Welcome back! I know you are eager to read the last 15 killer content marketing ideas, so I won’t keep you waiting any longer! 

Let’s continue, shall we?

Content either make or break your marketing. Great content can help you earn the right to your audience’s time while average content will be dismissed and ignored. Good content connects directly with your ideal customers’ wants and needs and provides them with reasons to believe in your business.

If you’ve struggled with writers' block and can’t think of any good content ideas to write about, then stress no more!

In this two-part series blog, I’ll share 30 killer content marketing ideas with you; 15 ideas first and then the rest in part 2.

Ready? Let’s dive in! 

CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve won a business award; the ultimate recognition of your hard work and dedication. Amongst the celebrations and high-fives, now is the time to let the rest of the world know too.

Let your customers share in your moment of glory. After all, they are partly responsible for your success, as without them you wouldn’t be in business for long!

So where do you start and how far should you go in spreading the news?

Here are our top ten ways to publicise your award:

“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it.”– Erik Qualman author

Why should you care about social media? Because a whopping 78% of consumers say that companies’ social media posts impact what they buy (source).

In New Zealand, 3.5 million people are active social media users who spend 1 hour and 53 minutes using social every day. Social media is here to stay and if you are not using the platforms effectively, you could be doing your business more harm than good.

At Muritai Group, we are all about making sure your message is seen by the right people at the right time, keeping it on point and interesting. I recently gave a presentation at a local networking meeting on the mistakes that businesses often make with their social media marketing. The following is a distillation of my top tips for communicating online.

Over the last month or so, I have found myself at several informal networking events. Social events and catch-ups have created many opportunities to meet new people, be merry and to broaden my network.

However, over the course of these events, something became abundantly clear. The one thing Kiwis hate more than an Aussie on a cricket pitch is a fellow Kiwi who is blowing their own trumpet. Kiwis are a humble, easy-going bunch who are fiercely independent and that translates into a hell of a lot of downplaying when it comes to answering that very tricky question “so, what do you do?”.

Make your profile stand out from the crowd with these five simple changes:

• Use your headline to its full potential

  Your headline gives you opportunity to describe who you are and what you do, but in just one line. This isn’t always easy so it’s not surprising that most people end up with their current job title as the default option. Read HubSpot’s 4 tips for an effective LinkedIn headline. 

In our blog about Retaining Customers, we discovered an existing customer is likely to spend on average 60% more* than a new customer. That’s a stat hard to ignore! Keeping your existing customers happy so they buy from you again and again is a key strategy for increasing profitable sales in any business.

One such strategy is to recognise your customers who repeat purchase with something they want and value. A great way of doing this is by creating a simple and straightforward rewards programme.

There is a reason why traditional stamp card loyalty schemes are in most coffee shops – they work! Now days we are starting to see how technology can improve loyalty programmes such as these with quality data. Designed with ease of use in mind, here are our top 2 loyalty apps for small business:

•  Goody

Goody gives you everything you need to create loyalty programmes that connect with your customers through your online store.

Every time your customers make a purchase at your business, they earn and accumulate points that can be redeemed for rewards. Because you know them best, you can create goodies that you know your customers will love - and that work for your business too.

• The LittleMonkey Loyalty App

Based in Wellington, LittleMonkey have created a fully customisable app to suit your business’s needs. Unlike other options this one is branded to you and more importantly lists your company name in the app store, which means your customers are linked directly to you and not a third party.

Bonus tip – got heaps of loyalty cards in your wallet? Download the Stocard App and never have to go hunting in your wallet again! This free app securely stores your loyalty account numbers in one place, clearing up space in your wallet.

*Manta's and BIA/Kelsey's joint report "Achieving Big Customer Loyalty in a Small Business World"

Keeping your existing customers happy so they buy from you again and again is a key strategy for increasing profitable sales in any business. In fact, an existing customer is likely to spend on average 60% more* than a new customer. That’s a stat that’s hard to ignore!

Your customers have choice; they can choose to stay with you or buy from somewhere else. That means your goal is to be the best option for your customers. It sounds obvious but if you are the best option, your customers won’t want to buy from someone else. 

It's Maori Language Week!

This year is all about showing New Zealand that there is a place for the Māori language in all areas of life, from our sports fields and stadiums, to the news and the ever-growing realm of social media. This annual campaign is about raising awareness that New Zealand has its very own language and encouraging the use of it, with simple phrases every day, week and month of the year.

To celebrate, we thought we would share a few phrases you can use in your everyday business interactions

You’re doing well, your marketing is working and you’ve got a potential customer who is interested in what you do... what’s next? To be seriously considered you have to build trust and prove that you can do what you say you can do.

What is the best, easiest and cost effective way to do this? Testimonials!

This simple and FREE marketing tool is often overlooked, but can help to seal the deal when a customer is making a purchase decision.

You’ve got my attention – but can you hold it?

Captivate your customers in three simple steps.

Think for a moment about your ideal customer. How do they look for your product or service? Are they searching online, are they talking to friends, are they walking down the street?

Once they have found you, how do you hold their attention and get them interested enough to find out more?

It is not enough to talk about what your business does or the promotion you have at the moment. You need to be more inspiring than that. You need to be relevant, interesting and credible to be ultimately considered.

Marketing is critical for every business because if the customer doesn't purchase your goods or services, nothing else matters! Marketing is not just advertising, it’s not just selling and it’s not persuading people to buy things they don’t need.

