Author: Mark Poles

When I first saw the whole #icebucketchallenge thing (seems months ago now…), my first reaction was “Great piece of marketing by a relatively small charity”. Except that it wasn’t someone working for either charity – either the ALS Association in the US or the Motor Neurone Disease Association in the UK – who thought it… Continue reading What Charities Need to Learn From #icebucketchallenge

In Part 1, I showed you how social media marketing wasn’t necessarily the right thing for your business. I used four principles (and it’s important you understand these): Know Thyself – Are you the sort of person who loves using social media already, and is constantly tweeting and posting facebook status updates? Or do you… Continue reading Social Media Marketing: Part 2 – Which Networks Are Right For My Business?

Eight years ago, I had an idea while watching BBC’s ‘The Apprentice’ – “Wouldn’t it be fun if we could run a competition like this for local sixth form students?” The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Schools are brilliant at identifying academic talent, or sporting talent, or musical talent or… Continue reading You’re Hired!

Google recently introduced an extension to its Google Partners programme for online marketing agencies – Video Advertising. Clare Associates has been a Google Partner since the introduction of the programme and is now one of the first agencies in the southwest to gain the advanced Video Advertising certification. The certification covers YouTube and Google Display… Continue reading Clare Associates one of the first southwest agencies to gain new Google Video Advertising Advanced Certification

K9 Meals on Wheels is one of our smaller, local clients. They came to us following a chance meeting at a local business networking group – which demonstrates why old-fashioned face-to-face networking still has a place in our modern world… They told us they had a website but not an online shop. The business sold… Continue reading Tiny changes to your website can make a big difference to your AdWords campaigns and how likely people are to buy from you!

Here’s an interesting graph: What this shows is the astonishing surge in interest in ‘social media marketing’ and ‘facebook marketing’ in the last few years, as measured by the worldwide number of Google searches. I spend a lot of time talking to business owners about their online marketing. One of the most common statements I… Continue reading Social Media Marketing: Part 1 – Time to Jump off the Bandwagon?

We’re going to be running an online marketing workshop for Launceston Chamber of Commerce on the evening of Wednesday 5th February. The event is free to Launceston Chamber members and only £10 for non-members. See below for more details:   Launceston Chamber of Commerce is holding its first networking meeting of 2014 on Wednesday February… Continue reading “It’s Not Just About the Website – Marketing Your Business Online in 2014”