Your business makes excellent products, solves complex problems, and employs people with deep technical expertise. So why isn’t your marketing generating the growth you expected? It’s a familiar challenge for manufacturing and engineering companies across the UK. You might have a well-established reputation, strong relationships with existing customers and a sales team that knows your…
We can measure almost everything in marketing. Except, apparently, whether it’s actually working. Website traffic is up. LinkedIn impressions are climbing. Campaign dashboards are glowing reassuringly green. Excellent. But is any of it generating profitable business? “We’re not entirely sure.” And somewhere in Finance, someone quietly closes their laptop. In this episode of Marketing,…
An exciting new international collaboration has come together, bringing together Norwegian outdoor heritage, Scottish market knowledge, and a shared love of the outdoors. I am very pleased to be working with a Norwegian outdoor equipment brand as it prepares to open its first physical outlet outside Scandinavia. Scotland will be the first UK market it…
Every business has objectives. Not many have the systems in place to actually achieve them. Ask virtually any business owner what they’re after and you’ll get the usual answers. More customers. Higher revenue. Better profitability. Better marketing. Sustainable growth. All perfectly reasonable aspirations. But that’s the problem. Setting a goal doesn’t in itself create the…
Running a small business in Scotland is challenging enough without wasting time and money on marketing that doesn’t deliver results. Whether you’re running an engineering company in Fife, a professional services firm in Edinburgh, a manufacturing business in Dundee or a growing SME in Glasgow, attracting new customers is essential. Yet many Scottish businesses approach…
Your business has a website. You’re posting on LinkedIn. Perhaps you’re running Google Ads, sending emails, and occasionally publishing a blog. So why isn’t your marketing generating enough leads? It’s one of the most common frustrations facing UK business owners. You’re investing time, money and effort into marketing. Still, the enquiries aren’t coming in. Or…
Wondering what a marketing consultant in Fife actually does, and whether your business needs one? You’re not alone. For many business owners, marketing is one of those things everyone agrees is important. Still, nobody seems entirely sure who should be doing what, how much it should cost, or whether it’s actually working. You’ve got a…
Marketing has developed a rather unhealthy obsession with algorithms. We’re constantly discussing Google rankings, LinkedIn reach, AI-generated content, engagement rates and whatever mysterious change Meta has made to its platform this week. Businesses spend enormous amounts of time trying to understand what algorithms want. But we seem to be overlooking a rather important question. What…
In this episode of Marketing, Properly!, Sean Makin looks at the questions Managing Directors should be asking their marketing teams, not to become marketing experts themselves, but to make sure marketing is actually helping the business achieve what it needs to achieve. It starts with a much better question than “What campaigns are we running?”,…
Big competitors. Bigger budgets. Entire marketing departments. And your business has Dave, a LinkedIn account and a Google Ads budget that wouldn’t cover the biscuits at a corporate strategy meeting. Sound familiar? For many small and medium-sized businesses across Fife, competing with larger companies can feel like an uphill battle. Big brands have the resources…