Design tips for small businesses

Design plays a crucial role in how small businesses are perceived

Design helps to establish brand identity, connect with a target audience, and stand out in a competitive market. It also helps every business to be accessible to as many people as possible.

Berenice Howard-Smith, who has has an MA in Graphic Design & Typography, gave our members lots of practical design tips that small businesses can use to enhance their visual appeal and overall branding strategy.

Berenice believes in design collaboration, working with her clients on website, print, book and social media design to enable them to learn as much or as little as they wish about the creative process. She has mentored GCSE work experience students, and delivered workshops as a visiting lecturer to undergraduate design students. Her website www.hellolovely.design has a whole suite of Gorgeous Guides that give a lot more detail on these tips.

Accessibility

According to WHO statistics, 217 million people worldwide had moderate to severe vision impairment in 2015, with this number expected to rise to 588 million by 2050.

Here are three tips that help to include everyone with accessible design.
1. Use high contrast colours to differentiate for users with visual impairments. Tools like WebAIM Contrast Checker can help you to clarify the ratios. Type 'copy space' into most image libraries to locate images with simple backgrounds that work well for text overlays.
2. Make it responsive so that mobile and tablet users can read your content on their devices. Your website and online forms may require alternative design treatments to provide an accessible and inclusive experience.
3. Accessible design isn't just colour. Use additional visual cues to include the user such as patterns, icons, or text labels to convey information, alerts, or status changes.

Keep it simple

“I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those two things.” Lindon Leader

1.Clarity and ease of use. The more complex the system, the harder it is to navigate. Simple design avoids the audience being overwhelmed by competing elements. Design navigates the user and supports the content.
2. Simple branding systems make it easier to grow a business. Working with a graphic designer to develop a logo into branding guidelines will make it easier for stakeholders and suppliers to work with a business. It saves the owner time and money as the branding brief is already complete.
3. Less is more with images and information. Study the content or the message you're intending to share. Is there more than one theme or one slide or post? Keeping it simple may mean more slides with less information on each to avoid overwhelm.

Invest in design

"A logo doesn't need to say what a company does. The Mercedes logo isn't a car. The Virgin Atlantic logo isn't an airplane. The Apple logo isn't a computer. Etc.” David Airey

1. As soon as cash flow allows, investing in a high-quality brand logo is recommended. Don't forget to budget for great images too!
2. Really work on the preparation. Get to know your designer and ask for help if you are struggling with the brief as that's the most important investment in the project. Pause if you need more time to get audience feedback; most of all keep in touch with your creative for the best results.
3. Designers can collaborate with business owners to create a range of templates in Canva or Adobe Express as part of a branding brief. This will enable the business owner to quickly create their own content knowing it has been professionally designed.

Fonts

"Letters do love one another. However, due to their anatomical differences, some letters have a hard time achieving intimacy.” Ellen Lupton

1. Each font has a licence. Use fonts legally by buying from a recognised source such Monotype. You can find Monotype fonts on Canva Premium and Adobe Fonts on Adobe Express (and all Adobe Creative Cloud packages).
2. Keep fonts simple. One or two contrasting fonts is fine for social media, there can be too much unless used with care. Use weights too (bold, light, regular, extra bold).
3. Make fonts part of your brand. Poor design can be spotted when font use is inconsistent. They don't have to be expensive or trending. Classic fonts have stood the test of time for good reasons.

Hello lovely! Professional design tips

1. Think in grids. Imagine a series of invisible cross section of lines that work across and down the page. Draw them if you like, and use the structure to align your text and images within it. This helps with order and white space which allows a moment to pause.
2. Use hierarchy in your text to make it easier to read. You can do this in Word, Powerpoint or Canva using preset styles. The main heading is the attention grabber and H2 (B) and H3 (C) headings provide navigational structure.
3. Watch your line lengths on your text. Short line lengths engage the user attention. Left align and neat right edges (in design we call untidy edges ‘ragged’) are also easier on the eye. It's not only font style that aids legibility, it is how they are used.

Design is iterative

"Inherent quality is part of absolute quality and without it things will appear shoddy. The user may not know why, but they always sense it.” Erik Spiekermann

Science, technology, social studies, research, politics, culture, diversity,
economy and platform advances are all contributors to design iterations.

Design can be refined to respond to advancements improving usability,
functionality, and quality for consumers.

Further reading

contrastchecker.com to check colours on an image
unsplash.com for images with copy space (+ is good value)
new.express.adobe.com an alternative to Canva
canva.com for templated social media assets
color.adobe.com for useful colour swatches
baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability is a useful read on line length and attention span.

Inspiration

David Airey on branding and visual identity www.davidairey.com/resources
Marian Bantjes, a pioneer of type https://bantjes.com
Erik Spiekermann, type designer https://spiekermann.com/en/

More advice on fonts, easy design tips and accessible design are featured
in Berenice’s newsletter hellolovely.design/newsletter and regular workshops.

The PDF of this presentation can be viewed at
https://tinyurl.com/dn2v5dvc

Follow Berenice on LinkedIn for more inspiration and discussion on good design.

by Ann Hawkins

How to go from LinkedIn Lurker to LinkedIn Legend

LinkedIn Challenges and Strategies

Dan Ince has over 25 years experience as a Marketing Consultant, Marketing Director, Coach, Mentor and passionate marketing ‘fixer’. He founded BrandWorks Social in 2020 and now helps B2Bs grow with LinkedIn content that stands out. He has helped many Drive members sort out their LinkedIn Strategy and has popular and useful articles in our Learning Hub

Dan led an interactive discussion about the use of social media, particularly LinkedIn, in small businesses.

Hands up if you use LinkedIn or other social media for your business?

