Marketing Meanders: The Marketing Podcast for Marketers and Small Business Owners

How and why should you consider creating a podcast? This week, Sally and Sam are joined by podcast producer and founder of Story Ninety-Four, Matt Eastland Jones to discuss the power of podcasting and the benefits that podcasting can have for your business. Welcome to Part 1 of our conversation about Podcasting with Matt Eastland-Jones (2:08) Why podcasting? (7:21) What service do Story Ninety-Fou...

In part two of the centenary edition of Marketing Meanders, join Sally and Sam as they look back at their past meanders before looking forward to the future. (00:27) Recruiting a diverse team. (5:33) Choosing the CRM that's right for you. (7:30) Gaining insight and solutions from marketers at all levels. (14:05) Learning from marketing mistakes. (23:09) Meandering towards the next 100 episodes. We...

In part one of the centenary edition of Marketing Meanders, join Sally and Sam as they look back at their past meanders before looking forward to the future. (0:23) The humble beginnings of Marketing Meanders. (9:35) Defining "value" for your business. (13:51) How marketing has changed over the years. (19:26) The unexpected benefit of marketing budget cuts. We'd love to hear your thoughts and expe...

Welcome to Part 2 of our conversation on how communication can align your business. Is your business misaligned? How can you identify the problem and ensure your business does not follow a silo mentality? This week, Sally and Sam, along with guests Nick Hughes and Andrew Hancock discuss how to align your departments to enhance your reach and provide the best possible customer experience. (00:06) W...

Welcome to Part 1 of our conversation on how communication can align your business. Is your business misaligned? How can you identify the problem and ensure your business does not follow a silo mentality? This week, Sally and Sam, along with guests Nick Hughes and Andrew Hancock discuss how to align your departments to enhance your reach and provide the best possible customer experience. (00:05) W...

To be successful in marketing, it is essential that a company has a clear understanding of who its customers are. This is done through the use of customer personas, which are representations of an individual customer and their needs. Customer personas also predict how a customer might react to specific marketing campaigns. However, creating personas can be challenging, and often businesses forget...

To be successful in marketing, it is essential that a company has a clear understanding of who its customers are. This is done through the use of customer personas, which are representations of an individual customer and their needs. Customer personas also predict how a customer might react to specific marketing campaigns. However, creating personas can be challenging, and often businesses forget...

After a lengthy two-year drought of physical conferences, they're back with a bang in 2022. But are they essential for your business and marketing?  Welcome to Part 2 of our conversation about conferences. In this episode, Sally and Sam discuss conference collateral, do you need merchandise on your stand, and how you get people's attention. We'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences, so pleas...

After a lengthy two-year drought of physical conferences, they're back with a bang in 2022. But are they essential for your business and marketing?  In this episode, Sally and Sam discuss how conferences should fit in with the rest of your marketing strategy, why it's essential to negotiate conference rates, and why you should always aim to create a welcoming shop window.  We'd love to hear your t...

Welcome to Part 2 of our conversation about video production with David Camburn, creative director of Swanwood Productions, a video and content production company based in Henley On Thames, Oxfordshire. Video is widely accepted as being one of the most powerful tools available to marketers to promote products and services. So why do so many businesses not utilise it? Is it too daunting? Too hard?...

Welcome to Part 1 of our conversation about video production with David Camburn, creative director of Swanwood Productions, a video and content production company based in Henley On Thames, Oxfordshire. Video is widely accepted as being one of the most powerful tools available to marketers to promote products and services. So why do so many businesses not utililse it? Is it too daunting? Too hard?...

Authenticity - one of the most overused buzzwords in marketing. But what does it mean to be Authentic and can we measure it? In Part 2 of this conversastion, Sally and Sam continue to defining the meaning of the word "authentic".  How does authenticity translate behind the scenes? How do you measure authenticity? How important is trust in authenticity? As ever, we'd love to hear your thoughts and...

