Simon Paul Thurston

If you’re unfamiliar with the term social media, you’re possibly thinking social what? If this is the case, please allow me to explain in this article what social media is all about, and how it can be used to help your business. What Exactly Is Social Media? Social media in its basic sense refers to online media (websites) that enables (and also encourages) social interaction. This... Read more...

In Part One of this article I discussed why it is important to understand who your market is and why trying to market your product or service to everyone is a huge mistake to make. Part Two will now go into more detail as to how you can do this quickly and easily, as well as identifying what you should and should not do in order to maximise your success. When assessing who your ideal potential... Read more...

Regardless of what you may have been taught, what you may think or what you may assume, every company has a target market, every company. I consistently hear a common statement from business owners when I present them with the question “Who is your target market?” or “Who is your ideal customer?” The answer they invariably give me is “Everyone”. Everyone? You... Read more...

I’ve been listening to some of Dan Kennedy’s stuff this week and it really hammered home a message that I alluded to in my post regarding your business’ profits. I’ve also had some strange experiences at various networking events that I have attended this week, and so I thought you may find it useful if I identify a major pitfall that could come back to haunt you and your business. So... Read more...

If there is one hot topic with business owners at the moment, its making a profit. I am constantly stressing the important of profit and today I’ll give you some different strategies that you can use in order to create improved profits. Some of the basic concepts are: Increasing the prices of the products and services that you sell Sell more during each transaction – up sell, down sell... Read more...

I was inspired to write this short yet (I believe) effective post having been reading Perry Marshall’s blog. If you do not know who Perry Marshall is then you can click the link above and see some of his work. He is in my view, a marketing genius, and he is also renowned in our circles as the leading authority on Google adwords – Google’s pay per click advertising facility. KISS Your... Read more...

This is something that has been taught to me for many years now, however when I mention it to others, I do seem to get some weird looks, and I really do not know why. Fear of the unknown? The occult perhaps? Or just plain and simple “That is not for me, it’s for hot shot successful people”. Well, the latter is not that far from the truth, but you have to wonder how the successful... Read more...

So in my last post I spoke about creative marketing and how this can enable your target audience to find you easier. Why? Because a creative advertisement or direct mailing has the ability to cut through the clutter of the hundreds of messages that we receive (directly or indirectly) each day. So, how can you apply a degree of creative advertising to help your business become more visible and in turn,... Read more...

So what do I mean by creative marketing versus conventional marketing? Well, conventional marketing is how I would classify the majority of what we see throughout our day. This could be online via Facebook, Twitter or whilst we’re doing a search using Google, Yahoo! or Bing. It could also be while we walk down the street, listen to the radio or watch television. We’re surrounded by marketing... Read more...

…But … if the message falls upon deaf ears, what happens then? This is the third part of what I termed as ‘business marketing basics’ but in fact for many businesses, it is something that unfortunately they never seemed to have even considered. Well, not correctly anyway. So I have explained about how targeting the correct market is vital and that it is impossible to market... Read more...