How happy are you in what you’re currently achieving?
1 (unhappy) 10 (ecstatic)
What stops you from being a 10?
The biggest challenges most people face are:

• Time management
• Understanding the platform
• Content creation

This isn't helped when there are so many people suggesting that the latest hack or shiny tactic are the answer. They never are.

The only things that really work are
1. CLARITY
2. CONSISTENCY
3. FREQUENCY.

Everyone is bombarded with so much content that it's easy to get overwhelmed. It's important to be really picky about who you follow and, if you want to make an impact, who you engage with. Be strategic about this - who are the people who will share your messages and engage with you? Don't get sucked into just liking things because someone is your friend. The people who follow you will switch off and you'll be left in the shadows.

You can't afford to be a lurker!

Social Media is a great tool to build awareness of your business at scale for relatively low cost but you need to cut through the noise to make an impact. If people don’t know you, they can’t buy you.
In the eyes of the customer, the best product is the one they know.

OK. Let’s get to it!
Use the worksheet (link below) to jot notes as you go. Learning is great, but taking
action is better!

Dan Ince STANDOUT Worksheet PDF

1. CLARITY

Many businesses, especially solo owners and B2B use social media sporadically, lack strategy, consistency and get hit and miss results.

• Why are you using social media?
• What is your objective? To get noticed by customers?
• Creating brand awareness? This is different to "generate leads"
• What problem does your business solve, why should anyone care?
• Who do you best serve? Focus everything on them.
• What are your channels? These are the places where your customers are active and receptive to your message. You can't be on all platforms so it's best to do one or two well than spread yourself too thin. LinkedIn is a good place for most B2Bs

2. CONSISTENCY

What is the McDonalds catchphrase? Almost everyone knows it because for over 20 years it has conveyed a memorable, consistent message.
Consistency helps you stand out.

The three elements for consistency are:

• • your visual identity
  • tone of voice
  • content

For now, we'll focus on content:
What content themes will resonate with your audience?
Use 3-5 of these themes as pillars, creating a mix of content that entertains, educates and inspires.
Start with a HOOK to stop the scroll – a great headline or image.
Then go into PAIN. SOLUTION. BENEFIT format.
An example of pillars:

• Stories that demonstrate expertise
• How to tips
• Curated industry content
• Events, networking - connect with other attendees, write a post about what you found useful & tag others
• Social proof – describe client wins, projects, reviews.

Not sure where to start?
Listen to your customers. What questions get asked repeatedly?
What problems have you solved for customers?
Turn the Q&A into content.
Ask your customers what they really value about what you do for them - it’s gold.

JOT DOWN YOUR CONTENT THEMES
Keep it fresh, mix formats up - Text, Image, Carousel, Polls, Video, newsletters & consistent timing. E,g., Polls on a Wednesday, round up on Fridays?
Create a content folder & make it a monthly habit. Keep it simple. Capture everything in one place. Take lots of photos / video. Make time to plan, create & schedule.

Remember: Social Media is a great tool to build awareness of your business at scale for relatively low cost - but the cost is time so you need to make a decision to invest either time or money! 

3. FREQUENCY

Why do you need to be investing in social media on an on-going basis?
Because at any one time, 95% of your target audience aren’t ready to buy what you have to offer.  When they are, they'll need to remember you.
Keeping your name in front of them, consistently sharing useful information, gives them  chance to get to know you.
We recommend posts 3x per week (consistency, find your own rhythm). You’re leaving breadcrumbs and building awareness.
ENGAGE!!! Don’t just broadcast content. You need to engage. Leaving an interesting comment on someone else's post shows others that you have a point of view, or that you're funny, helpful, or curious to learn new things.
When people leave comments on your posts don't ignore them and don't just say thank you! Get a conversation going. Start to build a relationship. Allow time to respond & engage with others.
Really focus on building relationships - it's THE best way to attract new clients.

We recommend posting 3x per week, 30-45mins per time.
If you don't have this much time, think about how much it would cost to use other ways to find new clients. This is the most cost effective way to do it so making time for it is important.

What would take your social media effectiveness up 2 notches?

Most people acknowledge that having a group of genuine supporters and people who are fans of your work is invaluable. (This is very different to social media "pods" where people agree to "boost" each others content regardless of whether it's any good or not.)
The best way to build fans is to be generous. Share other people's content with your network and they're more likely to share yours.

Final Exercise...(one you could do EVERY week)

Write a post about today's event. What did you find useful? Connect with and tag everyone you’ve met. When you’re tagged, like and write a comment - something more interesting than "thank you", adding value and showing your perspective and personality.

If there are 20 people at an event and you get mentioned 20 times and make 20 interesting comments to 20 x other people's networks, that's a LOT of opportunities to stand out! (And that's what everyone wants to do - isn't it?)

If you have any questions, get in touch with Dan at BrandWorks Social
You can also find Dan on LinkedIn where he shares lots of useful tips. Be sure to sign up to his newsletter!

by Ann Hawkins

Why disability inclusion is important in EVERY business

Is your business too small to worry about disability inclusion and accessibility?

Jodie Greer is a disability inclusion specialist, supporting businesses to look at disability through a holistic lens. She is proud to be the founder of Be #PeopleSmart Ltd.

Be #PeopleSmart Ltd

Jodie led a discussion with our members about why disability inclusion and accessibility is important in every business, regardless of size.

Both disability inclusion and accessibility play a big part in successful business.
This is why:

80% of disabilities are acquired in adulthood. This means that we need the world to be accessible for all of us and by being inclusive we can retain our customers if their needs change during the time they engage with us.
The global statistic for adults with disabilities is 19%, but in the UK we know it's more like 23%. This number is expected to keep rising due to the aging population, access to health care, better awareness of neurodivergence and mental health, accident and injury.

How do you communicate for inclusion and accessibility?

