This week we held the first training sessions for small and micro SMEs in Manchester in partnership with Enterprise Nation and their Go and Grow Online programme.
Covering everything from choosing the right equipment and how to set up your working environment, we took our audience through a series of steps to empower them to get off to the right start online.
As of writing, at least 40% of small UK business has no online presence and haven’t touched digital. Another prominent percentage of people have little clue how to get their web presence noticed. Most have no idea where to start with marketing. It’s not surprising: there is a figurative ocean of choices when it comes to everything from choosing which platform to build your website on down to the best tools for promotion, monitoring and reporting.
We put together our top tips based on experience to help our audience navigate the sea of digital information.
Go And Grow Online Programme
Some of our top tips included choosing a platform such as WordPress to start with. WordPress it’s a highly capable platform, but you can also set it up in a few simple clicks. WordPress also gives you access to many free templates that are great for businesses starting out. Unlike some starter platforms such as Wix, Weebly, Squarespace or Moonfruit, WordPress is built with clean code, SEO and accessibility in mind.
Choosing WordPress also means creating a site that grows with your business. Finding a digital marketing agency that can work with your existing site and its content will be easy if you’re outgrowing your startup website. There is a large community of WordPress developers, and it has a great support community. Our advice is always to try and future-proof as much as possible. Using a platform like WordPress is an excellent solution for this, as you can set it up for practically nothing.
We offered advice on various topics, from social media and paid advertising (PPC) to analytics and SEO Management.
Our small Manchester Digital Agency is part of The Go and Grow Online campaign this year. In 2021, almost 50% of businesses will have no online presence.
That’s why we joined the team at Enterprise Nation this year to advise businesses on all things digital.
What is the Go and Grow Online Campaign?
The Go and Grow online campaign has been created in partnership with Microsoft, Verizon and Curry’s PC World and gives those micro startups the best advice possible to help them reach customers online. The campaign launched with a fabulous party in the Shard, but here’s what It’s really about.
We will be offering two workshops (Maybe more) in Manchester. It’s a twelve-step program. Well, actually, it’s eleven, but we could add one on! Here’s what we will cover.
The eleven-step programme
Hardware
What kind of devices are you using? If you are trying to be the next Amazon with your trusty Packard Bell from 1994, It may be time to switch.
Domains
Do you have a domain? bestcompanyever.wix.com with an email address of entrepreneur@gmail.com just may not make the cut!
Hosting
Hosting. Make it fast, make it secure. Consider your storage, traffic and platform. We can give some sound advice in this area.
Office
Office Software; Choosing the suitable options. As a Digital Agency, we don’t use Office much. For some of our clients, however, it is their spinal column.
Web Presence
Your website. We develop bespoke websites and applications. Now, We could have you online in a couple of hours. Could we have you visible? No. So we don’t make quick websites. Does that mean that having a quick and dirty website is rubbish? Not at all. You should have some presence to send your contacts to. We can advise on some cheaper ways to get yourself online without making it hard to extricate yourself later on.
Legals
Legal stuff. We will talk about what you need to be legal online. This will depend mainly on what you do and where you do business.
Email marketing. That old chestnut! How do you set up your campaigns for success? how do you stay relevant? We can show you how to keep clicks and opens high by using simple segmentation.
Social Media
Social Media. Many people start with this. But if not, how can you get set up? In the sea of networks, which ones should you use?
Online Visibility
Rising up the search engines. Ok, this is where we are experts. We will tell you what works, what doesn’t, and where you could potentially do it faster.
Marketing Automation
Automation. We can demonstrate some of the tools you can utilise to make life easier!
Measurement
Finally, nothing is helpful if you can’t measure your success. We explain the basics of analytics and other measuring tools and help you make sense of the data in its simplest form.
Further Learning
Of course, no one can cover an entire suite of digital marketing in two hours, which is why we will be arranging several more events in the future to cover each of these topics in more depth. It’s our mission to help as many business owners as possible go and grow online.
We are a Manchester digital marketing agency specialising in content creation, bespoke web and application development and PPC. We work with businesses of all shapes and sizes. If you want to get off on the right foot with digital, speak to our team today.
If you are a small business looking for support, enterprise nation offers many free events for any aspiring entrepreneur. Membership is cheap, and the quality of content is amazingly high. Founded by Emma Jones, a champion for small businesses, it’s now a support network for over 70,000 UK businesses, and on top of the support, you will find fantastic networking opportunities.
