Hi honey, I'm honey....

Did you miss me?

Yes, there hasn’t been a Zzing update since July but don’t worry, your computer hasn’t broken down, I haven’t been in the Big Brother house and I haven’t decided to become a nun. I was simply snowed under with work so couldn’t write any updates. For those of you with long memories, my last instalment did predict that I would be up to my eyeballs in work for all of July and August and most of September, and boy, how right I was.

My biggest contract of my short time in this crazy world of freelance marketing has now completed. It was the delivery of an educational programme into schools working with some of the UK’s leading employers and brands. It was a full-on two and a half months in delivery, especially with the schools on summer break during that time, but it all came good in the end and now I’m moving onto pastures and sectors new. I’m pleased to say I learnt a hell of a lot during the contract though, mainly due to the different style required for copywriting in the education industry. I guess I’m so used to working in the private sector and working for corporate clients that my copywriting needed to be worked on to suit the education market. It was like going back to school (excuse the pun).

A good learning curve though.

I’m now immersed in the world of market research. Surveys, focus groups and analysis. I’m just working on one and have two in the pipeline awaiting client approval, but October and November are looking good for work. It’s nice that they are all varied clients too, social sector, public sector and private sector – they say that variety is the spice of life.

However, as the year quickly slips away from us I do have a pressing deadline to meet.

#dah dun dah!# My tax return.

I’ve got to get it done by the end of October but it shouldn’t be too bad as it’s only for the first three months of my business – so for those of you avid readers of this blog from its inception, you’ll have guessed that it’s not going to be the biggest of tasks! A task however, that must be done otherwise HMRC will be after me. Shame I’m not Portsmouth Football Club as I could simply write that little tax bill off......

I’ve been going on my own for nine months at the end of September. I can’t believe all those months ago sat in my little office at home, looking out at the snow and putting another jumper on *distant violins play* that I would be in the position that I am in now where I’m actually looking to hire some freelance staff for help during October whilst I have three market research projects on the go alongside the usual PR and branding work.

I don’t need staff full-time, just to help out when all the work comes in at once and I’ve had two and a half months of working until the early hours and every weekend so I’m going to see if it helps the workload my sanity. I also have a rather large box of Zzing promotional flyers which I had printed back in May and have never sent out due to my workload. I’d really like to try and get these out before the end of the year otherwise I can see the box becoming a makeshift coffee table in the office by December.

Has anyone else been seeing a return on their online social networking? One of my clients, cfes Ltd has started seeing a great return on enquiries through their website and an increase in website traffic through the references I’ve been using on Twitter – if you want to follow them (go on, you know you do, its @cfesltd). Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn – it all helps your traffic peeps, you never know whose out there reading your ramblings – just keep it clean and non-slanderous!

I suppose now I have slightly more free-time I need to get cracking on the wedding planning. Well, the main bits are sorted and booked, venue, caterer, photographer etc. I’ve been told by my best friend that I have to go wedding dress shopping even though I know what dress I’m getting – apparently it’s an ‘experience’. An ‘experience’ is running the bulls at Pamplona, but you won’t get me running from a herd of marauding bulls. But I think my friend may be right about going and trying on reams of white satin and taffeta. Apparently, this is what all brides do, I’ve seen the TV programmes on BBC3 about it – it seems to involve drinking champagne, wearing false nails and throwing tantrums. Now the champagne I can handle.....

Anyhow, enough ramblings for now, I’ll leave you with a picture I took last Friday evening as I signed off finally from the large education contract and the boy and I treated ourselves to fish and chips sat in a park by Southampton water, watching the sun go down.

I'll see you in September then...

Well, summer is well and truly upon us but I don’t think I’ll be seeing too much of it over July and August.

Last week I won my largest contract to date for Zzing (hurrah!) I have a two month contract working for The b-live Foundation (www.b-live.com) in delivery their marketing and PR for a new education pilot programme that they are rolling out to 50 schools in September. Working in partnership with six of the UK’s leading employers, the b-live Employability Programme will be run in schools providing them with a much-needed work-related curriculum that progressively develops the employability skills of young people, equips them with nationally recognised qualifications and improves their employment prospects and therefore encourages the students to realise their potential. I’ve got to ensure that all of the marketing and PR for both the schools and employers is up and ready by the end of August and that we raise the profile of the programme.