The most obvious way anyone engages with a business is through the way they communicate, whether on their website, or through printed or digital media so it's important that all of these avenues are available to everyone.

Accessible communication doesn't just enable disabled people, it creates a better experience for everyone.

If your restaurant only has a QR code on your website or poster where people can see the menu, you may be excluding people who use screen readers or may not be able to line up a QR code on their phone camera. Always make sure there's a QR code and an alternative.

Videos and podcasts should always have captions and transcripts. Avoid the captions where one or two words flash up at a time at random places on a screen. These aren’t accessible for those who rely on captions, as they are difficult to read and they also cause overwhelm resulting in a lot of people not wanting to watch. Stick with the “boring” single line captions with good timing and colour contrast. An example of an affordable and intuitive captioning tool is Clideo, but there are many out there so it’s about finding a solution that works for you.

Transcripts should include speaker identity and any contextual sounds that aren’t verbal. This can be time consuming, but there are automated tools to help. Just:Access provide a transcript service with fast turnaround.

It’s also important to add alternative text (or alt-text) to your images and to describe images used in social media posts. This provides equity for screen reader or narrator users, and for those with low vision who may not use a screen reader.

There’s no hard and fast rule on how to describe an image, it’s all about context and purpose. For example, “a snowy Canadian landscape with skis being held up by the snow” would be more descriptive than “snow”. When adding alt-text behind an image keep it brief, but don’t lose the intent.

Colour contrast is one of the main reasons people struggle to read content. A great way to check your website and images is to use one of the free colour contrast analysers including Webaim and TPGi Colour Contrast Analyser. The TPGi one doesn't need you to know your colour codes, you can just click on them with your mouse.

Physical Accessibility and travel

Physical accessibility of premises is a topic that needs a whole session to itself along with accessible travel so we'll leave that for another time.

Recruitment

If you employ people, making sure that different ways of conducting interviews in person, on video or by phone are offered, and check that application forms and ways to submit CVs also don't exclude people. Do we really even need CVs? Can candidates share their expertise another way?

And don’t forget to ask if candidates need an accessibility adjustment, then wherever possible be ready to make it happen. Having access to the widest talent pool is always a winner.

Events

When organising events there will be a range of different preferences and needs that should be accommodated. The first win is to ask people if they have any accessibility needs. Check-ins via touch screen can be impossible for some people. Offering quiet rooms is recommended. Badges or lanyards that indicate whether people are OK to shake hands, or prefer not to be touched are necessary for some people.

Whether you already have a diversity & inclusion strategy and want to develop your disability inclusion focus, if you're not sure where to start or if you simply care about putting people first get in touch with Jodie at Be #PeopleSmart Ltd with any questions.
You can also find Jodie on LinkedIn.

by Ann Hawkins

How to write for your business

How do you write for your business when you don’t know what to write?

We all need to tell people about our businesses. There are many ways to do this and a lot of them involve writing, even if the words end up being spoken. But writing isn’t always easy.

Content marketing coach, Rachel Extance, regularly helps our members work on their writing skills with lots of fun challenges and a regular Writing Club.

In one our weekly meetings, Rachel asked our members what they find difficult about writing.
Here’s how they voted:

What would be top of your list?

Stop chasing that dopamine hit

Do you log onto social media and groan? You’re faced with posts of little value and it feels like everyone is already selling what you do and getting far more traction.

We spoke about the uncertainty you can feel over whether anyone wants to read what you have to say. You want to write useful information but people write superficial material that seems to grab all the attention.

A great piece of advice was to “stop chasing the dopamine hit on LinkedIn”.

The vast majority of people on social media do not engage in any way. They don’t post, comment, or even hit the ‘like’ button. You don’t know they’re there but they are quietly reading and watching. Don’t take a lack of engagement on your posts to mean that they are no good. You have no idea who has seen what you had to say and made use of it or took note of your details for later.

The algorithm serves what it thinks you are interested in. If you are writing posts about marketing, it will show you posts about marketing. If you are sharing posts about coaching, it will show you posts from other coaches. You’ve shown an interest in that topic after all.

Focus on what you’re doing and don’t pay attention to the others. Ask people how they came across you when they get in touch and check your website analytics to see where you are getting click throughs from. This data will help you identify if you are gaining traction.

Where to find inspiration

What are you going to write about?

● What do potential clients need to know about what you do? Guide people through your world.
● What would you like people to know about you and what makes you different from other people offering similar services? Introduce yourself and how your approach benefits your clients.
● Do you find similar topics come up repeatedly during client conversations? Use those as inspiration (you can do this without breaking any confidences or identifying your clients).
● Share case studies which show the results people get from working with you.
● What have you done this week or this month? Share your insights.

Don’t worry about word count. Think about what you would like your ideal client to take away from your post and write with them in mind.

Where to write

Start with your website, if you have one. That’s your online home, your digital store, even if people can’t buy from it directly. You want to send people to it so they can find out more about you and what you offer.

Search engines like to know websites are active so having a regularly updated blog sharing articles based on the ideas above will have the added benefit of increasing organic traffic.

You can then take whatever you have written on your website and turn it into posts for social media and share it with your email list. Create once, and then keep sharing what you have written.

If you haven’t got a website yet, then start by posting on LinkedIn. This enables people to get to know you as you begin building your online network.

Here are the various places where Drive members are sharing their writing:

Five tips to make it easier

We don’t do things we find hard so you want to make writing as easy as possible.

1. If you don’t like writing, or you struggle with getting started, you could buddy up with someone and ask them to ask you about the topic you want to write about. Record the conversation and transcribe it. You can use Fathom if you do this on Zoom or Otter.ai if you’re face to face.

2. If you’re on your own, use the voice typing function on Google Docs or Microsoft Word and imagine you’re answering someone’s question.