Authenticity - one of the most overused buzzwords in marketing. But what does it mean to be Authentic and can we measure it? In this episode of Marketing Meanders, Sally and Sam undertake the difficult task of defining the meaning of the word "authentic".  Does authenticity mean being true to yourself, your brand, or your customer?  How far does authenticity go within your organisation?  How impor...

Welcome to Part 2 of our conversation about branding with Andrew Hancock, founder of Brand Ayslum a creative branding agency based in Oxfordshire.  Connect with Andrew and learn more about Brand Asylum - brandasylum.co.uk As ever, we'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences so please share! Tweet us at @meanderspod , message us on Facebook , or email meanderspod@gmail.com Marketing Meanders is...

Welcome to Part 1 of our conversation about branding with Andrew Hancock, founder of Brand Asylum a creative branding agency based in Oxfordshire. We chat about the importance of creating a stong brand based on values, why a brand is so much more than a logo, and why we align with the brands that we like. Andrew also shares with us his mantra - KISS, which stands for Keep it Simple, Stupid when de...

Welcome to Part 2 of our Podcast on Podcasting. In the first part of this conversation we discussed why have podcasts become so popular, how can they help us as marketers, and what makes podcasts so unique and compelling? In Part 2 we covered: The difference between video and podcasting Who can benefit from a podcast Overcoming the fear of failure As ever, we'd love to hear your thoughts and exper...

In 2021, Brits consumed almost 60 million hours a week of Podcasts. This was a 50% increase since 2020, and a whopping 1600% increase since 2015. But what has accelerated this interest? In this meta episode, we talk all things podcasting!  Why have podcasts become so popular?  How can they help us as marketers?  What makes it a unique and compelling form of communication?   Who can start a Podcast...

Does perfection exist? We don't think so, and certainly not in marketing, but where are your marketing efforts between perfect and good enough? Does it matter how many times you've edited a social media campaign or blog? How much time should you spend on that infographic to look just right?  Does your approach to how thoroughly a campaign is researched and drafted depend on the audience and the ov...

In this episode we continue our reflections from last year and look ahead to ways we can improve in 2022. In particular, we discuss flexibility in the marketing team, how you need to put in place contingencies for absences and sudden changes in direction. What are the processes and technical systems which support contingency planning, and what the human elements? How do automatic fog lights in car...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Sally and Sam. In our two part episode we provide our reflections and  lessons learnt from 2021. What have we learnt from a year of more COVID pandemic,  the Great Resignation, new technologies and much more.  So, settle down in a cosy corner and have a listen to our meander through the year.  We'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences, so please shar...

Do you sometimes struggle to 'switch on' your creativity? As marketers, most of us need to be creative quite a lot of the time, whether in planning, writing, briefing, presenting or coming up with data visualisations. However, it can be a challenge to slip into a 'creative mode' in your head. In this mini meander, I share something that has helped me add more of a creative spark as a freelancer. I...

Can you strike the right balance of style and substance in your marketing?  When you create a sequence of communications to an audience are you clear on how you hope they will consume the material? Particularly with products, services and research which are more complex, are you revealing enough, or too little in terms of the messaging you are trying to get across? Perhaps there are some good exam...

We welcome back Hilary Nightingale from Carbon Copy Social for part two of our discussion, Writing for Humans . This time we tackle the questions:  Where do you start when commissioning a website homepage? Keywords, how do you use them, where do they go, why are they still important?  Why is accessibility important in marketing, and how can it bring down all your hard work? Why write certain types...

We were delighted to be joined by Hilary Nightingale from Carbon Copy Social to discuss the art of writing marketing copy for humans beings first and algorithms second! It was a truly fascinating discussion which meandered around compelling writing and user journeys, answering questions such as: Where do you start when writing engaging content? Has this changed in recent times? How can you best co...

In our second foray into getting back to basics we look at avoiding vanity projects, adapting your basic marketing according to the current environment your audiences are living through, and learning the lessons of which marketing approaches actually work, and why. There's also a little bit about beard oil.  Keep an eye out for our birthday special as Marketing Meanders celebrates a whole year wit...