Bite size chunks.....

.....is how we recommend our clients approach their marketing. We work with a huge variety of industries, from funeral directors to vets, stylists to HR consultants and the size of companies is just as varied too. Our biggest client is a global pharmaceutical company our smallest are sole traders working from their home office. The industry or size of a company makes little difference to our initial advice however - bite size chunks is the way to go.

Marketing is one big puzzle made up of many small pieces - websites and SEO, social media, PR, brochures, events, your brand........no business could (or should) tackle all of these at once.

For starters a strategy should be set out that includes clear objectives, messages and targets. Who in your team will be responsible for delivering results and do you have a budget in place to outsource some of the more specialist areas?

One of our most popular services is social media marketing - our two hour workshop provides all of the basics of what to say, how to say it, how to build a social media strategy. This is a classic example of one of our "bite size chunks". Our clients go away understanding more than they did when they first sat down with us but we are careful never to overwhelm.  You can find out more in our Social media case study

Our PR offering is the same - one of our bigger clients has two very separate audiences to connect with. Professional and consumer. We set out clear objectives for both, decide on a quarterly basis where the focus needs to be and map out a strategy that fits both in terms of being on message but also within budget and capabilities of the team.

So, think "canapes" rather than "all you can eat buffet" and you might even have room for dessert!

STOCK UP ON STAMPS……..or consider other methods of communication!

A first class stamp will cost 60p as of the 30 April 2012 and its second-class pal will rise to 50p!

If like one of our clients, you have up to now preferred to communicate with your clients by post (direct mail is still big business in some sectors) perhaps now is the time to consider new ways of spreading your message.

E-newsletters are becoming more and more popular as even the most basic web based email systems have become more sophisticated and design-led content can be viewed easily.

They can be set up quickly, easily and cost-effectively. Systems such as Mail Chimp even allow you to track who is opening your newsletter, who is linking back to your website – who doesn’t like statistics!!

Social media – Facebook for business, Twitter and LinkedIn are all fantastic platforms to tell potential clients all about you and what you can do for them. We have worked with a number of businesses lately who had been a bit scared of dipping their toe into the sea of social media but once its benefits were explained and tools like Hootsuite introduced, which is a great time saving device, there’s been no stopping them!

Getting your website spot on is also important – if you are running an event, for example, you could have all of the information neatly stored on your website – simply email your targets and ask them to take a look online. Anyone who isn’t able to do this can still be offered the chance to receive a copy of the information in the post but you are bound to save costs by giving email a try.

The team at One to Three won’t abandon good old snail mail altogether – we still get excited receiving a nice card in the post! - but we will continue to embrace all of the other ways of communicating that have been so successful for our business and for so many of our clients. And we may well stock up on our 1^st and 2^nd class friends (as long as the price isn’t printed on the stamp they will still be valid!)

What do your clients mean to you?

As we “march” into Spring we wanted to take some time to recognise the fantastic people who make what we do a pleasure – our clients!

We are lucky enough to work with some fantastic people and it means that we really enjoy coming to work every day and genuinely want to do a fantastic job for them. In our first two years we have worked with over 30 clients and this figure is growing on a weekly basis - in March alone we have worked on various SEO, social media and PR projects for new clients including a country pub, a hairdresser, a jewellery maker and a healthcare company in Australia!

We work for a wide variety of companies in industries as different as funerals and interior design, pharmaceuticals and recruitment. One of our clients has almost 1,000 employees others are sole traders.

What they all have in common is a desire to be forward thinking when it comes to their marketing and PR strategies – they are not frightened to take the leap into social media or to put themselves “out there” by using PR. They value us as part of their team and we take the time to really understand their business and their specific objectives.

One of our longest standing clients, Companion Care Vets (www.ccvets.co.uk) was listed as one of The Sunday Times Top 100 Companies To Work For on Sunday 4^th March. We are so proud to work with this fantastic company who have always treated us not as consultants or freelancers but truly part of the team.

Our clients mean the world to us – they are the life blood of our business, the reason we love what we do and the day that we stop getting excited about getting a client in the press or getting them on the first page of Google is the day we will stop what we’re doing….but we don’t think that’s going to happen, do you?!

It's our birthday!

It's amazing to think that we have been in business for two years when we can so clearly remember deciding on our company name and branding, getting our website ready and hitting the "send" button on our launch email!

Twenty-four months later we honestly haven't looked back - we have worked with over 30 fantastic clients, many of whom have retained our PR and marketing services on an ongoing basis! From vets to funeral directors to interior designers and photographers the variety of our client base is fantastic.

One day Lisa will be working with a company on their social media strategy, the next giving them the tools to get on the front page of Google. Claire will be working with a national newspaper or trade magazine on a piece of editorial or writing copy for a clients blog.

There is never a dull moment and we truly love what we do!

We have learnt so much - about running a business, the benefits of networking, new marketing techniques and much much more.

Most of all we have learnt that with a lot of hard work, determination and creativity we really can achieve anything! Building our business up to the stage we are at now, from a standing start, has been so fulfilling.

We are fortunate enough to be old and very close friends - we often refer to ourselves as "two peas in a pod" and find that our business brains are as in sync as our personal ones! Twenty years of friendship runs very deep and we both hope that in another 18 years we will be blogging about twenty years of business and forty years of friendship!!

 The response to our birthday video - which you can view at http://www.youtube.com/user/OnetoThreeMarketing?feature=mhee has been overwhelming and the support of our families, friends, clients, suppliers and colleagues does not go unnoticed.

We would like to thank each and every one of you for the support you have given to us.

Claire & Lisa

Case studies...case studies...case studies

One to Three is a marketing solutions agency. But what does this really mean? The list of services that a marketing agency can provide is endless and we have found that the best way to demonstrate exactly what we can do is by keeping a fresh bank of case studies. 

Looking at specific clients we are working with, detailing their objectives, our strategy and tactics and results we are able to show prospects (and existing clients who may only use one element of our expertise) exactly what can be achieved.

A case study should be a real-life example with strong facts and figures - we have recently updated our own gallery - take a look at http://www.onetothree.co.uk/casestudy.htm  to see examples of our work in PR, Social Media, SEO and Google.

So, if you're great at what you do - shout it from the rooftops! We can help you to formulate a winning case study formula - just get in touch if you think we can help!

Claire & Lisa

Well that was a busy month!

We can safely say that January 2012 has been quite a month for team One to Three. We have been working on some fantastic projects with our clients as well as planning for the rest of the year, throw a few new business meetings into the mix and you get our busiest start to any new year! Phew!!

As well as our usual mix of day-to-day PR, SEO and social media we have entered an award or two (more on those a bit later in the year), set up a great competition for our photography client, been involved in a filming project with the Telegraph Business Club and Claire has secured a seat as Chair of her local Women in Business networking group.

We tell anyone who will listen that we love what we do.....and it's true! The variety of our work, the buzz we get when results start coming in and being regarded as an integral part of the team for so many clients is hard to beat!

February is set to be even more exciting for us as we celebrate our second year in business - watch this space for updates on what we are getting up in our birthday month!

Claire and Lisa