Click the link to read the latest e-news from marketing geni: Chari-Tea  http://conta.cc/genimay11 

We are delighted to be hosting a Big Chocolate Tea Party on Friday 15th April 12pm - 2pm at e.volve Business Centre for The Sick Childrens Trust.

We're cooking up a storm in the kitchen and making 100 chocolate themed cupcakes and we have raffle prizes galore on the day.  We would love to see you there or if you would like to donate a raffle prize that would be gratefully recieved.

Further information on The SCT can be found here:  http://www.sickchildrenstrust.org/bigchocolateteaparty/

Last year a team of 5 of us embarked on the 5k corporate challenge in the Swimathon and raised over £1000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care.  Unfortunately this year only 3 of us are able to make it hence having to swim longer eeek! 

It would be amazing if you are able to support me in the challenge:  http://bit.ly/Swimathon2011

kindest regards

Heather

One of the most important things about attending any networking event is your elevator pitch.

The last event I attended 2 people on my table included this statement in their pitch "and you can get funding working with us" - what message does that give to me?  That they have to "sell" the funding aspect to get you to buy their service - Is their service not good enough to be sold without the 'funding' bait?

So this leads me to wonder how many business models will have to change over the next 12 months when the funding diminishes...

2 weeks ago I ran a 'twitter competition' for National Cupcake Week. Entrants had to tell me why their workplace should win a 'yummy box of 12 logo cakes'. The response was fantastic but their could only be one winner....hmmm not quite there were two who recieved their boxes on Friday.
 
The first box went to @callagentsuk - a business set up after being made redundant from CJ Garland & Co. Rachel & the team thoroughly deserved their box of cakes after enduring months of hardwork to get their business up and running. Well done x
 
The second box went to @codoherty who applied on behalf of The Sick Childrens Trust in Newcastle. I had the great pleasure of personally delivering Carolines cakes and meeting the fantastic team at Crawford House.  What amazing place and an amazing charity. Enjoy x

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of hosting Dillies first Chocolate Tasting Evening.

We had a great night as you will see from this video/montage by Lawrence Conyers from Anson Photography

I am so pleased to announce our partnership with Constant Contact, the leading email marketing service.

I have used Constant Contact for over 5 years now for our marketing campaigns and find it very user friendly. The statistics you get back are amazing and help you really understand your customer.

Take a look at our latest newsletter created in Constant Contact http://conta.cc/MarketingGeniEM

What is it? Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters.

What do you use it for? Communicating with other businesses in your local area, promoting/telling people about the work you do, following people or organisations that you have an interest in.

Follow me follow you? Hmmmm yes at first thought it can be a little bit 'stalkerish'. You follow people/organisations and they might follow you back. But this is the whole concept of twitter - you follow the people that you might be interested in, companies that you like or yes even celebritites that you are a fan of.

What's the ROI - the investment being your time? Well actually it can be HUGE. It's amazing the amount of people and companies that can become aware of your business, its products or service offering.

Whats the BIG Deal? The benefits could be an introduction, an enquiry or even an order so yes it can be a BIG Deal.

On www.twitter.com their strapline is 'Discover what's happening right now, anywhere in the world'. A big statement which in fact can be so very true. The news finds you on Twitter you don't have to look for it.

At Marketing Geni we have helped several businesses use Twitter in an effective way, here are just a few examples:

* Holiday Company: Generated 1000 clicks to their website within 4 weeks and ORDERS
* Retail Business: Organised a 'competition/prize giveaway' which generated over 260're-tweets', 150 clicks to their website and an increase in followers of over 200 people and ORDERS
*On-line Business: Created Twitter account, identified and followed relevant people. Hand held/coached through the first 3 weeks of twittering!

If you would like a 'free' consultation on how Twitter could work for your business -give me a call, or even better send me a tweet.