The Steps To Expanding Your Small Business

Many countries around the world are started by excited business owners right from the inside of their home. There is no data that suggests that companies that spend more money on the initial phases of opening their business make more money. In fact, wearing multiple hats can and very often does mean that you get a more nuanced understanding of your business practices. This is because during the process, you learn the intricate details that you can tie in to bigger decisions that you make for your business. While it is true that you lose some of this after building your company, you’ll also know what variables that you should track on a more intimate level when you’re looking toward building your own business. If you need tips on how to navigate your small business, this article is for you. 

Know When To Delegate Tasks 

It’s important that if you’re starting your own business that you don’t continue to do every task yourself. As mentioned earlier in this article, it is important to have that fundamental and base knowledge about how your business operates, but it can be detrimental to your business in the long run. Instead, as your business grows, make thoughtful decisions about how you delegate menial tasks so that you can concentrate your time and energy on making better business decisions. Look for phone assisting services New Milford CT to find outsourcing alternatives to menial tasks that are usually done in-house. 

Start With an Adaptable Business Plan 

Most business owners have lived in a traditional world filled with plans that have already been made as to how you should be successful in your specific industry. While this can influence you should stay cognizant of what works, it takes intimate knowledge and wisdom in order to make changes that line up with the world’s economy as it changes. Traditional ideals are generally conceived to be safer routes for new business owners because it is true that what worked before has some influence on what will work now. However, it’s also important to think of new and innovative ideas so that your company can be distinct from the pack. 

Nail Down Your Branding 

While it may seem at first that the biggest brands were either lucky or have fallen into good graces with the branding gods, there is actually much more at play when it comes to successful branding. Navigating the market with your audience is the most important way to ensure that you understand how to brand toward your market. You have the potential to expand outside of your specific market, but this must be done with thoughtfulness in order to be successful. 

Consider Franchising Your Business

Franchising is one of the most popular ways for small businesses to become a household name and expand business nationally and sometimes even internationally depending on how successful the business is. If you are interested in expanding your business and getting connected with potential franchisees you should use a franchise directory like https://franchiseek.com/ for example these franchise directories allow you to advertise your franchise businesses and connect with potential franchisees for a small advertising fee.

Effective Marketing The Old School Way

The rise of digital marketing platforms and social media influencers have helped the direct mail industry to find inventive ways to market products. If you didn't know what direct mail was before reading this then keep on reading because this article will not only shed light on this ingenious marketing strategy but will also highlight some key advantages to direct mailing as an industry alternative for brand exposure.

By now you probably get the gist of what direct mailing is about but to put it in simpler terms, this is a type of marketing that involves brands sending their promotional items to a person's home or work address without their knowledge. The main objective behind this strategic approach is to drive online sales of that brand or business. Nowadays, brands target influential people through this age-old marketing technique. 

Now that you are familiar with the concept, it is important to understand what the advantages are for brands when they opt to use direct mail as their marketing strategy. 

• It Commands  Attention

This is the oldest and most effective way for a brand to be noticed by a prospective client. It provides an intimate relationship with a client because it shows them that you have been attentive to their needs and wants. 

•  Personalized 

Everyone wants something different from the next person. Each delivery is customized.

•  You Get What You See

It is a tangible delivery service and as a client, it's easy to find out if you will like your promotional gift or not as soon as you open the door to sign for your delivery. 

Direct mail is popular for its efficiency and cost-effectiveness. You can receive your direct mail from anywhere in the country and there are many services providers that you can find for instance, if you search for direct mail services in Atlanta you will have a selection of more than twenty businesses that offer the marketing option to brands. So, it doesn't matter where you are you always have the option to do marketing the age-old way. 

How White Label Link Building Can Be the Boost Your Marketing Agency Needs

It’s important that you carefully consider the services that you offer as a marketing agency. Every agency has a menu of services that they excel in – search engine optimization, digital advertising, content creation – the list goes on and on. By offering white label link building, it can boost your agency to new heights while also giving you a competitive edge in today’s marketplace.

Attract New Clients

Businesses of all shapes and sizes need help with their marketing strategies. You may already be helping clients with digital advertising campaigns. You know how to get them the traffic they need through paid campaigns.

What about organic traffic, though? May clients want to focus on the best possible content along with backlinking strategies. It can ensure they get the traffic simply by maintaining their online presence.

When you can offer more services and help people achieve their goals in different ways, you can attract new and different clients. If you’ve been looking to diversify for a while, the simplest solution may be to look at white label link building. It can enhance your portfolio and ensure that you can continue to be the go-to marketing agency for all of your existing clients while attracting new clients at the same time.