Very exciting project.

Very big brands involved.

Huge amount of work to do.

Very little time to do it all in.

Oh yes, I forgot to add that all the schools break up next week and don’t come back from summer holidays until the week before term.

Well I do love a challenge...

I’m also working on some potential branding for a large recruitment organisation too so that’s keeping me busy too along with the work I do for my existing client, www.cfes.co.uk who will be completing their £3.1million decontamination and sterilisation unit at Yeovil Hospital at the end of August so I’m planning a bit of a launch event for that too.

Hence why this latest update from Zzing has been so long in coming!

So when I look back at my first ‘weekly’ newsletters, how my life has changed (and now my newsletters are more ‘monthly’!) Going freelance was a huge gamble, leaving a secure job with a big organisation to go out on my own. I’m now into my seventh month as a freelance marketing consultant and I can honestly say that I couldn’t be happier. Work is coming in, the hours are long but I’m working for different clients and in different sectors and learning something new every day.

I can honestly say that I love my job.

In the midst of trying to get all of this work complete and keep all of my clients happy I’ve also started getting the ball rolling on organising a wedding – well, every conversation I had with my Mum was “have you set a date yet?”so I thought I should make an effort. We’re meeting / having tea with the vicar this week who sounds lovely, her name is Kate. Ian has a vision of us meeting with the Vicar of Dibley. I’m more worried about what on earth we talk about. Friends have told me that vicars just ask questions about ‘are you ready for this’, ‘do you realise what marriage involves’ etc. Are there right and wrong answers? Is it like an exam and we need a certain percentage to pass in order to get married? Do we have to take anything too? Cake? Flowers? Box of chocolates? Bottle of wine? (I’m guessing not the wine as I’m sure the church has a good supply of this).

So in the midst of Zzing projects in the Medical Construction market, Education sector and recruitment branding, the next few months will also no doubt see me juggling with florists, caterers and bands. Luckily I have a photographer (who I can highly recommend, have a look at his website www.rawdonjames.com) lined up once I have the date confirmed.

Let’s hope I manage to keep all the balls in the air over the next few weeks and don’t start mixing emails and meetings up otherwise I’ll be sending the caterers to a hospital decontamination unit opening and getting a band to play at a Year 7 assembly – well, I suppose worse things could happen.

Apologies in advance if you don’t hear from me in a while, I do try and keep my blog updated, not with just these updates but with also other news and events – just go to www.zzingmarketing.blogspot.com

Hope you are all enjoying your summer and fingers crossed that some of you will be hearing about some of my client’s projects in the press in the coming months!

Enjoy your summer!

Captain, she's going to blow!

Ever feel like you have so much on that you wake up in the wee hours in a cold sweat? Do you find yourself arriving at work exhausted just thinking about your ‘to do list’?

Over capacity? Don’t worry, you are in good company.

Twitter has been plagued this week by ‘over capacity of tweets’. For those of you not akin to Twitter, in a nutshell; too many people are trying to use their service at the same time. This is possibly due to some little world sporting event called the World Cup being played at the moment....

But what a nice place to be in. Your service is being used SO much that it temporarily keeps going down. What business wouldn’t want to be in this position?

Now, some would say, that it’s bad planning and that the geeks technical genius’ at Twitter should have foreseen this and increased capacity. Well, perhaps they should have, but being on such a worldwide scale, I guess it is hard to keep up.

ITV marketing department however, should hang their heads in shame about their preparation for the World Cup. They are sharing coverage with the BBC and had lucked out on getting the rights to the opening ceremony and first match screening rights. Now, being held on a Friday afternoon, I think even my four year old niece could have predicted that one of their largest audiences would be those working in their offices and wanting to watch the first match at 3pm on a Friday afternoon.

Unfortunately my niece doesn’t work for ITV and so they were therefore caught out when their online service crashed about 10mins into the first match due to ‘over capacity’. But don’t worry, that was soon forgotten when they switched off their HD service less than 4 minutes into the first England match and over 1.5million England fans watched Gerrard score England’s first (and let’s hope not last) goal of the tournament.

I’m guessing that the ITV Head of Marketing is not having the best of weeks.

