Blog - Shortbytes Marketing Solutions

A Simple Thank You: The Importance of Gratitude in Marketing

March 12, 2025 March 13, 2025

Gratitude is a powerful yet often overlooked tool in marketing. In a world where customers are bombarded with endless choices and advertising messages, a simple “thank you” can make a business stand out. Expressing gratitude to customers and receiving gratitude from them reaps many benefits. These include strengthening relationships, fostering brand loyalty, and ultimately driving …

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How & Why to conduct a Social Media Audit

December 12, 2024 December 12, 2024

As the year winds down, it’s the perfect time for a business to reflect on their social media performance. Conducting an end-of-year social media audit helps you evaluate your efforts over the past 12 months, pinpoint what’s working, what’s not and identify areas for improvement. Here’s a step-by-step guide to conducting an effective social media …

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Top Great Reasons To Outsource Your Marketing

July 11, 2024 July 11, 2024 / #outsourcedmarketing, content marketing, Digital marketing, Marketing, marketing for SMEs, Small Business

You are running a business and you are good at it. But that doesn’t mean you need to do everything. You may outsource your accounts, your IT, your HR requirements so why would you not outsource your marketing? By leveraging external expertise, businesses can achieve greater efficiency, access specialised skills, and ultimately drive better results. …

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Why colour is important in Marketing

April 18, 2024 April 18, 2024 / #contentmarketing, content marketing, Financial Brokers, Marketing, marketing for SMEs, Small Business

In marketing every detail matters. While I talk a lot about content in all its various forms, the visual aspect of marketing is a key element. In fact, it is what may engage many potential customers at the start of their journey with your business

How to build a strong brand

February 21, 2024 February 22, 2024 / brand building, financial broker marketing, Financial Brokers, Marketing, marketing for SMEs, Small Business

A marketing strategy can have several different objectives. The dominant one tends to be lead generation. This is usually to the detriment of brand building. Brand building and brand awareness are often left to one side as they are not considered ways of generating business. But nothing could be further from the truth. I am …

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Five common marketing myths debunked and why!

October 2, 2023 October 20, 2023 / content marketing, Digital marketing, Marketing, marketing for SMEs, Small Business, smes

Like any industry, there are lots of misconceptions and misunderstandings associated with marketing. While some of these marketing myths may hold a little substance, there is none for most of them. Many of the clients I deal with have heard a few of these floating around and are quick to ask about the truth behind …

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Why your business needs digital marketing

May 30, 2023 May 30, 2023

In the very simplest of terms, digital marketing allows you to reach your target audience at low cost. You can effectively be in front of your audience every time they reach for their smartphone, tablet, or PC. Bear in mind the average adult (age 16 – 64) spends over 30% of their time (that’s over …

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ways to get your business visible online

Top ways to make your business more visible online

February 21, 2023 February 22, 2023 / content marketing, Digital marketing, Financial Brokers, Marketing, marketing for SMEs, Small Business

Whether you sell on or offline, are a product or service provider and across all industries, it’s vital to ensure your business is visible online. For many small businesses, this also means that the owner needs to be visible too. A strong online presence will significantly boost your chances of getting new customers and growing …

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Evergreen or Topical Content – Which is better?

October 19, 2022 October 19, 2022 / content marketing, Digital marketing, Financial Brokers, Marketing, Small Business

You’re putting together your content calendar and have looked at your content pillars. Now you need to populate the content. A question I am often asked is around what topics to write on. Should the topic be broad based or specific to a particular point in time? In other words, should you use evergreen content …

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How to use content pillars to plan your social media

October 4, 2022 October 4, 2022 / content marketing, Digital marketing, Financial Brokers, Marketing, Small Business, smes

What is a content pillar? A content pillar is simply a topic that your company/brand will consistently feature on their social media. This means it will be discussed and highlighted with content created around it. Decide on 3 to 5 pillars i.e. topics. These topics will form the basis of the content calendar. The pillars …

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What is social media marketing?