3. If you’re put off by the tech, then consider outsourcing this aspect of writing. Someone else can upload your latest article to your website. You can also find someone else to help you with email marketing and social media marketing.

4. Find a way of making a habit of it. You could have a set time when you write each week. One Drive member said they write every day, inspired by 750 Words.

5. If you really don’t like writing but you do like recording videos or podcasts, focus on creating those instead. They can be repurposed into written material either by you or a VA.

You can find people to help you with content creation, email marketing, social media marketing, website development and website management in the Drive members list.

Rachel Extance is host of Rachel’s Writing Club and works with coaches and consultants who want to share their original thinking to attract their ideal clients. You can also read Rachel's posts on LinkedIn

by Ann Hawkins

How to use email marketing

What do you think email marketing is?

If you think it’s about spam or annoying people you are paying attention to those people who are doing it wrong!

Email marketing is one of the most effective - and cost effective - ways to attract new clients and make sales. When you build an email list you own all the data - it can't be hijacked by a social media platform and when you do it right, all the people on your list have not only given you permission to contact them, they're eager to hear from you!

In this Learning and Sharing session, Email marketing expert, Helen Lindop, answered questions from our members with a little help from her trusty sidekick, Speedy the Robot!

Overview

I always recommend that people should start with their business and marketing goals, then decide how email marketing can support those. E.g. if you want to mainly promote events then that would be a different approach to selling products direct from your emails. Sharing knowledge to attract clients for coaching or other services is yet another approach. Be sure that if you want your readers to take action, it's very clear what you want them to do: have a buy now button, a get more information button, a book a call button. Whatever it is, make it easy to follow.

Growing your list and getting engagement

Q. I’ve got a list of 400, one list, no segmentation. I’m emailing newsletters regularly. How can I take it to the next level and get more engagement?
A. Engagement is great, but like with social media, you need that engagement to have a business purpose rather than just being a vanity metric. It's great to get started with one list (or segment) and get into a flow with just one type of newsletter. Keep working on building your subscribers and emailing good content regularly and consistently. This will give you some data to base your decisions on from then on. There are polls and surveys available in Mailerlite (which is the platform most Drive members use) which are very good and easy to use, but with 400 subscribers you might find you get more valuable (i.e. qualitative vs quantitative data) info if you just ask a question and then ask subscribers to hit reply.
I would also look at segmentation e.g. if your business naturally splits into work you do with organisations and work you do with individuals, which is the case with many coaches, there’s potential to send different information and offers to each of those segments while they all still receive your general newsletter.

How to improve deliverability

Q. Tell me more about deliverability ...
A. People assume that you can just hit send and the email will arrive in your subscriber’s inboxes. It’s not that simple, unfortunately.
Here are some things that will improve deliverability:

• Verify and authenticate your domain name in your email platform. (Setting up DMARC is less of an issue unless you frequently send more that 5000 emails at a time).
• Keep your spam, bounce and unsubscribe rate low.
• Keep your open rate up.
• Send emails consistently over time.

See the help articles provided by your email marketing platform for more info on how to do the above and what the acceptable rates are.
Note: Including potentially spammy keywords in your subject lines and emails is much less of an issue now but it still might turn off your readers!

Accessibility

Q. How accessible are the automations in email platforms?
A. The automations tend to trigger emails that have already been prepared, so the automations themselves are less likely to be an accessibility issue than for social media platforms. You’re more likely to have accessibility issues with the layout and design templates of the emails themselves. This could potentially be different for each platform, e.g. Mailerlite has alt text for images in emails and most have the option to send plain text emails. There are many design options for the emails themselves and if they aren’t up to standard you could ask a developer to create an html email template for you.

Landing Pages

Q. What should I put on a landing page?
A. I would start with a simple one and test it, as it’s going to vary depending on your audience, your list and what you offer. But in general, assume people have a very short attention span, get across the benefits of subscribing in just a few words and make sure the buttons contrast with the background, then test and adjust. Mailerlite and many other platforms have a feature where it will show one variation of a landing page to half your visitors and another to the other half, but you need enough visitors going to those pages for it to be a useful test.
Having said that, you might not need to use a landing page much at all at first. If your main source of leads is conversations and perhaps contacts from LinkedIn, you could just ask people to join your list as you think they’d get a lot from your newsletters, then add them to your list manually, or send them a link to join.

Newsletters for consultancies and information based businesses

Q. How can I utilise a newsletter if I have an information based business - I don't want to give away too much information. I am just starting out, a consultancy.
A. With a consultancy, you’re offering way more than just information, you’re offering your expertise, opinion based on many years of experience, guidance on an ongoing basis and support with implementation. A short article in a newsletter can’t come close to what people get from you as a client, so I wouldn’t worry too much. A good place to start is to write short, fairly simple answers to the most common questions you are asked. This will show that you can help the reader with problems they have and encourage them to give you a call. Once you have some data to work with (e.g. open and click rates) you’ll have a better idea of what your target audience like to read and what they respond to.

Frequency

Q. How often should I send newsletters?
A. There’s no definitive answer here, it’s a balance of your business goals, how much time or budget you have to put into it plus keeping your open/click rates up and unsubscribe rate down.
I would decide how often you can consistently produce a quality newsletter that your audience will want to open and read. If that’s once a month then that’s fine. A few months down the line, look at your reports and adjust based on whether it suits your goals, time and budget.