Marketing is the whole process of taking your goods and services to market and getting them into the hands of your ideal customers. That means marketing is about winning the hearts and minds of your customers and ideal clients. Reaching the right people with the right message in the right place at the right time!

It all sounds pretty simple but business owners often complain that their marketing fails to deliver the results they want.

For marketing to be successful so your business thrives, it must have the right why, who, what, how and do. A brief explanation of each component follows:

Last month we learnt that the secret to marketing plans that work is the science of what makes your customers buy.

Successful marketing meets your customer at every step of the buying process so that you retain as many prospects as possible, capture your customers and generate sales. The best marketing plans create strategies to make sure customers notice you, like you, trust you, try you, buy you and then love you.

The first essential step to creating a marketing plan that works is to get customers to notice you and become familiar with your brand.

There’s no denying that John Harrington, founder of Harrington’s Brewery knows a lot about craft beer. So when John and Derek McCullough, both long-time Mt Pleasant residents, got together to think of ways to raise money for the rebuild of the Mt Pleasant Community Centre, the conversation soon turned to beer.

From there, the idea of producing a Mt Pleasant series of beers was born, using the best and most popular of Harrington’s award winning craft beers.

Muritai Marketing, as local residents ourselves, decided to get behind this community initiative. On the 25th November 2015 to much fan fair, we launched four beers - Broad Reach, Ziraffe, Muddy Duck and Road Cone Red - under the by-line of ‘Good beer doing good.’

Combined with Mike McGurk’s stunning beer label designs, the beers are set to become a popular way to raise much needed funds to complete the centre.

Believed to be the first social enterprise initiative of its kind in New Zealand, every beer purchased equals a gold coin donation to the Mt Pleasant Community Centre rebuild. Timed to coincide with the summer time BBQ season these beers are a ‘hopping good’ Christmas gift for business clients and craft beer lovers alike.

Cup week kicked off with Sculpture on the Peninsula, the South Island’s largest contemporary outdoor sculpture exhibition held at Loudon Farm, 6 – 8 November.

With more than 70 exhibits covering several hectares of farmland, Sculpture on the Peninsula is a testament to the way imagination can transform the landscape. And for sponsors, Fox and Associates, land surveyors and land development specialists, it’s a sponsorship that’s perfectly aligned to their mission; creating legacies with land.

Cup and Show week has wound down to a close. And what a week it was, especially for the girls.

It started the week earlier with Michelle Payne on Prince of Penzance becoming the 1st female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup. Along with her brother and strapper, Stevie and their eight siblings, the win became an extraordinary family story.

The following week, women dominated with:

• Kerryn Manning becoming the 1st female driver to win the New Zealand Trotting Cup
• Lisa Allpress on Jimmy Mac winning the 152nd New Zealand Cup
• Sam Spratt on Addictive Habit winning the Couplands Bakery Mile

Social media is now a key promotional tool in many businesses' marketing toolkits. However, it's becoming harder to easily manage your social media, given the wide and ever increasing range of social media channels and platforms.

We reveal eight super social media apps we use to manage our social media channels from our smartphones. Some of these apps are similar, so we suggest you try them to find the ones you like best. 

1. HootSuite - You can monitor and post to several popular networks including both Facebook personal profiles and business pages, Twitter, LinkedIn and others. Hootsuite includes built-in custom analytics system, the ability to monitor selected keywords and the option to conveniently schedule posts.  

2.  TweetDeck - Similar to Hootsuite, TweetDeck is available for iPhone, Android and Chrome browser. With TweetDeck, you can watch your updates stream in real-time when you connect with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. 

So you've decided to start an email newsletter. Good for you as email marketing is one of the most productive ways to stay in touch with your clients and increase sales and repeat business.

But for email to be successful, you must, of course, get your emails read. And like most things, success starts with getting the fundamentals right.

Before you push send, check out the 10 'must haves' for an outstanding newsletter. 

 1.       An attention-grabbing subject line

Your subject line is the first thing people see of your email. Your subject line must compel your readers to open your email; otherwise they won’t read it.  It also must be brief (no longer than 50 characters) otherwise your finely crafted subject line will get cut off if it’s too long.

Try giving your readers just enough information to make them curious. Use action words to inspire readers to click. Subject lines that address your readers concerns such as “How to …” or “Top 5 tips…” show you understand what they care about. Finally, another technique is to personalise the subject line with the reader’s first name.

Ever wonder why your inbox is often jam-packed. The answer is simple. Email marketing works!

While the most popular form of email marketing is the email newsletter, we are all too familiar with email newsletters that waste our time or are full of spam. So it's not surprising that rarely a week goes by without someone asking me if they should even bother having an email newsletter.

However, email marketing should not be ignored if you want to grow your business. It's relatively quick and easy to get started and inexpensive. And, if done right, email marketing can generate new customers, repeat sales and profit for your business.

So to help you get started, here are five ways to harness the power of email marketing for your business. 

Direct Marketing pioneer, Bob Stone, wrote one of the most in-depth direct marketing books ever; Successful Direct Marketing Methods. This book sold more than 250,000 copies worldwide and went to eight reprints. He also built a successful Direct Marketing agency and sold it for a king's ransom. 

Over his long career, Bob Stone identified 30 Direct Marketing principles that proved true better than 90% of the time. Taken from the Direct Creative Blog, we list 20 of those principles here.

1. All customers are not created equal. Give or take a few percentage points, 80 percent of repeat business for goods and services will come from 20 percent of your customer base.

2. The most important order you ever get from a customer is the second order. Why? Because a two-time buyer is at least twice as likely to buy again as a one-time buyer.