How can a strategic business review help your practice excel?

How can a strategic business review help your practice excel?

by | Sep 6, 2022

360 BUSINESS REVIEW

When you are running your own business, how do you take a step back? To stop, evaluate, listen and learn from your customers and team?

Are the values and vision you hold dear, understood, and communicated to all your stakeholders and customers?

This is hard to do within your own business. Taking time away from the demands and stresses of “business as usual”, to pause and evaluate whether you are offering the best experience to your customers and your team, is important but also challenging. So how do you achieve this?

This is where a strategic business review comes into its own. Undertaking such a review will immediately help you to identify the strengths of your business, and pinpoint the weaknesses, creating an opportunity to highlight and rectify any problems before they become ingrained.

Most businesses conduct annual employee performance 360 reviews and find them extremely helpful with staff development and management, however, much greater value is to be had from running a whole business review, covering both your client’s and employees’ experience of working with your company. The process of looking at every aspect of your company, by reviewing each part of the structure from the top down, will reveal exactly how your business is perceived and identify any gap with your own view of how you want to be perceived.

What is a business review?

A business review evaluates key aspects within your business that are pillars of its success, through an in-depth audit and interviews with key stakeholders. The process is usually managed by an external partner, covering areas such as:

  • Business objectives
  • Vision, Mission and Values
  • Service offering
  • Key sectors
  • New business strategy
  • Marketplace perception
  • Your people – staff engagement
  • Client experience

The output of the review is a comprehensive report, providing evaluations and recommendations that engage your team, identify your ideal clients and ensures your brand messaging and values are woven throughout all of your company communications.

One of the benefits gained by a business review is the feeling of inclusion amongst your employees, while contributing to creating a more positive workplace.

The report

From the answers obtained in the interviews, the review of supporting documentation, clarifications and from research, an extensive report is produced, which addresses all the areas above and summarises your successes and challenges in each area and provides recommendations to improve, including, but not limited to:

  • Competitor analysis
  • A review of your brand messaging and story and suggestions on your messaging going forward
  • A full website audit
  • A review of all your communications, social media, marketing collateral, pitch/presentation documents
  • Development of user persona’s for your target audience
  • A ‘secret shop’ to experience your customer journey
  • Results from a staff engagement survey to inform Values and identify any areas for improvement

The report concludes with recommendations for all the key areas: – Business strategy, customer experience, your people, brand messaging and marketing strategy and activity. It will also provide a 3-month marketing plan that incorporates your Brand Strategy, which can be implemented at your own pace.

Tough read

Any review you undertake can be a difficult read, as it will enable you to uncover issues you were completely unaware of. The process and findings can feel quite personal as your business is your passion. The key is to thoroughly evaluate the results and make changes where necessary.

A review can broaden your view of your company, clients, workplace and employees and steer you away from assumptions. It allows you to identify the improvement opportunities within the business and create a strategy to implement them.

The idea of any review can seem daunting and the results can be brutal and difficult to accept, but it can be a very useful way of identifying issues and weaknesses before they become a real problem affecting business performance. When managed properly, the results can lead to changes that ingrain best practices within every layer of the business and ensure that your employees and clients feel listened to and valued. The most important part of any business is the employees and ensuring they are all on board with the values and ethos of the business allows the company to develop and flourish in its given field.

 

If you would like to find out more about our Designated Business Review, please do get in touch:

Michelle Wheeler, Marketing Director, michelle@designatedgroup.com 020 7952 1460

The ultimate business hashtag list 2021

The ultimate business hashtag list 2021

by | Oct 11, 2021

Ultimate business hashtag listv designated

    What are hashtags and why should you consider using them for your social media marketing? What is the best business hashtag list to use for your business?

    A hashtag (#) is a label (or labels) attached to a social media post. It’s a simple way for people to search for common topics across social media platforms.

    You might be familiar with hashtags on Twitter, but they are used widely across LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. You can follow hashtags you might be interested in on LinkedIn and Instagram, plus you can add them to Instagram and Facebook Stories.

    The key with hashtags is to fully understand your audience and ensure you use the most relevant hashtags for your content. We talk more about this in our recent blog post Why use hashtags in your social media posts

    So where can you start? We’ve done some initial research for you on the most popular business hashtags list, which can be used for many types of businesses. Don’t try to use them all at once! Experiment with these broad hashtags and see which ones work for you.