Improving opening and action

Q. How on earth do you get people to open your newsletters and then to take action?
A. Start with the deliverability tips above to improve your chances of your email arriving in their inboxes and staying out of their spam folders. Subscribers are more likely to open your emails if they are expecting them and know they will get value from them. This will be about their previous experience of you and your emails. If this is an issue you could design a campaign to ‘warm them up’. A good subject line will help, a balance between it telling them about what’s in the email and having a sense of curiosity can be a good mix. Some platforms give you suggestions for subject lines and AI can also be a good way to create them so you might like to experiment with those.
Once they’ve opened the email, keep in mind that people have very short attention spans, so you may need to include less content than you think. Experiment with having just one call to action in an email and see if that improves your response.  For product based businesses, scarcity and urgency are very effective. In practice this often means discounts with a deadline, but obviously discounts have to be used as part of a strategy to make sure you still make a profit, don’t devalue your brand and don’t train your audience to only wait for discounts. You could also look at adding value for a limited time rather than dropping the price.

Mobile devices

Q. Do most people read newsletters on smart phones / tablets?
A. Many people will read your emails on mobile devices. Most platforms allow you to see a preview of how your emails look on different screens so always check that images, buttons, links etc., are visible properly on even the smallest screen.

What should you measure?

Q. What metrics should we measure? What’s vanity and what’s sanity?
A. Set up your email marketing platform so you track how many clicks to your website are coming from your email campaigns. That way you can see how effective your campaigns are in terms of getting subscribers to your sales pages and adjust your campaigns to improve them.
They key metrics are open rates and click rates, however open rates are not always reliable as many people read your emails in preview panes so they are best for looking at trends over time rather than the open rate of a specific email. E.g. if the open rate of a series of emails is dropping over time then it would be best to investigate why.
An issue I see is that small business owners don’t link the metrics to a wider marketing goal or business goal very well so the data isn’t all that meaningful because they don’t have a clear goal or strategy to measure it against. Also, many of the results of email marketing won’t show up that well in the email marketing platform itself e.g. they may show up as visits to a web page or sales in an ecommerce platform, so it’s important to integrate email marketing platforms with Google Analytics and ecommerce platforms if you need this data. (This is a huge area, so I’ll leave it here for now!)

Cleaning data

Q. How often do you clean your data and what are the best ways to do this?
A. Email marketing platforms either have a feature that will do this for you - although of course you have control over it - or you can run a filter to (say) find anyone who hasn’t clicked any link in 6 months, then either delete or archive them. (But make sure you have included enough links in your emails to give subscribers those opportunities to click or no clicks won’t be a good measure!)
How often to do this and the criteria to use will depend on your business. You need to keep your open rate up (see the deliverability section again) and you don’t want to be paying the platform for subscribers who never open your emails, but equally you don’t want to delete people who read your emails for 6 months (or in the case of some business - years!) before giving you a call.
Some businesses have a faster turnover rate than others e.g. some will know that if a subscriber hasn’t bought anything in 3 months they never will. Some businesses are the opposite, especially consultancies, who may have to wait 5 years before a client picks up the phone.
Before deleting subscribers you could try a reengagement campaign, which could be a series of several emails designed specifically to get them to open and buy a small item or take some other action. Then if they don’t respond at all go ahead and delete them from your list.

More questions?

If you have questions that haven't been answered here you can contact Helen on her website https://helenlindop.com/ and sign up to her newsletter to see all her tips in action! She also shares lots of useful posts on LinkedIn  and this is a list of things she does for her clients:

by Ann Hawkins

Making websites accessible

How to make sure your website is accessible

Simon Jones, Founder & MD at Studio 24, Cambridge, answers questions from small business owners and designers on how to create accessible websites. Between 2020 and 2022, the Studio 24 team redesigned the website for the international web standards organisation W3C (founded by the inventor of the web Tim Berners-Lee) and continue to work with their team to support and develop their digital offering. The work won Studio 24 several awards including Gaadys - Honouring advances in digital accessibility, W3 Awards for Illuminating brilliance in digital experiences, content and creativity, and a BIMA Award, the UK’s longest-standing and most prestigious digital and tech award. Find our more about this work at Studio 24

Links mentioned in the video

Easy checks from W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) https://www.w3.org/WAI/test-evaluate/preliminary/

Top 6 issues: https://webaim.org/projects/million/
Colour contrast is the biggest single issue.

Free accessibility course https://www.w3.org/WAI/courses/foundations-course/
Good tool to start accessibility testing https://accessibilityinsights.io/
Run a FastPass check to get started https://accessibilityinsights.io/docs/web/getstarted/fastpass/
Tips on designing for accessibility: https://www.w3.org/WAI/tips/designing/

This set of posters from GOVUK is also really good https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/02/dos-and-donts-on-designing-for-accessibility/

Free WordPress plugin https://sa11y.netlify.app/
And https://equalizedigital.com/accessibility-checker/

Browser plugins to help test for accessibility: https://www.deque.com/axe/browser-extensions/  And https://wave.webaim.org/

Colour contrast checker https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
Avoid accessibility overlays https://www.studio24.net/blog/accessibility-overlays-panacea-placebo-or-poison/
Business case for accessibility https://www.w3.org/WAI/business-case/

These are the facts and figures I’ve used in talks before https://www.scope.org.uk/media/disability-facts-figures/
How many people are affected by a disability?
• 14 million people in UK
• 135 million people in EU
• 1 billion people worldwide

Finally, this is a good set of guides on accessibility for different job roles: https://accessibility-manual.dwp.gov.uk/guidance-for-your-job-role

Comments from the group chat

The RNIB have a guide called See It Right too and that gives pixel and point guidance for digital and print https://www.rnib.org.uk/living-with-sight-loss/independent-living/accessible-nhs-and-social-care-information/creating-accessible-information-and-communication-resources-for-health-and-social-care/

https://jetpack.com/features/security/library/enable-accessibility-plugin/
This is one of my favourite things to use at the moment to show how many people have accessibility needs that visit your site: https://design.education.gov.uk/learn/how-many-users

by Ann Hawkins

How to use social media to make your life better

Is it possible that social media can be a force for good?

We're all familiar with the bad aspects of social media. Can we really use it to make our lives better?

