Archive for July, 2015

Balancing work and holidays…

Monday, July 20th, 2015

Screen shot 2015-07-20 at 10.39.08It’s officially the start of the summer holidays  – we know because the roads are quieter (hurrah), all the kids are off school now and the sky-high holiday costs have kicked in!

We love holidays and advocate regular breaks from work so that you’re refreshed, re-energised and ready for the next round. However… it’s one thing taking time off but it’s quite another if you’re worrying while you’re away. We don’t encourage working on holiday but sometimes, especially when it’s your business and your clients, you need to check in on progress or deal with something while you are away from your office.

docSAFE allows you to take your work with you, securely stored in the cloud. So as long as you have internet access, you can access your files. On my last holiday I was able to review a document and send it to a client in under 30 minutes. Without docSAFE I would have been relying on email (insecure) and 3rd party involvement (getting the right information) and it could easily have eaten into half a day of my precious break.

Having the option and facility to do this is sometimes key to a real holiday. You are secure in the knowledge that should anything happen, you are fully equipped to deal with it, quickly and easily. No return flights needed!

5 top website design tips for professional firms

Tuesday, July 14th, 2015

We all have our favourite websites but are they effective?

When planning or reviewing your firm’s website, consider these 5 basic but essential top tips…

1 Are your contact details easy to find? Is your phone number on every page? Is your contact page clear and helpful?

2 Is your website mobile-friendly? From a user perspective, viewing a clunky old-fashioned website on a mobile phone is very difficult and Google now penalises you for it by down-ranking non-mobile friendly sites.

3 Is your site well laid out and easy to navigate? Is there a clear, consistent route through your site? Ask people from outside the firm for their feedback.

4 Does your website offer added value? It’s all very well having an attractive ‘shop window’ website as an alternative to your company brochure. However, if you can provide useful information, of any ilk, your website will provide reasons for people to return to it. Such attention magnets include useful tools, blogs, downloads, diary dates, reference charts and so on.

5 Does your website change? A good website will have refreshed content, images and information. You don’t need to change every part of it every week but I’d say you do need to update it and renew words and pictures every month at the very least. Look out for out of date information too – nothing is worse than promoting something that has been and gone!

What are you saying?

Wednesday, July 8th, 2015

Screen shot 2015-07-08 at 10.35.00You know what’s great about your firm. You probably have a good idea about the messages you’re putting out to your clients and prospective clients. But do you really know what people think of your organisation?

Why not try a quick and painless survey to your existing client base? You can use Survey Monkey (or ask us to set it up for you) and ask all the questions you need to know the answers to. The results will help shape your future marketing and may even throw up a few surprises.

Ask your clients what they think of your firm’s image – do they like it? Do they remember it? Do they care?

Ask where they would position you in terms of your fee structure – are you reasonably priced? Too expensive? Value/budget?

Ask them if they’d refer you and if so, why. If not, why?

Ask what they think of your customer service.

Ask if there’s anything special about your firm that makes them feel loyal.

Think of no more than 5 powerful questions but prepared for the answers! Survey Monkey will analyse the results and give you some useful feedback. This feedback can be used in your social media, blogs and even PR if it’s interesting enough.

Finally, give your clients an option to provide a testimonial. These are powerful and can be used extensively in your marketing communications.

Let us know if we can help with this.

Take the next step, call us today
0121 794 0685