As the festive season approaches the excitement builds as does the to-do list especially for those in business. So this year our gift to you are these five festive tips to help your business, and you, survive the festive season:-  

Christmas is a time for managing expectations 
Here at MPRE we are big advocates of managing expectations as a general business principal but it’s especially relevant around the Christmas period. Getting things done before Christmas becomes an arbitrary and somewhat artificial deadline causing unnecessary pressure to get things done before Christmas. So now is the time to start considering if that work your customer is asking for really needs to be completed before the Christmas shutdown. 

Christmas is a time for giving 
Christmas is the ideal time to show appreciation to those around you that support your business. Whether it’s your hardworking employees, valued suppliers or loyal customers, showing appreciation at this time of year goes a long way to ensuring your New Year starts on the right foot. Because we know it can be hard to find the perfect gift we have put together a few of our favourite gift ideas; 

• Who doesn’t love chocolate at any time of the year and the team at Matakana chocolate have an amazing range.
• Experience gifts are easy to organise (even at the last minute) and support local business.
• For a truly green gift you can always give the gift of nature by gifting the planting of native trees.

Christmas is a time for planning 
Many business owners find Christmas is one of the only times in the year they can truly escape from their business for a few days. Often these breaks extend into the New Year as well. If you’re planning on taking extended leave, it is important that you communicate to your staff and customers.. If your business is open but you aren’t there make sure your team can manage without having to contact you so you can really have a much needed break, The more you plan before you leave, the better your break is likely to be. 

Christmas is a time for communicating 

So, once you have done your Christmas planning it’s important to communicate to your customers and staff when you will be open for business. When communicating with your customers remember to use our cascading content process and once you have updated the information on your website add it to your social media and your next newsletter. It’s time like this that you need a good customer database to make sure you are communicating with the right people. If you need help with your database we can help. Contact us!

Christmas is a joyous time 
For the team at MPRE, one of the best things about Christmas is the opportunity to switch off, spend time with my family and enjoy time doing the things we love.  

By following our tips for a stress free Christmas you can ensure the Christmas period creates a stress-free environment for you and your workplace. It will put you in a position to move into the New Year with positive energy and momentum after you have enjoyed the festive season!! 

So… you know a charity that is awesome. They may be a Not For Profit, or a Charitable trust, but they still think of themselves as a business. Kudos to you for a start. The more Not For Profit’s and Charitable Trust’s that think of themselves as such the better. Why? Because at the end of the day, profit is not a dirty word, especially when you can do more “good” with it.

Diversify or die.

Where most charities go wrong with fundraising, is to rely for the majority of their income on things like government grants. It only takes an election, or a recession, or a pandemic, (or all of the above?) and all of a sudden, your precious funding that you rely on is poof, gone. It is hugely important to diversify. If you can proportion out corporate sponsorship, government funding and other donations like bequests you can make sure that you are a bit more long-term stable. Much like in your personal life, you would invest in a house, a few shares, and maybe have your own business.

Corporate Sponsorship

We have seen some amazing impact around corporate sponsorship, using a particular marketing model and strategy we have used in the past. In one particular case our team managed to improve website visits up year on year by 20%, social channels also saw an increase with LinkedIn growing 134%, and Facebook 14%, email open rates were up on average by 59%, but the most important to note is that ALL of their audiences were VERY engaged! Did I mention they doubled their sponsorship income to over $300k? How did we do it?

Analyse your opportunity

It was simple, we analysed the opportunity for the organization, and using a very specific methodology, we were able to pinpoint a sweet spot. Each organisation is different, and it takes an expert eye to see this sweet spot, and another to implement what needs to done to achieve numbers like this.

Do you need funding?

I’m guessing that if you are reading this you might be the General Manager, Chief Eexective Officer, or Director of a Not For Profit or charitable trust. Great. We would love to help. All you need to do is to fill in this form, so we can do a brief analysis of your organisation to see if we can find that sweet spot for you. There is even a chance it wouldn’t cost you a thing. No bull, try us. Click here.

Boring. I know. This is probably the most boring blog I have ever written. Why? Because I know you are already rolling your eyes thinking, just another marketer telling me I need to market… more, communicate… more..

Quite the contrary.

What I am going to say is that there is no chance you are going to succeed unless you communicate well with your clients. If your business is buzzing, and you only have to talk to the five people around you. Great. You are sorted. You are also possibly the 1% of people who can do that. You won lotto in a way. I don’t recommend marketing in the traditional sense. You don’t need it.

Need more clients?

Then sorry, communication, consistently, in context, that tells a relevant story your clients need to make their decisions, is really, really important. Blunt I know – but it’s the least I can do. I don’t want you trawling the internet wondering what to do with all this marketing stuff. At the end of the day its super simple. Build a database, consistently and often. Market to those people.

How do I do basic marketing?

It’s a lot more simple than you think. Create one key piece of content and recycle it. You will save yourself plenty of time and it will get cut though. Why? Because you are saying the same thing over, through all your channels. Write a blog, use your key points as social media posts. If you want to learn more about this you can check out our blog about cascading content here.

How do I make it relevant?

This is easier than you think. What are the top 10 questions you get asked every day. Write those down. There are your next 10 months of content. Why? Because if you wrote a blog a month, emailed it to your customers, used it in your social media posts,  you  have relevant, worthy content, that’s addressing an existing need. Also if you stick to 10 months’ worth of emails, you are keeping top of mind with your clients.

But I don’t have time.

Sure, we are all time poor. I have a job, a business,  a baby and a husband. I’m writing this at 10:44pm. I get it. But I’ll only have to do this once a month and I’ll get a mile out of it. I also have cheated because I have my team implementing it all. They are awesome. If you would like to get them to implement yours too, book a call here. We can even guide you through all of the above so you don’t have to do the leg work alone.

But I can’t afford it.

If you added up your time to market including all the stressors trying to figure out why that thing didn’t schedule etc… wouldn’t your time be better spent on billable hours? I thought so too! Why not give us a call and we can chat about how to save you that time and energy! We are fast, trustworthy, easy to deal with and above all, we listen!

Book an appointment with Charmaine or Gilly. 

Or call Bronny.