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As The Marketing Coach's clients grow and their marketing needs change, I am getting a lot of requests from businesses that would like to outsource some of their marketing activities. A common refrain is "I wish I could employ a marketing person, but I can't afford a permanent staff member" or "I need a website, but don't want to spend a fortune". With this in mind, I have been working hard to come up with some services that will take the pressure off of my clients. I have managed to gather a team of marketing, PR and IT specialists that have extensive experience in their respective fields as well as a passion and understanding of the unique needs of small business in Australia. The Marketing Coach can now offer the following services:

• Press release writing and distribution
• Article writing
• Website design, hosting and management
• Market research
• Marketing strategy design and implementation

For those clients who would like an ongoing arrangement, there are retainer packages:

• The Marketing Manager- all the benefits of having a marketing manager on your staff, but without the additional overheads to pay (space, equipment, furniture etc.), no benefits to pay or lengthy, expensive recruitment process. The Marketing Manager will work with you to design a marketing strategy and implementation plan, will explore future marketing opportunities for your business and manage media relations.
• The Website Manager - imagine having someone who will take all the pressure of managing the design, content, maintenance and programming for your website away?

If you are in need of some additional marketing support email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   and I'm sure we can find the perfect arrangement to suit your needs and your budget.

Tools, Tips and Techniques:

Tool: Learning from fashion

One way to stimulate thinking and growth in your business is to look at brands that have become fashionable. Think of how mobile phones and ipods or MP3 players have become a fashion accessory. What can you do to make your business or brand a fashion leader? Who is the fashion leader in your industry?  

Tip: Use colour

One way of making your brand stand out from competitors is to use a colour that is opposite to theirs. While people often concentrate on the mood that they want to invoke with colour, colour can be used to create a unique identity. An example would be the car rental industry: Hertz is yellow and Avis is red. Choosing a colour and sticking to it can help you to create a memorable visual identity for your business.

Technique: When a photo is worth a 1000 words

Photographs can play a very important role in marketing, especially where appearance is a major drawcard or where the product cannot be taken with to show a buyer (maybe it's too large), or it's only sold online. In this instance product photography may form the basis for all advertising, media material, sales aids and direct mail.

It is therefore important that photography is used to best effect. Here are some techniques to consider:

• Use product photography to convey the product benefit rather than the features of the product
• Photograph your product in use - this can often be used to reflect implied endorsement e.g. being used by a doctor
• Use photographs to provide pictorial evidence that your product lives up to its claims
• If your manufacturing process is an important part of your unique selling proposition, you can use photographs to document the process
• Newspapers and magazines have a certain percentage of their space that needs to be filled by images. Using a photographer to capture an unusual angle or a human interest side to an otherwise bland story might mean the difference between getting published or not
• People like to know who they are doing business with, especially with online businesses. Therefore having photographs of the people involved in your business can convey the company's personality and reassure potential buyers