Offer More Services

Today’s business owners are savvier than ever before. They’re reading magazines and blogs to tell them what they need to do in order to get more traffic. They know about things like search engine optimization and website conversion rates. When you know that business owners know about marketing, you have to be ready to field their questions.

Do you offer search engine optimization? What’s the average ROI? How do you handle link building? How long will it take to see results?

If you don’t have the answers to their questions, they’ll bring their business to an agency that does have them. It’s not just about knowing the answers, though. It’s also about offering diverse services that will help them grow and get higher levels of traffic needed to achieve all of their goals.

The services you offer don’t have to be provided by you. It’s important to search for third parties that offer the services behind the scenes. With such things as white label link building, you can offer the service and take the credit while a third party does all of the work. It’s a chance to add to your menu of services easily.

Reduce the Hours You Work

It’s not uncommon for marketers to put in a significant number of hours. Especially if you’re just starting out, you’ll work your fingers to the bone in order to prove that you can help your clients. You know that you can only be successful if your clients see some kind of success.

Even with marketing automation software, you may be working countless hours each and every day. You may be writing the content, researching the keywords, and doing everything on the back end.

What if you could get some help? It can be difficult to hire new employees to your agency because there are not only hourly rates to worry about but also employee benefits. It can be expensive – especially if you don’t start growing your client base quickly enough.

Help doesn’t have to come from the hired staff. It can come from third parties that offer white label services. You simply have to decide on the areas you want the help in – such as link building. It can reduce the hours you spend working for your clients – and that can give you more time to pursue new clients.

Increase Your Revenue

With new services comes more revenue. When you take advantage of a white label link building service, you have the ability to set your own prices for the service. The third-party sets their fees – and you can mark them up as you see fit.

As you continue to offer new services and create various marketing packages for your clients, it allows you to boost your revenue. You can decide how many clients you want to take on – and when you’re not doing all of the work thanks to what the third parties are offering, you may find that you can take on more clients than you ever thought possible.

Ideal Hacks to Help Your Small Business Thrive and Grow

Growing a small business isn’t as difficult as you may think! With a little focus and guidance, you can make your startup a success.

Learn a few simple operations and marketing hacks to streamline processes, grow your business, gain a larger audience, and generate more sales.

Make sure you do as much as possible to think about the different ideas that are going to play a part in helping you improve and grow your business. There are many ideas you might like to keep in mind here, and helping your company to thrive and grow in such a difficult time is certainly something you need to make sure you make the most of right now. There is a lot you can do to make the right decisions that are going to help your business improve, get more customers, and thrive in this current climate without spending a fortune.

The global pandemic, politics, and the economy we are currently experiencing have made times tough for companies of all sizes in all industries. In fact, the Coronavirus has spelled the end for a lot of companies, and this is why it is so important to make sure you have a plan of action that can help you thrive as much as possible. Here a few tips you can implement now to ensure your business doesn’t experience those same issues.

Manage Your Short-Term and Long-Range Finances Better; Cut Costs and Lower Overhead

Managing your business finances better is one of the best things you can do. Keeping tabs on your financials and creating a budget to prevent overspending are keys to success in today’s oversaturated environment. Hiring an experienced accountant or attorney will be beneficial here. The right professional will help you prevent spending more than you have as well as minimize tax implications. It is a smart idea to allocate spending in this department.

Streamline Your Business and Improve Overall Operations to Enhance Efficiency

Streamlining the business as much as possible is the best action to take to optimize operations. There are quite a few ways of doing this, such as embracing a leaner approach to business and cutting non-essential costs. For instance, eliminate any unnecessary and redundant tasks for your team members, audit your tools and software every month and cut out excess spending, and modernize your processes to improve efficiency. When you keep a tight rein on your spending, oversee processes, and manage your team effectively, all of these actions will help improve your organizational operations.

Evolve and Expand Your Small Business During Today’s Global Crises

The evolution of any business is typically what launches you to greater levels of success and revenue increases. The world changes at a rapid rate, and we need to make sure we change with it. The most successful entrepreneurs are those who stay on the crest of the wave. They are always at the forefront of technology, innovation, creativity, and talent, understanding the changes that occur, and working toward evolving with them. This is essential for helping to keep your business as relevant and as professional as possible. Staying ahead of the competition is the key to success.

