The Appletree Blog has moved!

If you’re looking for our latest blog – we’ve moved! We have finally launched our brand new website and our blog is now integrated into that site. We’re still posting two to three times a week and bringing you lots of useful advice and ideas. Just go to www.Appletreeuk.com/Blog and you’ll find our most recent [...]

When a workshop is more than just a workshop

If you offer any kind of service to customers, running workshops are a great way of marketing yourself and your business.  They inform and advise and can act as a great way of speaking directly to your target customer audience.  Also, as will become apparent here, they are not a one-off event in terms of [...]

The case in the defence of Twitter

A client recently remarked “let me know when you get a sale from Twitter”.  In other words, “I bet I’ll never see the day we get a sale as a result of Twitter!” A statement said many a time I would wager.  My answer, said smiling: “No, you probably won’t if you just use Twitter [...]

Which are your best selling months?

I’m currently reading Faff by Mike Pagan. He gave me a copy a couple of months ago when he presented at a meeting I attended (click here for more information about the meeting and a link to Mike’s website.) Mike’s book is a collection of articles and ideas and one that got me thinking is [...]

Marketing works better when it works together

I’ve just written a case study to go into my new book and wanted to share it with you. It’s about one of my clients how using a wide range of marketing activities, all working together, is really helping to grow her business. Options HR is a company that provides valuable HR advice to businesses [...]

Facebook – Is it really the modern day business necessity?

When you first started your business, print media was probably your main marketing concern. Not very long ago, it wasn’t entirely unusual for a business not to be online. To interact with your customers, the internet wasn’t your only option. But now, things have changed. Not only is the internet everywhere, we’re expected to always [...]

How many marketing activities do you need?

In the last couple of weeks I’ve heard two different marketing presentations that give very different advice and I wanted to share them with you and let you decide which is right. More is less At the first presentation, we were shown the idea of a wheel with a number of spokes. The presenter said [...]

Web-attractiveness isn’t necessarily good design

Reading through the LinkedIn Groups a question grabbed my attention. It was a lady who was obsessed with setting up a series of fancy designed monetized blogs. As well as wavering on which kind of blogging platform to use, she was very concerned about the design, as well as keen to start making money. Unfortunately [...]

Failure to check your website could prove costly

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has announced that its remit is being extended to cover marketing on websites. From March 1 2011, marketing communications on your website and in other places under your control – like Facebook and Twitter – will have to meet the non-broadcast advertising rules as set out in the Committee of [...]

How to buy a new website

You need a new website. You’ve asked a web developer to pitch for the job but you don’t speak fluent ‘tech’. How do you know what to ask for? Here are some questions you can ask, to help you get what you need. Who owns the finished code? If the developer owns the code, you’re [...]