Some things you can plan for, other times you simply need a hand when the workload just gets too much and you physically cannot do everything yourself. (Please be warned that the following paragraph is a shameless plug).

If you need a hand with marketing and communications but you don’t have the resources or budget to hire someone full time, ever thought about hiring a marketing professional on a project or retained basis? I’ve been working for a retained client, cfes Ltd www.cfes.co.uk since March, providing them with PR & Marketing work for 16 hours each week. So far, I’ve worked on several marketing and sales promotions for them, I’m in the midst of rejuvenating their website copy, delivered new company literature, got some trade PR branding and worked with them on sales pitches and presentations. Hopefully they’ll agree that my 16 hours a week is working for them.

(OK, shameless plug over, you can come out from behind the sofa)

It has been a week of mailshot’s in the world of Zzing this week though. I’ve been getting out a dental construction / decontamination mailer out for cfes this week along with preparing another one for them on air conditioning. Then there have been my own Zzing mailers which I’ve been steadily getting out. Fingers crossed they get some results as direct mail still gets a really good response even in this day and age of technology – I guess most people get so many emails every day that they are more likely to read a mailer when it comes in the post than an email in most circumstances.

Hope you all enjoy the rest of the world cup, let’s hope the ITV coverage gets better anyway! I’m going to miss England’s next game as I’m attending a “decontamination in dental practices” conference in Loughborough – yes, the world of marketing is all about lunches, press launches and decontamination seminars.

Happy Fathers Day to all those Dad’s out there too (and a timely reminder for those of you who may have forgotten that it’s this Sunday!)

Until next time....

I'm still here...

Remember me? Yes, I’m the lady who used to bombard you every week with a new update on the world of Zzing and how my business was going.

Well, to those of you who have been wondering and even more so to those who have been ASKING (aren’t you lovely?) where the latest instalment has been, here it is. No, I haven’t gone out of business and started working in Tesco’s. No, I haven’t won the lottery (more’s the pity) and eloped off to the Caribbean to sit on a yacht and have George Clooney bring me cocktails and no, I haven’t been in secret training and been called up by Fabio Capello to partner Rooney up front in the England squad (mind you, I reckon I could beat Lampard on penalties, but that’s another story).
So, what have I been up to? Well, where do I begin...

It’s been a busy time with my biggest client, cfes Ltd (www.cfes.co.uk) as I’ve been working on some Dental promotional sales material and promotional campaign as there is new legislation coming into the healthcare industry for infection control and cfes design and build dedicated decontamination and sterilisation units. Well, you did ask... I’ve also been working with their other divisions on some air conditioning literature and the company brochures have also gone to print. Oh, and I’m currently updating their copy and content on the website. Yup, they are keeping me busy. Really, really nice company to work for though and a lovely bunch of people.

By the way, “Hi Phil!” *waves manically* (Phil works in the cfes Business Development Team and mentioned he read my blogs so I had to mention him!)

I’ve also been working for some other companies on some rebranding and design work which has also kept me out of mischief and been finishing off one of the large market research projects for one of my other clients.

We did have May didn’t we? It FLEW by, could not believe it yesterday when I realised it was the 1st June.

I guess also, as the weather has been so lovely, I’ve been out and about a lot more. We held our own rowing regatta and then each weekend, we’ve had another regatta (my club is doing really well this season so each Monday morning I have little voice left or sound like Marlene Dietrich because of all of the shouting and cheering of the crews). Hockey summer season is also in full swing and I’ve been getting out on the water rowing with my buddy Mia. The boy also took me to Weymouth the other weekend for a weekend’s mountain biking on the hottest day of the year. He came ‘this’ close to killing me with the hills we went up and down. It’s fair to say, I am a glutton for punishment!

Now starts the ‘generation of new business’ mode. I have a couple of quotes on the board awaiting for either a yes or no, but, being the ever pessimist, I’m not counting my chickens so if they come off, great, but if they don’t then I have to get some new work in. My new Zzing flyers went to print today and fingers crossed they print correct this time, last week I was in despair when the cover dimensions were wrong. I thought I may have to revert to handwriting flyers and using potato printing at one point but, luckily, I have very understanding printers so they are reprinting it now as the designer has supplied the artwork with the correct dimensions. Phew. Thank crunchie it was for me and not a client...