Lauren Hug, J.D., LL.M. believes we can.
In fact she's proved it.
Lauren is a speaker on the Upsides of Our Digital World, and a Community-Building, Engagement, & Participation Strategist. She also has a successful Substack Newsletter and has been exploring how to collectively use social media to advance collaboration and community.

Her books Digital Grace and Digital Kindness have transformed the way people behave on-line with the message, “Share the world you want to see”, providing a powerful counterpoint to the outrage many people experience on digital platforms.

Lauren writes about Digital Hope on Substack. Find out more at  https://digitalhope.substack.com/

We invited Lauren to join us to discuss how social media can open windows into the lives of people we might not ever meet through other means, and how we can use it better understand and empathize with those who have different views to our own.

This is Lauren's introduction to the discussion.

https://youtu.be/nscNbw2pvAo

In breakout rooms our members discussed how they could "Share the World They Want to See" and not just use social media for marketing.

This passage from Lauren's latest newsletter sums it all up beautifully:

Much of my writing and speaking focuses on using social media to see others — those we’d likely never encounter in our physical spaces … and those communicating thoughts and aspects of themselves in digital spaces that they don’t always feel able to share in person.

By deliberately choosing to see others, social media can help us identify spaces and issues we have the power not to worry about or know about. When we find ourselves wondering why someone feels the need to post about something that isn’t important to us or that we think doesn’t belong in digital spaces, it’s a signal to ask ourselves whether our reaction is because it’s an issue we simply haven’t had to think about.

As my daughter replied when I rhetorically asked why a product that seemed pointless to me existed: “If you don’t know what it’s for, it wasn’t meant for you. It’s an accessibility thing you don’t need, but someone else does.” She succinctly reminded me to be curious when I encounter something that doesn’t make sense to me, rather than hastily making judgments based solely on my own perspective and experience.

On the flip side, sharing our experiences can help others become more aware of their positions of power. We can show people things they never had to think about, influencing the way they see the world by adding our stories to the online catalog of human experiences.

This is how we learn, grow, and build a better world together: by choosing to see the things we don’t have to and carrying our evolving awareness into everything we do.

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” -Maya Angelou

---

What is something social media made you aware of that you now choose to think about even though you don’t have to?

What is something you have no choice but to think about that you use (or can use) social media to share with others?

You can find Lauren's newsletter - and answer these questions at https://digitalhope.substack.com/

Connect with Lauren on LinkedIn and at HugSpeak
Buy the books Digital Hope and Digital Kindness and follow Lauren's author page on Amazon

If you're a member of Drive, the Collaborative Network, you can talk to Lauren in our Slack Group.

by Ann Hawkins

AI is awesome - except when it isn't!

What does the acceleration of AI development mean for us?

Many of the things we've become familiar with use AI.
In 1640 Blaise Pascal invented the first digital calculating machine and some inventions that rely on "artificial intelligence" go back a lot further than this.

The explosion of new apps since Microsoft invested $10 Billion in OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT which was launched in November 2022, has both excited and dismayed the world. Some see huge opportunities and some see the destruction of jobs. Some even see the destruction of humanity.

In this Ask the Expert event, we invited Jo Stansfield to give us her views.
Jo is the founder of Inclusioneering a social enterprise specialising in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) solutions and consultancy for technology and engineering organisations. Jo has been a member of ForHumanity for many years. For Humanity is a not-for-profit public charity that examines and analyses the downside risks associated with the ubiquitous advance of AI & Automation to engage in risk mitigation and ensure the optimal outcome ... for humanity.

This short video is Jo's introduction to the topic:

https://youtu.be/Fn6L4ZWYOQk

Jo shared this information about how ubiquitous AI is in our lives

In breakout rooms our members discussed how ChatGPT and many other AI apps have given them free, easy to use tools to create written content, videos, images, music, and much more.

The search formats of Bing's Chat GPT and Google's Bard have brought new dimensions and concerns to how information is accessed. This has many implications for SEO and for the huge search and advertising business (estimated at over $500 Billion) that Google has almost exclusive power over. When Samsung decided to use Bing as the default search engine on their latest mobile phone it prompted Google to accelerate the development of Bard to compete with ChatGPT.

There are also concerns about how information is being gathered and used to advance machine learning and how we can protect our original creations and both give and get credit where it's due.

The biggest concern is about accuracy and bias.

Jo's reflections on bias:

• Some are built in in the training data  --- the quantity of data needed is huge.  Mitigate with better training data?
• Some are in design --- limitations of what the design team consider.  Mitigate with diverse teams.
• Some are introduced by the algorithms continuing to learn  --- Mitigate with regular evaluation and review of performance, with means to rectify learned bias.
• Some are about self-reinforcement of bias cycle – e.g. ShotSpotter
• Some are by application not being valid for its deployed use
• Some are about access

We just scratched the surface of this hugely complex topic and are very grateful to Jo for giving us a glimpse of how things are developing so rapidly.

Find out more and get involved

• From The World Economic Forum: Here's how to make algorithms work for all of us. 
• WATCH: Coded Bias (available on Netflix)
  
• READ: Weapons of Math Destruction (Penguin Books)
  
• GET INVOLVED: Volunteer with For Humanity
  

To get in touch with Jo Stansfield

Follow Jo on LinkedIn for regular updates of the work she's involved in.

by Ann Hawkins

How to prevent those annoying typos.

Do you spot other people's mistakes but rarely see your own?

Annoying isn't it?

You spend ages writing a cracking blog post or LinkedIn article, read it through a couple of times and press post.

A little while later a kind friend sends you a private message to say they just spotted a typo.

Even tho' you know it's there you sometimes still can't see it because you see what you expect to be there instead of what's really there.

That's why we asked our Premium Member, Annie Deakins, to share some proof reading tips with us.