Spruce up Your Website, Improve Optimization, Enhance Conversions, and Design Other On Brand Visual Assets

Your company’s website is one of the key ways of being able to generate success. It is the one thing that gives the biggest impression of your company and your brand. Customers will visit your website to get a feel for the business and find out more about you. And they are going to be making judgments about your business based on the quality of the website and social media channels. This is why you need to make sure you have the best possible web design services.

You’ll also want to ensure that you hire a graphics person or a design agency to create your social media strategy and posts. If you’re just starting out and don’t have the funds to outsource these tasks, you can use free design software to create posts and use scheduling software to eliminate tedious tasks of posting your social content manually. These tools will shave hours off social media duties.

Hiring the best possible design team to create and maintain your website and social media channels is critical to your brand’s credibility, aesthetic, and overall reach.

Don’t Cut Back on Organic and Easy Marketing; Plan and Implement a DIY-Publicity Campaign for Free

The one thing that so many business owners do when the economy goes bad is cutting back on marketing efforts, and the budget, and not taking risks on other types of marketing. This is a no-no. Business owners should plan and implement a DIY publicity campaign in order for their businesses to grow. They don’t need to hire a PR firm or outsource a PR campaign to a freelancer. Rather, they can start learning how easy the process is by doing a little research. And what’s more, is that when you implement a publicity campaign on your own, it’s free.

On top of that, there are so many free resources out there that you can take advantage of, too, like reading up on a business growth consultant blog or trying out free trials, but of course, there are actual tools out there that you can use for free like ChatGPT, Canva, Unsplash for images, Creative Market Freebie Drops, and the list could just keep going on and on. You can still do marketing, even when the economy is tough.

Think about what a feature story in Inc.com, Forbes.com, or Entrepreneur.com can have on your business. Consider what a quote in the New York Times would do for your brand. How credible would that make your business? How much visibility could it produce? How much further would it propel your business over the competition?

Imagine having those bragging rights and the traffic and sales it would send to your website. To put it simply, the right media coverage can be a game-changer for any business when it’s done correctly.

Why not franchise your business?

One of the best ways to grow your small business is to franchise it. There are some things you will need to consider before franchising your small business, though, and tests you will have to perform to decide whether your business model can be franchised. 

Suppose you have a business model that is franchisable and can be replicated. It is essential you understand how to market your franchise so you can recruit franchisees as soon as possible to grow your brand either nationally or internationally. There are many ways you can market your franchise, from using Facebook ads and franchise shows all the way to creating a listing on a directory of franchises. Franchise directory advertising these days is the most popular option for franchisors to recruit new franchise owners. There are many directories out there that offer these services, such as https://franquicia-buscar.es/, as an example.

How to Avoid Common Mistakes in Business and Where to Shift Your Focus to Improve Processes

One of the things that you need to keep in mind is that there are a lot of mistakes that entrepreneurs make when running a business. Some of these careless mistakes include spending too much on the wrong things and not spending on the right things, hiring the wrong team, not planning for the future and setting realistic goals, implementing an ineffective pricing strategy, marketing in the wrong places, or not marketing at all, and not delegating tasks. All of these actions are hindrances to the success of your business.

Instead, try to come up with ideas that will play a part in this as much as possible. For example, you should be organized, understand your market, know where to spend on marketing, develop offerings that will sell, be strategic when advertising, be vigilant about hiring the right team members, spend on the necessities, stay focused, and be creative.

Put People such as Employees and Customers First; Create Brand Ambassadors and Brand Evangelists; Reward Your Employees Often

Putting people, specifically customers, first at all times is one of the best things you can do to make the most of growing your business. Make sure you try to come up with ideas that will allow you to put people first and make your business model all about putting yourself in the customers’ shoes. The more you can do to make the right choices here, the better this is going to wind up being for the company in the long run.

COVID-19 has caused people to re-evaluate their lives and what is important to them, and this has also impacted the way they have chosen to shop and do business, especially in the offline world. So your company needs to make the most of this and try to ensure you focus on people as much as you can. Essentially, providing top-notch customer service will build long-term client loyalty and improve your business's customer retention rate. Rewarding and praising your employees will also help keep them satisfied and motivated so they produce as much as possible.

These are some of the key things you need to make sure you get right when it comes to improving and helping your small business as much as possible in today’s unpredictable market. There are a lot of things that play a part in helping you to make the most of this, and it is vital to ensure you think about some of the best ways of achieving this. By taking the right steps now, you will be able to prevent issues down the road.