    Does this all seem like too much effort? Do you not have the time to do all the research needed to get the most effective list of hashtags for your business?  Why don’t you let our team at Designated look into a social media strategy for you and take care of all your hashtags at the same time!

     

    The Best Business Hashtag List for Instagram

    #businesscoach

    #digitalmarketing

    #digitalbusiness

    #business

    #investing

    #wealth

    #money

    #businesstips

    #startup

    #entrepreneur

     

    The Best Hashtags For Marketing for Instagram

    #adwords

    #mktdigital

    #inboundmarketing

    #googleadwords

    #marketingconsultant

    #facebookads

    #digitalagency

    #socialmedia

     

    The best hashtags for Medical for Instagram

    #heathcare

    #medstudent

    #nurses

    #healthcare

    #pharmacy

    #medicalstudents

    #clinical

    #nurse

    #medicallife

    #medicalcare

     

    The Best Hashtags For Restaurants for Instagram

    #chef

    #foodtruck

    #dinner

    #restaurant

    #familyrestaurant

    #finedine

    #instarestaurant

    #restaurantstyle

    #bestrestaurants

    #restaurantlife

     

    The Best Hashtags For Fitness for Instagram

    #fitsporation

    #fitnessmodel

    #fit

    #workout

    #instafitness

    #gymlife

    #getfit

    #fitnessaddict

    #gym

    #fitnessmotivation

     

    The Best Hashtags For Events for Instagram

    #specialevents

    #partyplanning

    #event

    #eventservices

    #corporateevent

    #eventpros

    #eventsplanning

    #venues

    #eventsplanner

    #eventmanager

     

    The Best Hashtags For Recruitment for Instagram

    #interviewtips

    #applynow

    #careergoals

    #employers

    #employer

    #careerdevelopment

    #jobinterview

    #recruitmentagency

    #jobsearching

    #recruiterlife

     

    Want to find out more about using social media to raise your brand awareness and drive sales, contact designated’s marketing director Michelle who would be happy to tell you all about our fab team: michelle.wheeler@designated.com

    Why use hashtags in your social media posts?

    Why use hashtags in your social media posts?

    by | Aug 16, 2021

    Word hashtag with a magnifying glass

    Did you know that hashtags can help to build more social media than a social media post with none? But what are hashtags and why use them? What is the best business hashtag list to use for your business?

    A hashtag (#) is a label attached to a social media post. It’s a way to connect social media posts with a common theme, cause, awareness day, or social issue.

    Hashtags are more commonly known for the social media platform Twitter but they are widely used on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest too. On Instagram and LinkedIn, you can also follow a hashtag, so this could mean more people discover your account and what you’re doing. You’re able to use hashtags in Instagram Stories, IGTV and LinkedIn Stories too!

    Hashtags can be used for many different reasons including;

    • Increasing engagement with your followers,
    • Being part of a broader conversation which can lead to increased brand awareness for your brand
    • Show support for a social issue or cause
    • Add context to your posts
    • Allow new people to find your content and social accounts

    It’s important not to overload your posts with hashtags and lose your message. The hashtags you use need to make sense in the context of your post and be relevant. There are lots of hashtags to try, which might differ across the social platforms.

    The social media platforms each recommend a different amount of hashtags to use. It all sounds very confusing, doesn’t it?

    So where do you start? Have a look at each platform in turn and with a little digging, you can find the hashtags you might want to use and see how much they’re being used already.

    Instagram

    Log into your Instagram account, find the search button and then add your hashtag in. You’ll get a results page which looks a little like this.

    You’ll need a mixture of broad and niche hashtags to add to your post. Again they all need to be relevant and contextual to your social media post. 

    LinkedIn

    From your profile page, find the search box and add your hashtag idea here. You’ll then get a result which shows how many people follow that hashtag on LinkedIn. This can give you an idea of how often it’s used and you can choose to follow this hahstag too using the button.

    Facebook

    When you’re logged into your Facebook profile, find the search button and start typing a hashtag you’re interested in. You’ll get a list like the one below with the hashtag and related hashtags in.

    You’re then able to pick one and find out how many people are using this. Again, this can give you an indication of how popular your hashtag is.

    Twitter

    If you log into your Twitter account and then go to the search function, you can add your hashtag ideas here. You’ll be able to see how often the hashtag has been used in the last hour.