April 27, 2022 October 19, 2023 / #socialmediamarketing, content marketing, Digital marketing, Financial Brokers, marketing for SMEs, Small Business, smes

I’ve found that there can be some confusion about what exactly social media marketing(SMM) is. This in turn leads to confusion around the role it can play in the overall marketing mix and the benefits that it can offer. The first thing to remember is that social media marketing is only one element of digital …

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Top Trends to Adapt and Refresh your strategy

February 9, 2022 October 19, 2023 / #contentmarketing, #marketingplanning, #marketingtrends2022, #smallbusiness, #video

As with every industry at the start of a new year, there are numerous reviews and reports. These look back at last year and forward too. Predictions on what marketing trends are going to emerge are everywhere. How can a business easily identify which trends are right for them to include in their strategy and …

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Simple Rules For More Effective Email Marketing

December 7, 2021 October 19, 2023 / content marketing, Digital marketing, Financial Brokers, Marketing, Small Business, smes

Email marketing was one of the first digital forms of marketing that many companies tried. It was a natural extension of the traditional direct mailing format. The beauty was that it was so measurable. You could see the delivery rates, the clicks, the open rates. But at the end of the day many did not …

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Make time to review and refine for a sharper focus

September 9, 2021 September 2, 2024 / #goalsetting, #marketing, #smes, reviewandrefine

I don’t often write very personal pieces but the whole subject of goal-setting is top of mind with me currently. Our eldest two children have both entered exam years. For them, during their first week back, there has been a huge focus on setting their own personal academic goals for the year. Looking back at …

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5 Compelling and Simple Reasons to Use Linkedin

April 14, 2021 October 19, 2023 / #buildingyourbusiness, #linkedin, #networking, #smemarketing

It is often thought that Linkedin was launched as a recruitment tool. In fact, its origins lie firmly in the networking world. The mission statement itself states “connecting the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful”. However, given the talent on show, it did become synonymous with job hunting and recruitment. Over the …

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Easy tips for creating a marketing plan

December 9, 2020 January 24, 2021

INTRODUCTION How do you put a marketing plan behind the strategy? It may be a surprise that actually creating a marketing plan is what proves most challenging for a business. My recent poll showed this was the aspect of marketing that almost 70% of respondents felt was most difficult. And to be honest, I can …

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Painting words with video

September 30, 2020 October 19, 2023

If a picture paints a thousand words is a well used and known phrase. Personally, I firmly believe that an image can portray far more than a few words. I now extend that thinking to video. How many words does a video paint? And more importantly how do I make a video that paints them? …

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Why storytelling is key to content marketing

August 26, 2020 October 19, 2023 / #contentmarketing, #financialbrokers, #smemarketing, #storytelling

The origins of content marketing Content marketing is all about creating, publishing and distributing content for a targeted market. This can be on or offline. Content should be relevant and timely to attract and retain the defined audience and ultimately to drive profitable customer action. The purpose of the content generally falls into 1 of …

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Begin building your marketing plan with the 4 E’s

July 15, 2020 July 15, 2020 / content marketing, Marketing, marketing for SMEs

Everyone has heard about the 4 P’s of marketing (or up to 8 now depending on where your thinking lies) but I think a good place to begin building your marketing plan is with the 4 E’s of marketing. For many businesses, trying to put together a marketing plan of activity, there are 4 very …

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If content is king, then consistency is queen

May 27, 2020 May 27, 2020 / content marketing, Digital marketing, financial broker marketing, Marketing, smes

We are all familiar with the phrase “Content is king”, first coined by Bill Gates in the ‘90s. However, this simple statement has never been more relevant than now. In 1996, when he originally used it only about 1% of the world was online. By the start of 2020 that had risen to over 50% …

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Communicating when the doors are closed

May 14, 2020 May 19, 2020 / Digital marketing, Financial Brokers, Marketing, Small Business

During a crisis, communicating with your customers and letting them know that you are there for them is critical. Combined with this, however, is the need to let them know how you can help them. Otherwise you risk just becoming unwanted spam. For many retailers this has meant a switch to online shops and delivery. …

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