What is also interesting is how ‘ghost writing’ is becoming a more central part of our role with helping clients manage the implementation of their marketing. While we are all geared up to help clients learn to blog, tweet, write press releases, articles etc themselves, and provide encouragement and advice along the way, some business owners and marketing managers simply don’t have the time to fit it in to their days. So, that’s when they ask us to step in and help.

This takes many different forms, such as taking a bare bones of an idea along with a snapshot and fleshing it out into a full blown blog post, which we then load to their website and ensure appropriate integration with social media to spread the word further. Or a more toned down, or copy-editing role might be taking a basic article written by a client, but editing, tweaking, finessing and correcting, then accompanying with photography, before getting placement in appropriate publications and posting online as appropriate. Or, in the case of a recent new client, we’re writing daily tweets on their behalf.  And of course, we write all the time for websites, leaflets, brochures, email marketing campaigns – you name it, we write it!

Before we start any writing on behalf of our clients, we always take the time to understand and establish the aims and objectives, key messages and the tone of voice, so there is seamless public face in all marketing efforts.

Most clients are so enthusiastic about getting themselves ‘out there’, but are concerned about time and also the actual writing itself. The look of relief on some clients’ faces when we tell them we offer this service is a picture!

Of course, unlike the lovely Ewan, our ghost writing doesn’t put our lives in danger! Now to check out cinema times for The Ghost Writer this weekend.

Whether you are constructing a prawn cocktail in the form of a garden on a plate (a la Masterchef) or designing a website, little things can mean a lot.  Taking the time to think about how your customer will respond and delight at what they see as well as what they taste might win a restaurant a Michelin star but thinking about the little details could win you business.

Creating a shop window which excites the consumer is one part of the bargain, but making sure the functionality matches the look and feel is really just as important. How many websites have you visited where you get fed up and leave before doing what you intended to do?  How many websites have you gone to wanting to find a phone number and just call someone and its not there!

If you have an existing site, using Google analytics to see how your website is performing is a good place to start.  You can see how long people spent on  specfic pages, how many pages they viewed, where they left the site from, how they got there in the first place, the list goes on and on.  Why not talk to your existing customers, do an online survey using something like www.surveymonkey.com and ask them what they would like to see, and what they like about the existing site (before you change everything!).

If you need to build a site from scratch then think about your customer, who they are, what they need from the site and how they will interact with you.  Look at your competitor’s sites and see what they are doing or not doing, giving you a competitive advantage.

Overall detail is the key, having that little something extra could be the winning recipe for your business!

So, with that in mind we were thrilled to hear from one of our clients recently who explained that having had a good look through our website, she had spotted Unwind Health and Beauty in our portfolio and as she lived nearby, booked a massage and absolutely loved it!

It’s not just our clients we recommend either, we’re always on the lookout for people who do a great job at whatever it is that they do, so we can add them to our little black book (aka our shared Outlook contacts database!), when we are at work and when we’re not (we do leave the office sometimes you know!). One such example is Jacaranda Catering www.jacarandacatering.com who we’ve recommended to lots of people after they catered a friend’s wedding at Ramster with simply delicious food. Another is Montezuma’s  www.montezumas.co.uk who are always ready to help us out with fabulous ideas for corporate gifts, promotional one offs for client projects or simply a gift for someone special. If you haven’t tried their chocolate yet, you really must it is just scrummy.

The moral of the story is…if you are struggling to find a particular trade, service or product…give us a call (or have a look round our website) as we might just be able to help or at least point you in the direction of someone who can!

With another client we discovered that their old domain and hosting company had continued to charge them for hosting services on a site despite no website being live on that old domain for over 2.5 years.

Taking the time out to take a fresh look at what you are spending across your business makes particular sense at the moment as we all work our way out of the recession that has held us in its grip for the past 18 months. It also makes sense to set up specific cost centres in your accounting package so you can break your marketing budget down to show more refined details, such as advertising, website, email marketing, etc.  This makes analysis later down the line more accurate and less burdensome, so you can keep refining your marketing planning going forward.

Well from the 11th June at 4pm, South Africa will kick off against Mexico and the fun all starts, ending on11th July with the final in Johannesburg.  From a business point of view this may affect your ability to get hold of people, as they suddenly have to be at a meeting at precisely 4pm (in the pub).  Depending on how many penalty shoot outs we have to endure this time, clients may fall into periods of depression, denial or bouts of singing ‘it’s coming home’ while rocking backwards and forwards in their office chair; decisions on business matter will be far from their minds! 

My advice is to prepare  your business for a possible reduction in activity, if there’s anyway of theming your business then do it and embrace the frenzy, you never know we might actually win the thing this time (I know, ever the optimist!). Anyone for a football themed leaflet?

Fabulous birthday cake from Number Twenty Six and Delight Cakes

Just back from a lovely birthday lunch and just had to wax lyrical about being made a fuss of at Number 26 cafe in Liphook - where I enjoyed a fantastic Moroccan vegetable stew with mint cous cous and flatbread, and an amazing cake make by Michelle Nobbs at Delight Cakes. See the picture attached of the beautiful giant cupcake with a touch of Mzuri Design colours! Thanks all for a lovely birthday treat….it was a tough job coming back to work this afternoon and knuckling down to some work! So if you are looking for a lovely spot for breakfast, lunch or afternoon tea head for Number 26 where you can also sample the wonderful (normally sized!) cupcakes Michelle makes for the cafe. For more information on Number Twenty Six and Delight Cakes at www.number26.co.uk

So, the shoe was very much on the other foot and it has given me really useful insight into the process of website development from the other side!! So here are my three top tips when approaching a major website development or re-development:

1) Take a team approach - The whole team at Mzuri have worked tirelessly to get the new website live. We split the work as equally as we could between us to keep workloads manageable. When it came to photography, we called in the professionals – in our case photographer Michel Focard – to shoot our portfolio for us. After 2 days hard graft by our work experience student Heather, collating our portfolio into an organised collection spanning 4 archive boxes, I hit Michel’s studio in Petersfield and together we shot pretty much the entire portfolio in a 7-hour session. We could not have done it without him; thank you Michel! www.focard.co.uk.

2) Start a wish list – think of your website not just as a one off project, but as a continually developing marketing tool for your business. It is inevitable that you will continue to come up with a great idea the moment it goes live; a new bit of content, a new product etc. Don’t worry about it! Embrace the work you have done so far and start a wish list of ‘Phase II developments’ so you can keep your site evolving. Set aside regular time in your diary to review the site once it is live and make those new development ideas a reality. We’ve already got a healthy list of things we’ll be working on over the coming months, so watch this space!

3) Just do it! I can honestly say the best thing about the shoe being on the other foot is how amazing it feels to launch our new website. We love what we do and the clients we work with and our new website not only helped us to take some time to remember all the projects we’ve been lucky to be involved with, it also enables us to show more people what we are capable of so in turn we can work with more companies doing what we do best. My only regret is that I wish we’d done it a year ago! So, if you’ve been putting it off, just do it!