The Business Build Up: How To Stack Success

Starting a business is hard, but building one up is even harder. In truth, anyone can start a business these days. It’s as simple as offering a service through Instagram or any form of medium to a wider public. Stacking success is where things become a little more complicated. The majority of businesses fail in the first five years. If you manage to go for four or so years you know you’re doing something right but it’s in the stacking of the success where you have failed. This is why it’s super important to try and build on success and build outwards to new horizons.

Not everyone can do it properly but the truth is this is the most important part of a new business. It’s where costs can spiral out of control and where you really need to focus on your overhead. A new business can survive because the overheads can be low but one around for a few years will start to accumulate overheads that need to be paid off. This is why so many businesses went out of business during the Covid crisis. As soon as money stopped coming in, overhead punished them. Not that they did anything wrong of course, but there’s a lesson in there somewhere around business continuity and how you set up to succeed. These tips can carry your forwards to success.

Your Cash Flow Is Everything

The best plans turn to ash. You might have started off with a foolproof cash plan or budget. They go out of the window a lot of the time when the overheads start rolling in. Try to keep on top of it. Keep your cash plan alive as best you can. It isn’t always easy, but it’s certainly doable; it just takes time. As the business grows, your time becomes less prevalent.

If you get into trouble, you may end up looking at Wise Loan online installment loans, or other capital injections to get you back on your feet. If you feel like it's all getting away from you, consider hiring an accountant or tasking an employee with it. Make sure you stay on track and keep your contingency money aside. In reality, your plan should look exactly the same, just the amounts will increase as your business grows. These things should be easy enough to manage as you grow and build. The point being, don’t lose track of the money as you progress because it could come back to bite you.

Recruit Right

You don’t want to end up paying for an employee who simply isn’t right for your business. If you end up in that situation, it can be completely disheartening, and depending on where you live you might have to jump through hoops to get them out of your business. The remedy is proper preparation when you employ. For a start, your job advert needs to be on point. Describe exactly what you need and want. Then you need to specify your criteria. It has to state clearly what they need to have. This might be experience or qualifications like a degree. This way, you cut out a lot of the potential applicants who don’t fit the bill. It saves them time, but it also saves you time sifting through applications that aren’t suitable. Then come the interviews. If you’ve never done them before consider getting someone in to help. You should never really do them alone any way to cover yourself, but having that extra person in there helps you pick up on the nuances of the conversation. It helps you spot things that might be hard to pick up all on your own. Try to upskill yourself with employment law too, you don’t want to run afoul of anything. Basically, you need to recruit someone who can help build your business with their experience and technical know-how.

Extend Your Product Base

Stacking success comes in many forms and one of the best is in building into multiple product streams. If you’re selling one well, start another and sell that too. It doesn’t matter where you’re selling either. It could be through Amazon or through your own website. Try to keep the products as closely aligned as possible. You might even get to the point where one product is bought merely to make the other one better. These create a kind of circle where one supports the other. You keep doing this and you’ll have a whole ecosystem of products that people can buy into. If you don’t offer products but offer services instead, you can do the same thing. Just be careful you don’t go too far where you have a stupid amount of add ons taking customers down a rabbit hole where they’ll feel slightly cheating. Some would rather pay a larger price for one service than that split in half for two services. Bear that in mind when you’re doing your research around extending

Look To New Areas

If you’ve done well in one area, you can do well in another too. There might be a reason why one geographical area has succeeded. It could be the demographics, like students for example. Is there another student area in your city? Or perhaps you can target the student population in a different city. Expanding should be done as close as possible at first. The closer you are to your target market the less you have to think about logistics. This is of course compounded by the fact you’re not crossing international boundaries. Start small, then move outward until you find another market like the one you’re successful in...focus on that one and be successful there before moving out to the next again. Point being, don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you overextend it could come back to haunt you. Slow and steady, gradually employing more staff as you hit each area. 

New Advertising Streams

If nobody knows about your business then how do you expect them to pay money for your products or services? It just doesn’t work that way. You need to get in people’s faces and push for sales. You’ve probably done this a little because you’ve made a success out of your first venture, but to keep stacking that success you need to keep moving. The type of advertising that works depends on your business type.

Does traditional advertising apply to you? Would you be better off getting out with the local community and passing on leaflets and flyers, or would you be better off instead looking to digital methods of advertising? What’s worked for you once might work again unless that first time was targeting a geographic area and demographic. Go for different ones. If physical advertising is the one for you it might be worth paying for some key locations in your city to get up and running with some visual advertisements. These are better for restaurants and local businesses. You can of course do the same online by paying blogs or relevant websites money for banner ads etc.

