As a Chartered Marketer and SOSTAC Certified Planner our role is ‘proper’ marketing, not just the ever popularised marketing communications which is too often confused with what ‘marketing’ actually is and how much it encompasses. As part of our work we scan the internal and external environment seeking insights that we can feed into recommendations for our clients and, if approved, action plans.   When carrying out...

  Reviews on Google are important to provide valuable information about the quality of your business to potential new online customers or customers who have found or are assessing you online before enquiring or purchasing. On Google my business – google reviews appear next to your free listing – these are especially visible in both google maps and google search. In google search your free Google My Business listing has prime...

There are over 8,000 tools available for a marketer to use in their toolkit in 2021. As the world of digital marketing and these tools are constantly changing, it is important to keep up to date with the latest developments in order to keep your marketing activities as relevant and effective as they can be. However, finding the time can seem impossible. To help, we have listed a range of useful digital resources that marketing professionals...

    If you are using Facebook as one of the many tools to help you market your business, you can use the ‘Pages to Watch’ feature – a function of ‘Insights’ on your business page.   Facebook Insights is a useful tool to help you understand how well your page is doing in terms of audience reach, engagement, actions, views, followers and likes. By using ‘Pages to Watch’, you can understand how competing...

                    In this day and age there are so many learning opportunities available, indeed Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing founder Christine Watson is a Chartered Marketer and Licensed Trainer – including in the field of digital skills or digital marketing – to give it it’s popular name. Really though, it is all just marketing and the marketers tool box now...

Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing founder – Chartered Marketer and Licensed WorldHost Trainer Christine Watson has been working in tourism in Northern Ireland since she was 12. Starting off washing dishes in a hotel on the main street of Newcastle, County Down – where the mountains of mourne sweep down to the sea, Christine now has over 25 years under her belt. With this experience and given the breadth and depth of the work...

The Northern Ireland Tourism industry is performing well, from an ambitious target to practically double – over the course of a decade – to a £1 billion industry to a brand new stretch target to reach a £2 billion pound contribution to the NI economy. It was announced this month (June, 2019) by NISRA that we are a stone’s throw away having collectively achieved yet another increase in the annual revenue to a £968 million...

Why use Google local guides as a marketing tool? If you’re into photography, video, reviews and sightseeing, Google local guides is a great place for you to contribute your own work and contribute to how your destination appears on the map. Local Guides by Google is a platform which allows millions of people to add photos, videos, reviews, missing locations to enhance the digital footprint of Google Maps. The app allows individuals around...

        Dedicated Food bloggers can be found right across Northern Ireland. These creators, who specialise in food related content, can provide independent or paid/sponsored content for local food brands, restaurants, coffee shops, food festivals and more. At Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing we have actively worked with a number of local food bloggers through the years and produced award winning marketing campaigns as a...

“Go Measure”, “Go Figure”, “Go Suss That Out” – if you have never asked this of your organisational inputs and outputs – then maybe, just maybe, you remain in business by sheer fluke or are grossly failing to perform to the optimal level that you can. I was once told that: “You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Measure”. Another quote attributed to Druker, (a Management thinker I...

Tuesday Tip: Go Blog Throughout Autumn/Winter 2018 Christine Watson – Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing Chartered Marketer and Trainer has been working with Libraries NI on behalf of TrainingMatchmaker.com to bring a Blogging Inspiration Session and a 6 week Get Blogging programme to Northern Ireland. Blogging brings many benefits to businesses of varying shapes and sizes, to local and sectoral communities, to brands, to governments...

Guest Blog Post by Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing WorldHost Customer Service Graduate – Marketing Trainee: Callum Steenson How to WOW tourists – they deserve it! The need for languages in the Northern Ireland Hospitality & Tourism sectors We’ve all been in that situation, walking into a boulangerie in France, a supermercado in Spain or a fruttivendolo in Italy. In your mind you rapidly start flicking back through the archives...

Our Tuesday Tip comes from our Sales Focused Instagram for Business workshop which we delivered for Mallusk Enterprise Park on 11 September 2018.   We didn’t quite capture the full complement of delegates in one picture or get a Boomerang this session but we did share lots and lots of tips and all training delegates left with a rather large ‘To Do list’ to move their Instagram for Business Pages forward. Our biggest tip was to...