My lovely friends at Vertical Leap passed me on another prospective client today for some possible copywriting for their website so again, lots of things in the air. Let’s hope some of them stick as they fall back to earth.

I best go, got a few more things to do before I clock off for today as I will be doing something which I have been trying to do since January when I set up on my own. Play golf. Vicki who runs Tiger Ink printing and I have been trying to play almost every week and it seems that as soon as we pencil a date in to play 9 holes, we both have something crop up with work and we have to cancel. But this week we are determined to play 9 holes otherwise we knew we would keep putting it off and before we knew it, the clocks would have gone back and it would have been too dark to play!

So, adios for now. I hope it won’t be as long before the next instalment of Zzing, but I can’t promise anything!

PS. If you wanted to see what some of Zzing client’s say about our services, take a look at our website www.zzingmarketing.com. Failing that, this is what one of the clients said about some recent market research Zzing undertook:-

“We employed the services of Penny Glazzard, ZzIng Marketing, as she was recommended to us by a supporter of the se² partnership. We chose to work with Penny due to her professional, positive and supportive manner and because of her excellent marketing background that we felt fitted with the needs of our project. Penny worked on a specific project that covered the whole of the South East region and we were particularly impressed with how thorough and comprehensive she was. The final report that Penny produced was professionally written with some really good ideas for how we could develop our business going forwards. Thanks for all your help Penny!’
Rachel Crossey, se² partnership

Time for my own marketing...

They say that to identify a builder’s house, look for one where little maintenance has been done for a while. If you speak to my friend who is a decorator, he hasn’t decorated his house since he moved in over 10 years ago. Doctor’s (apparently) are least likely to seek any medical treatment or tests.

Therefore, I guess it makes sense that marketing consultancies probably don’t spend much time in marketing their own business once they are up and running as they are too busy marketing their clients business. *Hand up meekly in the air* Yes, guilty as charged.

I think the last time I updated my website was over a month and a half ago, my blog is generally – and I use this term generally very loosely - updated weekly, but I have done no new mailshots or cold calling for over three months now. Yes, I have been busy with the work which I have had on, but now, as campaigns and projects start coming to a conclusion, I’m looking at my May and June budgets and thinking I need to get some new work in. What do I advise clients? Yes, you’ve guessed it, regular marketing and branding.

I think I need to take some of my own advice.

I have been noticing recently that the copywriting business is getting very competitive and I’m regularly being undercut, not by a few pounds – but by a VAST amount. I regularly bid for work on a copywriting site where clients advertise projects they are working on and ask for bids – not huge jobs, just some small copywriting projects like writing a leaflet, website copy, brochure copy etc. Now, I thought I was reasonably competitive as I work for myself, I don’t have huge agency overheads such as staff or premises. However, some of the copywriters out there are bidding – and winning – work for less than the minimum wage. I bid last week for a project writing the copy for a website, 20 pages in total, a couple of days work researching the subject, writing, making amends from feedback from the client. A couple of hundred quid minimum for that amount of work and time spent on it. The winning bid? It was won for a grand total of £50.

All I can say is good luck to the client on that one and you have my details on file....

So, like Messers Brown, Cameron and Clegg, I’m on a self promotion drive. Going to work on my website, get some direct mailers sorted out and yes, #Dum, dum Dahhhhh# - I’m going to go back to the delights of business networking which, some of you may remember, was a whole new life ‘experience’ back when I first started up on my own.

First off though, I have to find some First Aid cover for the regatta I’m organising in two weeks time at my rowing club. I knew it was going to be a nightmare when we found out that Southampton FC had their last match of the season on the same day and there would be no parking for the other clubs trailers. Now we have sourced other parking, St Johns Ambulance, who normally do my First Aid cover are all covering the football match – not a bad gig if you are a first aider and football fan...
Anyone know any First Aiders who would like to cover a regatta?! Honestly, organising a wedding is nothing compared to a regatta....