Social Media

In the same vein as editing, social media is a gold mine worth tapping. Again, it depends on your business type but most people are on social media these days. Some are on all forms of it, others just on one or two. It’s a great way to advertise. Get on there and start garnering likes and follows. Your social media page will link back to your own website and product pages. Some people search for local business solutions via Facebook these days without even looking at results on Google so it is certainly worth tapping into. Once you’ve set up your business page you need to post regular content updates around what you do and how you do it. Around key industry activities around your business area.

Never be too opinionated as you don’t want to alienate anyone at all. Then think about repeating this over social media sites. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Sites like Twitter are great if you want to speak to your customers. It’s great to interact with them this way because it shows that you’re listening to them and actively engaging with their opinions.

Network

Networking is huge in terms of keeping your business on even footing and getting the best prices you possibly can. This is because you can end up meeting and speak to people in various supply chains. It means building trust. Trust often results in better working relationships which means you may be in line for a discount or two.

These discounts allow you to have a better profit margin with more money for yourself or more money for your business to thrive. This means pushing yourself to get involved with industry events in your local area or even internationally. It means that you can forge long-lasting relationships which can help if you run into any form of trouble in business. Debts can be put off a bit longer, goods can be given without you paying for now because they trust you to pay later, etc.

Finding the Right Media Contacts and How to Land Media Coverage in National Magazines, Newspapers, and Websites

Knowing the right media professionals to contact during a PR campaign is only half the battle. I know, it may seem boring trying to figure out the right media professionals to pitch, but this sort of information is absolutely essential. 

Getting Started 

Generic email addresses like Contact@Magazine.com or Info@abccompany.com are very rarely monitored. So, here’s how you can start. (Just keep the following in mind while you’re going through the process—never send one of the same pitches to 10 or 20 different media outlets. If you do, that’s one way to kill a relationship before it even started. Consider how many times you receive emails that are mass-market, not personalized, or unsolicited. How often do you open and answer them? Probably never. The same goes for the media.

Get out a piece of paper and pen so you can start writing out your top 10 to 20 media outlets where you think your story can fit. Now that you have that list, it’s time to find the right media contact at that publication, but this will depend on your product or service. My first place to start researching is Google. I will start by searching the “Editor beat + media outlet” name. If I can’t find the right person there, then I will look at Twitter or Instagram. 

Now, to determine where your story can potentially fit, you need to understand the following types of jobs and the functions they have. Some of the most common are: 

Editorial Assistant – These titles are charged with managing administrative tasks and they are not the right contact to pitch a story. 

Managing Editor – These editors are senior-level and determine which stories are accepted; however, they’re not the right contacts because they don’t look to feature new products or services.

Senior Editor – These media professionals usually oversee one section or a beat of a publication. They can be accountable for developing story ideas, crafting/editing articles, assigning stories to freelancers/contributors, or collaborating with the design department. These media pros can be great for pitching your products and services.

Features Editor – These media professionals are usually in charge of assigning stories to staff reporters or junior staff as well as for producing feature stories. You can pitch these editors with longer story ideas (between 1,000 - 2,000 words) but pitch them sparingly.

Digital or Web Editor – These editors are responsible for sourcing and developing web content by supervising staff reporters or freelancers. In most cases, pitching for online product placement coverage is appropriate. 

You now have an understanding of each editorial role so take a look at your list. Are your top ones the right ones to pitch? If not, then keep searching.

Drafting Your Pitch for Online or Print Media

Now that you completed that first step, it’s time to craft a pitch that’s concise and interesting. Below, are some tips to help you jumpstart the brainstorming process. 

To begin, make sure your pitch is newsworthy. So, for example, if you're trying to get media coverage for your new footwear collection, your pitch is going to be different depending on which season you’re pitching.  

Why don’t you try tying your pitch to the time of year or an affair that’s happening in the news at that moment? For example, Summer, Winter, Christmas, or Halloween are all great media tie-ins. If there’s a one media outlet where you’d like to be featured, you can also offer it an exclusive story which simply means that you provide that media outlet the first option to run a story. Just make sure no other outlet covers that same story until that exclusive piece is printed.

