If you want a woman included, please just comment with details below, the same goes if you want yourself included.

Maggie Doyle : Radio Presenter : Presents the morning show in Absolute Radio, UK : From Wexford Town

Niamh Greene : Author : Letters to a Love Rat, Secret Diary of a Demented Housewife and more : From New Ross : niamhgreene@gmail.com

Maria Doyle Kennedy : Music – singer and actor : Appeared in The Commitments, The Tudors and Downton Abbey : Grew up in Enniscorthy

Mary Furlong – Finance Director at Windmill Lane Pictures Ltd, http://www.windmilllane.com
Connie Tantrum is the Festival Director of the New Ross Piano Festival, email: info@newrosspianofestival.com
Siobhan O’Neill is the Deputy Director Customer Services with Ryanair, http://www.ryanair.com

If your business resolutions this year have revenue generation at their heart (just a guess!) then you need to have some solid marketing resolutions to make them happen. Try these three on for size:

Get beneFIT – figure out what the benefits of your brand are to your customer and communicate them effectively at every turn. Remember that purchase decisions are made based on a number of factors and it’s the emotional ones that usually swing it!

Little and Often – it is better to be active on the marketing front on a regular basis than to aim for one big burst of activity for example annually. You need to work hard to stay on your customer’s radar and to keep your name in the media. Interesting and useful posts, competitions and news stories in social media and via PR and advertising on a daily, weekly and monthly basis will reap rewards in awareness, customer loyalty and sales.

Cut down on Junk – take a good look at your marketing activities and identify those that are not delivering nutrition to your bottom line! It is sometimes hard to measure the effectiveness of advertising, PR and social media marketing, but it can be done! Limit the amount of time devoted to Twitter, Facebook etc and focus on engaging on issues relevant to your businesss, rather than wasting time reading through swathes of posts that will eat up your valuable time.

I hope that this year will be good for you.

The pundits are forecasting an even worse economy, which means that strategic and effective marketing will be even more vitally important for the success of your business – if you’d like to discuss how to develop your marketing strategy, plan or campaign, please do get in touch – paula@angelireland.com – we’d love to help you to succeed.

Using the experience that our key directors have built up over 16 years strategising for brands like Coca-Cola, BT, Sky as well as for dozens of SMEs and scores of small businesses,  our marketing plans are tailored specifiacally for your business.

Our marketing plans include all the elements needed for a robust strategy, wherever your business is now – launching, growing or facing new challenges.

Angel marketing plans generally include:

Brand analysis – a thorough look at your brand values, personality and offering

Target audience analysis – who exactly are you talking to and who should you be talking to?

Communications strategy – how to reach your market effectively via on and offline marketing, advertising,  PR, social media, direct marketing, mobile marketing, events, on pack

Channel marketing – ensuring buy in from distributers, retailers and others in the chain

We also look at the setting of marketing objectives, resourcing and include an in-house workshop for key staff.

We base our plans on a period of 3 years and include a 12 month activity calendar, which is detailed enough for you to implement in-house if appropriate.

Having a strong, strategic marketing plan can make a huge difference to the success of your business.

If you’d like more information on marketing plans, please do contact paula@angelireland.com or louie@angelireland.com

Here’s a nice word for this Focal Friday – Duine uasal. It simply means gentleman and it’s pronounced – dinna ushill. Lady is then – Bean uasal (pronounced ban ushill). If you’d like to say “Ladies and Gentlemen” you would say – “A dhaoine uaisle” ( ah deeny ooshla). So now you know!

27 Jan 12

In honour of our Brenda – Craiceáilte -meaning cracked or mad and pronounced crack-all-ta.
Sure we’re all a bit craiceáilte now and then, just don’t take out any loans til it passes

01 Nov 11

Rinne mé dearmad!

Pronounced – rinnah may darmad

Means – I forgot! Yes, it’s Tuesday today – I forgot to do my Focal on Friday! Gabh mo leithscéal (sorry!)

21 Oct 11

Cad a thárla?

Pronounced – Cod a harr lah?

Means – What happened? Cad a thárla? Where did the week go?

14 Oct 11

Seisiún – session. As in we had a right seisiún with the guys from DoneDeal last night!

Pronounced – seshooon

Sin é! (that’s it!)

7 Oct 11

Sad news this week with the news of the death of Steve Jobs – this week’s phrase is – Is mór an trua é

Pronounced : Iss moor on true- ah ay

Meaning: it’s a great pity

30 Sep 11

Following our win at the Women in Business Awards this week, this week’s phrase is:  Ceann amháin

Pronounced: keeown awawn

Meaning: just one! usually referring to just one pint or other alcoholic beverage

Usage: Are you going for ceann amháin tonight to celebrate?

PS: There is no such thing as ceann amháin!

Enjoy using this one, I do!

23 Sep 11

This Friday’s phrase is : Tóg go bog é

It means: Take it easy! It’s pronounced: Togue guh bug eh

A great one for a Friday, when we should all be thinking about taking it easy for the weekend. This is a good phrase to use instead of goodbye (slán) too.

