pundits are right in the prediction that the public sector borrowing requirement will have been much reduced in October (to be announced on Tuesday 22nd November) but that is likely to be a short term blip as borrowing will need to rise again this month for extra welfare benefits coming out of the increasing numbers of benefit claimants coming on to the books.

Our MPs will be back at work in Westminster and two committees might make the news bulletins on Monday as the Public Accounts committee looks at the costs of running the BBC and Shengen Agreement is discussed again by one of the Europe committees - a bit of a hot potato in the current nervy atmosphere of the Borders Agency.

On Tuesday, and of specific interest to those in the vicinity of either Land's End or John O'Groats, the future of marine renewables in the UK is again under discussion at the Energy and Climate Change committee with witnesses from Carbon Trust, Energy Technologies Institute, Research Councils UK and Technology Strategy Board all throwing in their tuppence worth.

This week, is not a good week to take a punt on what will be dominating PMQs on Wednesday but it will no doubt be the usual pointless back and forth that so entertains Americans on C-Span. Speaking of whom, come Thursday, it will be Thanksgiving in the United States which makes one wonder how much the average American citizen has to be thankful about this year, indeed perhaps we all need to think about what we have to be thankful for occasionally - even if it can be quite an effort to come up with something that is not trite in austere times like these.

Later this week and into next week, Christmas lights will start illuminating the high streets of most of our towns and cities as we gird ourselves for winter in all its fury and the joys of Yuletide. It's a time of year that splits small businesses into two distinct groups, those for whom it will be the primary selling time of the year and those for whom it will be a time for winding down activities and preparing for 2012. As a mainly services oriented business Wick IT Services falls more into the latter category as, for some reason, I have not picked up any retail clients in this, the first year trading in Wick and I'll be examining the business offering and looking at how to improve it and widen the client base in the coming twelve months.

Like many in the IT sector, I had imagined that 2011 would be the year of social marketing but, for this business, that has not actually been the main source of reaching new clients. Indeed the best results have come from that oldest of all marketing methods, word of mouth from satisfied clients to their friends. It seems that selling web site design and marketing services to small businesses relies on the quality of your offering more than the enthusiasm of your "elevator pitch". How different that is to the advice that seems to populate the myriad advice sites on the internet.

Rather than follow the marketing speak and mumbo jumbo offered by business gurus, I recommend that you visit the Business Link website for a step by step guide to reviewing your business performance when the time comes for you to do so (the direct link is http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1074450344) as, though it's a bit stuffy, there is no hidden agenda trying to sell you stuff  and all areas are thoroughly covered.

One of the areas where I have learned a huge amount in the last year has been working with Google tools which have really blossomed into a comprehensive suite of instruments to help analyse and tune web site performance to a particular business. This has helped from basic search engine optimization (SEO) to fine tuning paid advertising campaigns to be truly effective. In fact, one campaign that I put together turned one in every five of those who clicked the advert into paying customers after applying the lessons learned. The Google terms of service and commercial confidentiality forbid the use of actual performance figures for particular campaigns but, in comparison against any other form of paid advertising the AdWords campaign was an absolute bargain, once tuned appropriately.

I am putting together the systems used into a package to offer to existing and new clients but it will take a little time to ensure that it is a robust and cost-effective package as there is nothing worse than offering a product that does not deliver what it promises.

So, what am I thankful for this year? I'm thankful to each every one of my clients and particularly thankful that you keep coming back to Wick IT Services when you need more support with your web sites and internet marketing. I'm thankful for many other things too but I'll share those with my family (and, perhaps, my friends on Facebook and G+).

Comments  

 

#1 Anne P. 2011-11-20 14:59

I haven't read the detail of Prince Philip's latest tirade against wind farms, but I do wish he and others would stop assuming that a single technology is the answer rather than a basket of solutions married to a reduction in consumption. I shall look forward to the discussions on marine renewables into which we should be putting a considerable amount of investment.

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#2 Ellis P Otter 2011-11-20 16:06

I'm still undecided on wind farms, having learned that they have to be huge to be effective. There is a surfeit of misinformation out there with so many single interest lobbies that it is hard to get an objective view on the issue of energy. But grapple with it we must, like it or no.

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