Annie qualified in proofreading with the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) after a career in teaching. She launched her business ProofNow in 2017.

Here are Annie's tips to proofread for consistency in your own writing – for difficult emails, website, social media, blog posts, etc.

First, general tips:
- Read the text aloud.
- Read the text backwards by starting at the end.
- Change the background colour of the text (the default colour white isn’t always helpful).
- Change the font to a serif font.
- Don’t try to proofread everything at once. Read for errors, then read for sense. Do a pass for each element you are checking, e.g. page numbers, headings (big picture); full stops at ends of sentences (small detail).
- Use the ratio 20:20:20 for general eye health – after 20 minutes of work, look away from the screen for 20 seconds, to a distance of 20 metres (e.g. looking out of the window). Your eye muscles will thank you.
- Leave the writing for a couple of days (if you have time) and come back with fresh eyes.
- Know when to stop tweaking. Stop now!

Specific tips about consistency in spelling, punctuation, and context.

Consistency:
It helps to write your own style sheet or checklist.
Annie has a style sheet for her blog Tall Tartan Talks because it helps to remember from one post to another about the style choices she made.
Note: a Style Guide is different to a style sheet. A Style Guide is official guidance published by a publisher or company, e.g. OED, The Economist, etc.

Spelling:
- UK or US English? ise or ize, e.g. realise or realize?
- Use a dictionary to remove any doubt. Apps like Grammarly are popular, but, it might not recognise the wrong word if spelt correctly, e.g. if you write ‘selling’ when you should have written ‘spelling’. ‘Selling’ is correct spelling, so Grammarly won't flag it up as incorrect.
- Are names consistently spelt correctly? Check spelling of place names, if appropriate.

Punctuation:
- UK or US punctuation?
- Oxford (serial) comma, i.e. comma before and (as in my title)?
- Double quote marks or single quote marks? Quotations are found in non-fiction as well as fiction.
- Ellipsis = 3 dots (…) Do insert a space after. Or even insert a space either side ( … ). No need for a full stop if it’s at the end of a sentence. Whatever style of spacing you choose, do it consistently, rather than mix up the number of dots (four here, five there.)
- Choose one kind of punctuation at the end of the sentence without leaving a space.
- One exclamation mark (!) is fine for dramatic purposes. Use sparingly. Two at the end of a sentence is too much.

Context with the bigger picture:
- Is the style consistent: formal or informal? Business-like or chatty? Be yourself, show personality, be rich in content, and readable in blog posts. Stay in style.
- Have you ensured clarity, correctness and convention? Only use jargon if your audience understands it, or you have explained what it means.
- Is the text sound in the case of accessibility, inclusivity and legality?

When you can’t ‘see the wood for the trees’, employ a trained proof reader!

Annie proofreads non-fiction books and children’s fiction and non-fiction.

Find out more about Annie at ProofNow

by Ann Hawkins

How to win clients without annoying people

Making sales calls is a job not many people enjoy

Most small business owners, coaches and consultants hate being sold to and that feeling can stop us from making sales calls.

And that's a big problem.

Without sales there is no business so we all have to sell something, somehow.

The big question is …

Is it possible to sell without annoying people?

Tania is one of the few people we know who likes picking up the phone and calling people she doesn’t know. She believes that selling is just a way of helping people find a solution to their problem. If they don’t have a problem or a need they’re not going to be interested, so the first step in this process is to find the right people to call.

Here's a wonderful summary of Tania's talk by another Drive member, Anne Marie Miller of Carbon Orange.

Do your research – get curious.

Time spent making sure the people on your list REALLY have a need for your services is the key to making this work. If you don't have a list it's possible to buy one that matches your target market but make sure it is GDPR compliant and that people haven't been added to a list without their permission - we all know how annoying that is.

Get clear about what you’re going to say.

Writing a script can be a comfort but it should be used as a guide, not a rote, and should evolve as you use it.

Here's an example

"Good morning / afternoon is it possible to speak to ....................?"

(Note: Gatekeepers are human – BE POLITE, BE SPECIFIC and sound as though you’ve done your research!)

"This is (your name) from (your company name) in LOCATION. (This let’s them know you’re a real human being not a call centre.)  Have you heard of us before?" (This sentence builds rapport.)
"Okay, well as you may be aware we help businesses like yourself to PAIN POINT 1 and PAIN POINT 2 by providing YOUR CORE SERVICE. Example: We help businesses like yours have complete peace of mind and spend a lot less time on bookkeeping by providing an efficient and affordable accountancy service that helps you be more profitable."

BIG NOTE: 
If you don't know the pain points / needs of your target market and the problem you're solving, take some time to test this out with people who know your business.

Questions for flow

• What do you currently have in place?
• How can we work together?
• When would you be reviewing your current contract / supplier?
• What don’t you like about your current system / provider?
• When would you like to see a demonstration of the system?
• I would love to meet you and see what you currently have and explore how we might be able to work together.
• Would you be available on date & time or date & time ?  - *choose a morning appointment and an afternoon appointment*

*If they're not interested, try and establish why*

• I understand that you might not be interested at the moment but would it be possible to perhaps send you some information in case things change in the future?

Here is another script to catch up with lapsed clients / enquiries.

Be prepared:

Have their details to hand (including previous proposal, contact details and any other details of your contact at the time that you can glean from CRM / Notes etc) – This will make the call warm.

Pen and paper

SMILE – very very important – that is why I have a mirror, to remind me.

SCRIPT

"Hi can I speak to ...

My name is Tania Verdonk and I’m calling from Spirus Marketing in Burwell, near Cambridge. We did a proposal for you in September for a telemarketing campaign. Can you recall this? Do you remember?"

It doesn’t really matter what they say, just move on to next part.

"Okay, well, we provide marketing, business development and PR services and I just wanted to catch up with you since our last conversation and hear how you are getting on."