It is nice to be busy all the time and I’m not moaning – honest – but if anyone thinks being your own boss is easy, it’s not. I have a lovely new golf bag which is sat in the hall and it is aching to be used, but both myself and my golfing buddy Vicki, from Tiger Ink Printing, have been too busy to play. Each week, we pencil in an early tee time, normally a Friday, so we can be back at work latest by 10am...and each week we cancel. How Tiger Woods managed such a full and active social diary for many years and managed to play a few rounds of golf in between is nothing short of a miracle.

I’ve got a couple of large quotes to work on this week – a new website, some market research and branding and some more PR, which, if they come good would be some good work for a couple of months, but can’t rely on anything so best sign off for another week and get cracking on finding some more new work!

Enjoy the sunshine, I think if this keeps up I’m going to test my WiFi connection in the garden...

It’s all getting a little bit political...

Well, the travelling show which is the general election has arrived in town so we’ve got about a month’s worth of hyped up political sound-bites to put up with. Some would say that politics is really just marketing – marketing of ideas, individuals and parties. I guess in a way, this is true. If you can get your point and case across better than your opposition - even if their idea or manifesto is possibly better than yours - you get the votes.

That’s why I had to laugh at the latest ads from the Labour and Conservative party – and also the speed in which they managed to turn the latest editions in their campaign advertising around.

Last week, at 9.45am Labour unveiled a new ‘topical’ advert with David Cameron, sat astride an Audi Quattro – yes, the new BBC series of Ashes to Ashes was just about to begin – with the lines of ‘Don’t let him take us back to the eighties’. Clever copy and visual with a nice topical twist which a large majority of the population would get, even if they don’t watch the programme.

Cue 3.45pm the same day (a whole 6 hours after the initial Labour unveiling) and the Conservatives looked quite smug at their new advert – the same picture of ‘Dave’ sat astride the infamous Quattro but with the immortal line ‘Fire up the Quattro, it’s time for change’.

Advertising genius on a political scale.

Now, I don’t sway to any of the parties, but the speed and wittiness of the tory advertising team did get my vote that day.

I see one of the Labour candidates has also been sacked as he was using Twitter ‘inappropriately’. Well, calling old people “coffin dodgers” and being exceptionally politically-incorrect may not be the best language for a parliamentary hopeful. Twitter is a funny medium. I use it for Zzing (@zzingmarketing if anyone wants to follow me) to 1. Help with keywords and marketing of stuff that I do, 2. Potentially network new clients and 3.(most importantly) find out what Chris Evans, Duncan Bannatyne and Will Carling are up to. Personally, I don’t think it will create any sales at the moment, people aren’t using it for that just yet. I think it’s good for branding and keeping in touch with others, but it’s still in its infancy. The market research I’m doing on Recruitment Trends for Incisive Media is looking into this and the impact Social Media has on recruitment. However, we all know how fast technology moves, so who knows, this time next year I maybe generating business because of the likes of Twitter. Cheryl Cole may be “tweeting” me for some help with her branding.....

It’s been a busy few weeks for Zzing – something which a few months ago I was wondering if I would be able to say – but I’m pleased to say I’ve got a few other bits and pieces coming my way including weekly blogs for a car company which need to be topical and help their website rankings with keywords. So I’ll be getting ready to fire up the blogspot on a regular basis and talk about Quattro’s, Audi’s, BMW’s, Robin Reliants....best get watching some old episodes of Top Gear. I also thought I could create a character from which this blog is written, sort of like a Del-Boy character but I’m not too good with the cockney rhyming slang “Oiwwww-rite guv, got a luverly mota owt back. For you guv, it’s just a monkey. Yor robbin me blind guv, robbin me blind.”

Hmmmmm, maybe not.

I’m off to hob-knob – sorry, “network” on a grander scale this week. Yes, so long local networking events and hello big glitzy event at the Grosvenor House in Park Lane. It is the annual Recruitment awards this week (I know, Brad and Angelina must be gutted that they are in Haiti or wherever) and I have been kindly invited along by Splash Communications www.splashcommunications.com which is not only a great chance for me to meet up and catch up with my old friends at Splash, Lindsay and Caro, but it also gives me the opportunity to once again, play ‘Business Card –Blackjack’. For those of you who remember my earlier ‘networking events’ this is a game where the winner is the one to give out the most business cards in one night. I generally lose as I get stuck with the boring person in the corner who has only come along to the event in order to interact with a human being for that week.