17 September 2018 and it’s time for a Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing #TuesdayTip This week we say: Go Forth and Claim Your Location Location-based marketing is an important aspect in many a customer journey. When was the last time you looked for something near you? Be it a “French restaurant nearby”, “pizza delivery to my postcode” , or “events near me this weekend”? Introducing your brand in...

28th August 2018 and it’s time for the Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing #TuesdayTip This week we say: take a look from the outside in at your Instagram Bio Whether you have a personal brand on Instagram, an Instagram for Business page or both you should be aware that the visitors to your Instagram channel will make a first and lasting impression and a call on whether they want to remain on your page or have a desire to buy from...

10 things I learned during my Marketing Traineeship with Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing   – I completed the free Hootsuite academy online training courses in social media and the Hootsuite content scheduling platform.   The training taught me how to use the Hootsuite platform and how you can plan your postings on different social media platforms in advance. It also educated me all about social media and how you can use...

Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing Licensed WorldHost Trainer – Chartered Marketer Christine Watson is a big fan of inspirational quotes – for business and life in general. Each of the WorldHost training programmes that we are licensed to deliver have many motivational sayings included within the delegate workbook. So, we thought we would gather as many as we could in the once place to inspire service professionals and...

As a Chartered Marketer, Mentor and Licensed Trainer in the areas of Marketing, Sales and Customer Service, I am always aiming to glean new knowledge, grow my knowledge and transfer knowledge to my clients and trainees so I thought it was about time that I created a quick and handy guide of online resources to help you keep learning more about Instagram. As well as the Crash Course in Sales Focused Instagram Marketing for Business and...

Have you done an Instagram takeover on your Instagram for Business page? An instagram takeover can generate original enticing and engaging content and enable you reach new audiences all at the same time. Local Instagram Business Pages Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing Chartered Marketer and Digital Marketing Trainer Christine Watson has spotted Influencer Marketing with Instagram takeovers include: DiscoverNI (Tourism Northern Ireland)...

On 11 June 2018 I started an Erasmus traineeship in Belfast with Chartered Marketer and WorldHost Trainer Christine Watson of Watson and Co. Chartered Marketing. As a WorldHost Trainer Christine delivers Tourism Ambassador training courses to people working across the tourism industry in Northern Ireland. Watson and Co. Chartered Marketing has over 1,000 clients and WorldHost Trainer Christine is very passionate about the many things to do...

The Power of Hashtags in Tourism Marketing in Northern Ireland               Using hashtags in your content marketing can help your content not just be found but hashtag marketing can also help your online content be redistributed by influencers, heck it can even make your content go viral. Northern Ireland businesses, organisations and marketers operating within the sphere of tourism should be aware and...

As a Chartered Marketer for over a decade and a former Chair of The Chartered Institute of Marketing Ireland Board I have no choice but to abide by the rules and regulations associated with marketing in practice and I’ve made an official commitment to keep my skills up date with what truly is an ever changing landscape. Ignorance is no excuse. There are laws of every land and all marketers and businesses employing content creators (- be...

  In 201 7 Watson & Co Chartered Marketing founder: Chartered Marketer Christine Watson  completed the Entrepreneurial Spark (ESpark) 3 month Spring and 6 month Enable programmes to help with the launch of her latest venture: TrainingMatchmaker.com – an online platform to inspire learning by listing the free and paid for online and face to face learning opportunities available and trainers available to hire alongside...

Digital Sanity Supper Club no. 2 took place at the Malmaison Hotel in Belfast on 23 October 2017. Facilitated by Chartered Marketer Christine Watson and TrainingMatchmaker.com the #DigiSanity concept has been invented in order to:   i Enable peer to peer learning – digital marketing practitioners and trainers focused on the very latest changes in digital platforms – we had a list of 40 (and I’m sure this could’ve...

Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing host the Digital Sanity Supper Club – a monthly dinner designed to help Marketing Practitioners and Trainers keep their knowledge and skills up to date with new and rapidly changing marketing tools and tactics available within a marketers toolbox. At the Inaugural Supper Club at the Malmaison Hotel in Belfast on 23 October, attendee Richard Graham mentioned a video tool to easily turn written blog...