16 Sep 11

Let’s all have a go at using a new Irish word or phrase every week during the working day – it’s be easy, fun and isn’t it a lovely positive thing to do anyway?

I’ve picked Friday as the day to introduce a word – mostly for reasons of illiteration, but we can go ahead and use them anytime we want!

This week’s phrase is a favourite of mine, it is:

Fadhb ar bith, meaning no problem!

Pronunciation – Fibe air bih (like bit, but without pronouncing the t, as in “would you ever give us a bi’ more time to finish that project”

So, today, when a customer calls with a typically Fridayish request, don’t freak out, just say “Fadhb ar bith” and get on with it:)

Do you have any favourit Irish words or phrases you’d like to include – let me know if you do!

We’ve decided to get together to share some of our experience and knowledge with the wider business community so we’ve created the Breakfast Buzz!

This event is scheduled for 08:30am so that it allows all of us to get on and do our day’s work when it finished, although you’re very welcome to hang out and network too!

The theme of this inaugral Breakfast Buzz is The Incredible Value of your Credibility – inspired by the knowledge that building and maintaining trust has never been more important in business than it is today.

The Rising Tide Panel of experts will talk and answer your questions on why it’s so important to build credibility for your business, whether you are a sole trader or a limited company and how you can do it cost effectively.
The event is informal and the idea is that it will be pretty interactive, allowing everyone who comes along to get the maximum benefit from it.

Check out the details below and don’t forget to email me to book your place – paula@angelireland.com. Thank you to the JFK Trust and the Dunbrody Visitor Centre for their kind sponsorship.

Date:                              Friday 9 September

Time:                            08:30 til 10:00

Venue:                         Dunbrody Visitors Centre, New Ross

Confirmed speakers so far:  Paula Ronan, Angel Marketing and Elaine Larkin, Web Content Partners – more to be confirmed shortly

Cost:                           €5 per person.

Tea, coffe, pastries and fruit will be supplied

For more information and to register your interest email paula@angelmarketing.com

Angel

Paula & Louie
paula@angelireland.com
louie@angelireland.com
Fresh Independent Marketing

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  ]]> http://www.angelireland.com/wp/?feed=rss2&p=993 0 http://www.angelireland.com/wp/?p=980 http://www.angelireland.com/wp/?p=980#comments Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:39:18 +0000 Angel Marketing http://www.angelireland.com/wp/?p=980 LinkedIn in is a terrific way to develop your network of contacts, let people know about your skills and experience and establish your credentials in your particular field. I am a big fan of it.

Trust is a big part of any network, ditto for LinkedIn. I, for example, have been approached by people unknown to be because they knew a couple of people that I was connected with and took that as a token of credibility.

I did actually know these people and they knew me, which meant that I could do business with our mutual acquaintance.

This business would not have happened, if, when our new client checked with his friends and their response was something like “No idea who she is, she just sent an invitation to LinkedIn out of the blue and said that we were friends! I didn’t want to be too rude, so I just accepted”

In this scenario, I would appear to be desperate, dishonest and possibly deluded!

 If you are going to invite someone on LinkedIn to join your network and you don’t actually know them (which is not recommended, but I can understand that it happens on occasion, when you share a group or are interested in a person’s blogs or point of view), here’s my advice to you:

1. Be honest. Always. If you don’t know the person, say “We haven’t met, but I’d like to connect with you because…”. Saying that you are friends when you’re not is a lie. Lying has a hugely negative effect on how you’re perceived by the person you’re trying to  connect with.

2. Be polite. You’d be surprised at the impression you can make by simply using “please” and “thank you”

3. Give a reason. People are much more likely to help you out when you tell them why. For example, “We’re in the XXX group togther and I like reading your comments there” or “I’m in the XXX business and deal with issues in your industry all the time, our connection might be useful in the future”

I’ve even had a very polite student asking to connect on LinkedIn stating that she simply wanted to build up her connections and was just starting out.

The quality of your connections on LinkedIn is much more important than the quantity – make sure that you represent yourself as well as you can to build strong and valuable relationships.

Happy Linking!

If you’d like more information on marketing through social media, or any other aspect of marketing, we’d love to help you out – paula@angelireland.com

The workshop was very much implementation-focused and most of the session focused on the participants’ social media presence, using familiar and relevant case studies to illustrate tips and advice.

It was lovely to get so much unprompted positive feedback from the workshop, we are delighted that the guys who came along found it so useful. Here’s a taster of what they thought:

Denis Hegarty, Success Online

Betty Kehoe, Aisling Designs

Enjoyed your presentation yesterday Paula. It was very well carried out, very informative and very amusing at times. Thanks

Rosaleen Kelly, The Pure Soap Company

Paula your presentation was excellent! Really enjoyed it. Very very well done!
thanks Rosaleen

Linda Tuohy, Oceans Surf School & Marine Education Centre

Really good yesterday Paula, really enjoyed it a very informative.
many thanks
Linda

________________

If you’re interested in arranging a workshop in any area of marketing, please get in touch, we’d love to help out – paula@angelireland.com