So, onwards and upwards for another week in the crazy world of Zzing with modular construction for hospital PR, selling car blogs, recruitment trends analysis and quaffing spritzers with the great and good of recruitment.

Hands up if your job is the same every day? (Penny’s hand stays firmly by her side). Hoorah!

Four day weeks are not all their cracked up to be...

I hate to admit it, but you were all right – I am struggling to keep up with my weekly newsletters / blogs! Mind you, I have a good excuse, last week I was in Paris for a long weekend of rugby (more of that later) so apologies for the delay in getting a latest update out but it’s been slightly busy in the world of Zzing.

It’s obviously not helped by the fact that this week we have a Bank Holiday this week AND next week. Oh, how your perception of national holidays change. Four months ago I would have been counting down the days to having a four day weekend and two four days weeks, however, now in the lonely world of self-employment, it can only mean one thing...no work means no jingles in ones bank account. Yup, I officially have two days of not earning any money and two weeks of trying to make up for the two days missed. Honestly, if I ruled the country....

I’m trying to meet up with my old friend Vicki West who runs her own print brokers, Tiger Ink – she’s just launched her new website and it is pretty groovy, even if I do say so myself as I did the copywriting www.tigerink.com (blatant plug there) – anyway, we’re due to meet up for a coffee tomorrow which is great however, I reckon that looking by my diary, I’ll pop in for a quick coffee on my way back from my PR work for the construction company in Alton, but will need to get home pretty soon as I need to get cracking on some trend analysis for some market research I’ve been doing.

Whoever says being your own boss is all about lunches, playing golf and early evening cocktails is living in a different world to me that’s for sure.

I’ve just finished one of my market research contracts and I’m in the last phase of the other market research project on recruitment trends which I’m working on too. It’s hard work but really interesting, especially trying to not laugh when someone answers the phone and says they’ll put you through and the next moment, the person you were being put through to is “in a meeting” – I laugh as that is exactly what I used to ask my team to say when market research calls came through to me. How times change. Still, I’m doing the research for a nice client so I hope that they find the research findings useful.

I’ve done three weeks now working on the retained work I do every month for the construction company, cfes Ltd and I have to say it’s odd going into another office for a couple of days every week as I’ve so got used to working from home. Luckily they have loads of work for me to do so before I know it, my hours are up and it’s time to head back and the 16 hours a week I’m doing is enough to get enough work for them done along with working on other projects for clients so an ideal situation. I’m quite liking juggling different projects and market sectors I’m working for currently, it certainly keeps me on my toes and my brain active which can only be a good thing, I don’t want the early onset of becoming the local strange bag lady with lots of cats who talks to herself.

The break to Paris was amazing, we stayed in a really nice little hotel in Montmarte where we made the most of the cafes and bars (I know have a longing for Pernod and water), we wandered around all of the main tourist sites, watched an excellent game of rugby which England should have won however it was an amazing atmosphere in the stadium, especially as France won the grand slam –

...oh, and the boy and I also got engaged  under the Eiffel Tower at night when it was a lit up like a Christmas tree. A very happy trip all in all and one to remember!

So now the month of April is creeping up upon us and apart from the retained contract of work, I’m on the lookout for new contracts and pieces of work. I’ve got a couple of possible copywriting and marketing contracts in the pipeline, but as ever, it is back to the waiting game of getting sign off and the bank holiday period is not going to make it happen any quicker either. I’m also trying to organise the rowing clubs annual regatta but we’ve just found out that on the same day it’s Southampton Football clubs last home match of the season and as our regatta take place 2 mins away from the football stadium we’re struggling to find car parking for 300 rowers and their boat trailers. Doh!

Ah event management, the headaches you give me. I’m thinking that my experience of delivering and managing overseas sales conferences for 300 (mainly drunk) sales people along with organising rowing regatta’s and championships for up to 1,000 people should stand me in good stead for organising a little wedding next year – it can’t be that taxing surely? I’ve started on the draft guest list at the airport when we were delayed, so far we know 250 people and that’s just close family and friends (well, when you add in the Rowing Club, Rugby Club and Hockey Club, it starts to add up...)

Anyway, here’s hoping that April is as busy as March was, I’ve got vol au vents for 250 people to save for.