Three years young....

If five years ago someone had told us that in 2013 we would have set up our own business and be into our third year of helping companies across the South East of England to achieve their marketing potential….I think we would have thought ‘are you having a laugh?!’

But, here we are, celebrating our third anniversary and busier than ever.

From general marketing support for a funeral directors to PR and social media strategy for a veterinary group, kick-starting marketing for many new start-ups and lots of SEO and copywriting we are blessed with a diverse range of clients. (Our website lists all of the lovely companies we have worked with over the years. Our Clients....) 

Someone recently asked us how we found work.

Networking has been huge for our business. We are active members of the WIBN and attend their monthly meetings ….almost religiously! We have a great network of clients and colleagues thanks to WIBN, not only do our groups build our portfolio, they also ensure we can help clients in other ways. Need an accountant? We know one. After some HR advice – no problem!

Online networking has played its part too. LinkedIn is responsible for putting us in touch with one of our biggest clients, Companion Care Vets. Claire connected with an old colleague; they knew CCV were looking for some PR support and hey presto!

Twitter and Facebook have raised our profile amongst our own industry peers and we are able to share client case studies, testimonials and of course our blog!

Google searches have also come up trumps for us – we’ve been found by local companies looking for marketing – what a good sales pitch for the importance of optimizing your site!

Finally recommendations are one of the most important sources of new business for us. If we do a good job for someone, they invariably tell their colleagues and friends and we have been blessed with lovely projects thanks to the recommendations of others.  This is true with our larger clients on an internal basis too. We had worked on Companion Care’s PR for around 18 months before we started working on their Google reporting and social media and were recommended for this new role thanks to the results the PR team were seeing!

We would like to thank all of our clients and colleagues for their support over the past three years and we can’t wait to see what the next three years may bring!

Claire and Lisa

Ps - we celebrated in style on Saturday night....even had a little birthday cake!! 

x 

Take your business blinkers off!!

It’s been a month of meetings for team One to Three – some brand new clients and prospects and some catching up with old networking friends and colleagues.

Over a relaxed coffee with networking colleague, the lovely Lorraine Pascoe from Catch Telemarketing (www.catchtelemarketing.co.uk) we came up with a joint offering that could offer real value to both of our client bases.

It’s early days in our thought process so we won’t divulge too much detail now (we promise we will in the future!) but it got us thinking that you never know where the next business opportunity may come from. We’ve known Lorraine for over two years now and our ‘bright idea’ only just hit.  

So next time you are networking, or browsing LinkedIn or Twitter take a moment to remove those business blinkers and see what opportunities are out there. You never know what might be around the corner!

Did we mention that we love Christmas?

Oh we did? Well sorry to bore you but we really do …..so is it any surprise that December 1^st was the evening of the One to Three Christmas ‘do.’

We have been friends for longer than we’ve been business partners so going out for a meal and a bottle of bubbly is certainly no hardship and with our two biggest fans (our husbands) at our sides a great night was had.

The Arbour in Pinkneys Green, Maidenhead http://www.thearbourgroup.co.uk

was our chosen destination and the evening went without a hitch (two years ago Lisa set fire to her menu so we did quite well really!)

As we always do when we socialize together we had a blast, drank a little too much (but it is Christmas) ate far too much (see previous excuse) and laughed a lot!

We often say we love what we do and a big part of that is because we love each other (sorry to gush, but again it is Christmas) and working together has been a lovely bonus to a friendship that is well into its second decade. We know, we don’t look old enough!!

Most importantly we raised our glasses to all of our wonderful clients who continue to support us so thank you and Merry Christmas!

Counting down to Christmas with One to Three……

We love Christmas here at One to Three and come 1^st December our halls will be decked and mince pies will replace biccies for elevensies!

We also see it as a great opportunity to communicate with past and present clients – and the odd hot prospect too.

Fascinating research by the Harvard Business School shows that the probability of selling services to a prospective customer is 1 in 16. However, the probability of selling services to a current customer is 1 in 2. 


New business development is important of course but businesses still tend to spend a disproportionate amount of time on new client acquisition and ignore their existing client base.


Spreading the season’s goodwill is a great excuse to get in touch with your clients. You don’t have to send expensive gifts, how about a Christmas card, a seasonal blog post, an email campaign or even a social media campaign.

We have all of our Christmas communications nicely planned….our cards are written and our gifts are wrapped…..there’s also something that we really think will make people smile…..watch this space… we’ll keep you posted!

Watch Claire in action at the WIBN

Some of you will know that I am Chair of the Women In Business Network Maidenhead group - it's a role I absolutely love and networking has been the lifeblood of One to Three since we launched back in 2010.

I was given the opportunity to present the five minute spotlight at the October meeting and as much of my work lately has been refreshing websites for all manner of businesses I chose to share my top tips on what content I consider to be the must haves. I'd like to share this presentation with you all as one of my fellow members, the wonderful Ann Rennie was on hand to video the session!

It's just over five minutes long so grab a cuppa and enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGFEkSlSeHg&feature=plcp

Our must have's when it comes to website content

OK, a few facts and figures to start.....

Did you know:

  

• The first domain name was registered …….. 1985 (I was 9!!)

• There are approximately 150,000 new domain names registered every day!

•  When I Googled the question how many websites are there on the www….the number was so  huge it took me a while to work it out…..let’s just say its billions and billions!

•  The most Googled search term is…..Facebook!

•  Google is the 5^th most googled search term……

  

I think we can all conclude that the internet is HUGE and it should form a huge part of your marketing plan  - and of course it’s not just your website that is important but your presence on social media sites, networking websites….have you ever Googled yourself to see what comes up……it’s a good idea to do it because that is what potential customers will find if they Google your name……

I could write all day about the importance of a general online presence but this blog is going to focus on website copy and will give you our top 5 tips of what content we believe is must have.

1       Now this sounds obvious but you’d be surprised….contact details. Telephone  numbers, address, email and also Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn details. People are  more and more wanting to find out a bit about you online before they pick up the phone or drop you an email.

2      What do you do? So many websites don’t tell you this vital information. Write this ‘about you’ section as if you are introducing yourself to someone at a networking event for the very first time. Don’t try to be ‘clever’ or too creative here – get to the point!

3     YOU! It is so important to have a personal presence on your website – a bit about you. It doesn’t have to be a chapter and verse life story but an insight into you as a human being is key - I also like to see pictures of the people involved in the business  to add a personal element

      REAL case studies……show off a bit! Tell the world about your business successes and ask clients for  testimonials that can be published online– case studies demonstrate you in action and can be very powerful

      Simplicity – don’t use 10 words when 1 will do! Don’t use jargon, don’t use fluff to fill a page – a good image will say far more than ‘gumf’!

Once you have the basics in place it is then important to think about how people are gong to find your website and how you are going to keep it up to date……but that’s a whole other blog which we’ll share with you soon!