You can stay quiet at this point and see if they volunteer info.

Questions for flow of conversation

(open questions to let them speak)

• What did you decide to do after you got our proposal
• What services do you currently outsource?
• Do you have anything coming up for which you might need additional support?
• How can we be considered?
• Who did you choose to go with in the end?
• Can I send you some information regarding our services?
• We have a special offer / course starting. May I tell you abut it?

The golden rules of telemarketing

1) Necessities on desk

2) Close all unnecessary computer tabs

3) Chain yourself to your desk

4) Don’t put the phone down between calls, leave no longer than 60 seconds between your calls

5) DO NOT DISTURB ON YOUR OFFICE DOOR

6) Mirror to remind you to SMILE.

7) Do what you said you were going to do... Trust the process!

Note from Ann Hawkins: Don't set yourself the goal of making a set number of sales - that's not in your control.
Do set yourself the goal of having a set number of conversations. A call without a conversation doesn't count!

If you have any questions about this process, do get in touch!

More Ask the Expert posts

by Ann Hawkins

Marketing without social media

If you couldn't use social media to market your business what would you do instead?

Drive Founder Ann Hawkins has been using social networks since 2008 and writes regularly about the changes we need to be aware of as both business owners and citizens.

More and more small business are realising the dangers of investing so much in platforms they can't control and are also keen to be less captive to their smart phones.

The scandals and uncertainty surrounding Twitter, Facebook/Meta, Instagram, TikTok, etc., may be the trigger for some people to think about this but lots of small businesses are spending HUGE amounts of time creating content that has little or no effect on sales, while they become slaves to their phones and get drawn into soul sapping habits like constantly scrolling, wasting time they'd be better off using for other things.

How else can you get noticed?

First figure out how many sales you need - how many clients or customers. For many small businesses this isn't thousands or even hundreds. Its a handful. So competing for attention on a platform where there are billions of users (many of them political, fake or run by bot farms) makes no sense at all. Choose the method that best fits your needs.

Quick Solutions

Some quick answers to the "what else can you do?" question: (more details and links below)

• Use more direct marketing: build an email list and email offers, news etc.
• Get found more easily by people who are searching for what you sell. Note that AI has had a huge impact on search activities and SEO is very different because of this.
• Use blogging to keep your website relevant and up to date and give you interesting content to share with your subscribers.
• Ask for Google reviews.
• Get recommendations / testimonials and copy them to your website, use them in content, both print and digital.
• Explore print: flyers, brochures, news outlets, magazines, interviews, PR articles.
• Sponsor events.
• Give talks, be a guest on podcasts. Find suitable podcasts at  https://podmatch.com/ or https://www.matchmaker.fm/
• Go to trade shows, exhibitions etc.
• Phone people - not just sales calls but catching up calls, building relationships.
• Tele sales - works really if done by the right person who enjoys it!

The longer story

The problems with social media is not a passing phase. It's getting worse, with more automation, more AI, more content being driven by controversy and more influencers being paid to market brands. More people are choosing to avoid it altogether so finding other ways to market your business is essential.

LinkedIn isn’t perfect but its the least risky option for B2B marketing right now. (See How to Use LinkedIn for B2B Marketing)

You don't own anything on a social media platform

Most platforms state in their T's & C's (that few of us read) that everything you post becomes the property of the platform to be re-used or removed as they see fit, and increasingly, your content is being used to train AI apps. Your carefully curated contacts, articles, posts, videos, photographs and everything else could all disappear without notice or re-appear in someone else's content because it's being used by AI. There is usually no appeal.

When Facebook and Instagram last went off line for hours many small business say they missed out on hundreds of pounds worth of sales but had no recourse to compensation.

The very, very least you can do to minimise any adverse impact is to keep copies of all your important content somewhere that you control.

Invite people to stay in touch

Keep a list of all your important contacts - especially customers and enquiries - in a notebook, a spreadsheet or CRM. If you have an email address and /or phone number add those too. Anything else, like birthdays, the anniversary of becoming a customer etc., is gold dust.

Set up an email newsletter and invite people to sign up to it (they should always be able to unsubscribe when they choose). Use the newsletter for sharing interesting, useful or entertaining content as well as for direct marketing, special offers, new products or services.

Use your website as a powerful asset

Your website is like your online shopfront. You control and own everything that goes in there and can change it whenever you like. One of the most important things it can do for you is help you collect the details of your contacts.

A website is your property. You should own the domain name and hosting package - don't leave it with a website developer or host or anyone else. Keep it up to date and working for you.

For help and information with websites, get in touch with us for recommendations. See Everything You Need To Know About Websites by Susie Tobias.

Create great content

If all of your on-line activity was geared towards bringing people to your website it would all be much more powerful.

You can keep people on your site and happy to share their details with all sorts of engaging content that you own. Blog posts, reports, case studies, videos, workshops, etc are all great.

For maximum impact your content should be interesting, useful and /or entertaining. Just like on social media sites but now it's on YOUR site.

Word of Mouth

Word of Mouth is, always has been and always will be, the most effective marketing tool. It requires you to be good at what you do, honest, trustworthy, good at networking,  building relationships and generous to the people you know by actively connecting them to others - and by others doing the same for you. This works really well for members of Drive, the Collaborative Network, where we concentrate on building trust.

TeleSales

Not many people in small businesses like making sales calls but telesales can be extremely effective when done done by someone who is not only highly trained and experienced but really enjoys the process.

Tania Verdonk at Spirus Marketing is just such a person and is highly recommended by many of our members.

I hope that's enough to get you thinking about doing less marketing on social media and more that's in your control.  T

For more help on this please get in touch - our network has many talented people who combine their skills, experience, and expertise to help each other and come up with effective ideas and solutions.

by Ann Hawkins