    Does this all sound like too much effort? Why don’t you let our Marketing team at Designated look into a social media strategy for you and take care of all your hashtags at the same time!

    Build your brand using Content Marketing

    Build your brand using Content Marketing

    by | Jul 26, 2021

    Content Marketing

    Content marketing is a word banded around a lot in business but do you know what it means and how it can be important for your business?  

    Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing valuable and relevant content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. This content will drive profitable customer action, whether it be booking an appointment or making a sale.  

    Content marketing is at, it’s core, educational and not promotional. It is designed to be valuable, to start or build upon a relationship, increasing trust and visibility of the brand.  

    But why is content marketing important for your business? There are a number of different reasons, but a solid content marketing strategy helps many aspects of your digital marketing.  

    Content marketing strategy comes before your social media strategy, you’ll need to understand what is valuable to your target market and create posts which can be shared and saved by your followers.  

    Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), search engines like Google reward businesses that publish good quality, consistent and valuable content.  

    Are you interested in generating PR content for your business or brand? Successful PR strategies address issues your audience cares about, not the business themselves.  

    Pay per click (PPC) is when you pay for ads and for each click on them but relies on good quality content to hook the user into your website.   

    Are you planning on increasing your email subscriber list? Content is key to creating these emails and driving traffic and leads for your inbound marketing.  

    Content marketing requires work, persistence from all parties involved and patience for the results to come in but it can have many benefits to your business.  

    1. Your content marketing strategy can make sure you’re found by the right people and potential customers. Answering people’s key questions by creating blog posts, ebooks or videos for example can be a good place to start.  
    1. Your content is only as valuable as its ability to attract new people to your business, and compel them to engage going forward.  
    1. Content marketing can help acquire new customers. You’ll be able to be a trusted source for them and they’ll want to hear from you and purchase your products and services.  
    1. You’ll be able to create more loyal customers, which potentially increase sales through cross-selling or upselling.  

    So if you’re looking for someone to start to help you on your content marketing journey, we’d love to work with you. 

    For more information about working with a virtual marketing team on michelle@designatedgroup.com

     

    Are you using awareness days in your social media content calendar?

    Are you using awareness days in your social media content calendar?

    by | Jul 22, 2021

    social media content calendar

    What are awareness days and how can I use these in my marketing?
    Awareness days are planned days where a cause is being highlighted on social media. There are so many, they range from business-related ones to more fun and light-hearted ones!

    You can plan a marketing strategy using these, choosing the ones which are the most relevant to you personally and for your business. These days are known a fair way in advance, so you can plan content and your messages ahead of time.

    How do you use them?
    Awareness and national days are incredibly popular on social media, generally used as hashtags and more often than not, trending on Twitter. This provides a golden opportunity to join the conversation, increase your engagement and reach new audiences.

    You’ll need to select the right awareness days to include as part of your marketing strategy, it needs to be relevant and match your brand tone or objectives. When thinking about awareness days, you can use this framework to select the most appropriate day for you.

    1. Do the causes align with your business?
    2. Does the cause match or enhance your business values?
    3. Are the causes aligned to your Corporate social responsibility goals?
    4. Is it something you’re passionate about?
    5. Is the cause driven by staff interest or staff engagement?

    It’s important to be able to give your business’s unique view or context to the awareness days. Your content will then be more valuable and raise awareness on this topic.
    You’ll need to do your research though, finding the relevant hashtags, and this will allow people to see your content and get involved, extending your reach. Your activity needs to be a win-win for you and the awareness day or cause. You’ll be supporting them, increasing awareness and creating conversation and engagement.

    The content you create for the awareness day can be a good content hook, driving traffic to your website from your social channels. It’s timely and often being talked about already, so planning your content ahead of time and publishing on the right day is key!

    Make sure to also include your involvement in appropriate emails and any newsletters too, so your email subscribers aren’t missing out on this valuable content. You might be able to remind them of your social accounts and encourage them to become new followers too.

    Do you want a hand getting your marketing strategy sorted? Do you know the awareness days you’d like to use for your business?

    At Designated we only hire industry experts. Each has over 10 years of experience working across various industries and with household brand names.

    Contact Designated’s Marketing Director Michelle to see how our team can help you – michelle@designatedgroup.com