Your Perfect Subject Line

You only have one to two seconds to capture the attention of an editor with a pitch. In fact, most editors and television producers receive upwards of 600 pitches a day, so your subject line is the single most important piece of your pitch. It needs to be timely, relevant, and concise. It should also be: 

• Limited to eight words or few (I try to keep mine between five and six words)

• Include the name of the outlet you’re pitching

• Include what you’re pitching (i.e., a feature, event, or demo)

Here's one example from an agency client:

Feature: Stylish Women’s Sustainable Fashion at Affordable Prices 

Body: 

To build media relationships, you need to ensure your pitch is tailored to the editor’s column and matches the outlet’s tone. But the first place is start is by addressing the editor or producer by spelling their name correctly. Using a generic salutation such as “Hi”, "To whom it may concern", or “Dear Team”. Because your email isn’t expected, it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be customized.

The body of any pitch you send out should be between limited to 500 words—this includes the brand narrative, bullet or talking points, and the bio or boilerplate. This format enables the editor or producer to skim it for the most important points in a few seconds. Keep in mind that editors see boring and unexciting constantly, and your only job here is to keep the reader reading and respond for more information. Stay away from including filler words such as “leading”, "premium", "leading", "innovative", and "superior"—you will sound like every other pitch. Add a line about what you’re pitching for, whether there’s a demo that can be scheduled, or samples available.

At the end of the pitch, include a short bio (if you’re pitching yourself for a feature story or interview) or a boilerplate (if you’re pitching your company, product, or service). For media bios, include your accolades, hobbies, and contact information, and for boilerplates, include your company background, history, and overview. Be sure to include your contact information.

Final tip: Include a link to images on Dropbox.com or links to your website. Don’t send attachments because the media won’t open them. 

What Happens After the Pitch:

Don’t panic if you don’t receive response from an editor within a few days after sending your initial email. You can send a follow up pitch a few days after your initial pitch, and then one more time a few days after that if you didn’t receive a response. Any additional follow ups will annoy the editor.  

Be sure not to ask an editor if they received your email and if your story is going to run—it’s irritating. Only send a thank you note after your story is published or after your interview.

 Pitching for Television

Pitching for television is a bit different than pitching print and online media. Searching for the right media contact—a television producer or assignment reporter—can be done via a Google search or on Twitter but it’s tricky because television shows have many different producers and reporters. You can call the news desk asking for the reporter or producer who covers your topic. Helpareporter.com can be a good source for contacts as well.

Writing a Pitch for Television:

When it comes to writing a pitch for television, it must contain a specific story or segment idea. So, for instance, pitching an easy yet healthy cooking segment during the holidays if you’re a chef can be a great idea.

The Subject Line:

Just like your print or digital pitch, your subject line needs to be interesting and concise to maximize the chances of capturing a producer’s attention. Your subject line should be:

• Limited to eight words or fewer

• Include the name and segment of the outlet you’re pitching

• You can use “Int” as an abbreviation for “Interview”

Body: 

You’ll want to ensure that your pitch shows you know the format of the show and where your segment would fit.

 Here are some tips:

·       Your pitch should include a short sub-headline in the beginning of your pitch to hook the reader.

·       Address the producer or assignment reporter by their first name by spelling their name correctly. It drives me crazy whenever I receive a pitch with my name spelled “Kristen” when it’s spelled “Kristin”. Do your research.

·       Your pitch should be 500 words or fewer including the brand narrative, bullet points or talking points, and the boilerplate or bio.

·       Be sure to include your reel so the producer can see how you show on television. Producers won’t put anyone on television unless they see you’re confident and comfortable.

·       Just like online and print, send a follow up email a few days after sending the original pitch. You can follow one or two more times before moving onto the next producer.

Crucial Reasons Your Business Needs PR Now

if you’re like most entrepreneurs, you probably want to learn about publicity but have no idea where to start. So, I want to take a little time to share the benefits that publicity can have on your brand and business.

Generally, publicity is when a magazine, television show, radio show, or newspaper features your product or service in any article or broadcast segment without any monetary exchange. An editor writes about your business or television producer books you from an interview based on the pitch or press release they receive from you or your publicist.

You may be thinking to yourself as you read this: “Isn’t this the same as advertising or taking out a sponsorship?” No—publicity is very different from advertising or sponsoring content.

When you email an editor or send a direct message to a blogger on social media, there’s no guarantee your brand, product, or service will secure coverage. When it comes to publicity, you’re not able to control how large the placement is, what the sentiment is, or what it says, unfortunately. This seems why the publicity process is such an elusive strange practice to entrepreneurs. (But that’s not bad news! A third-party endorsement is worth its weight in gold, as you will see.)

When you purchase an ad or sponsorship, you have complete control over what it says, when it runs, and how large it is. But advertising comes with a huge cost that most startups and small businesses can’t afford, making publicity the better option.

Here are some other great reasons why your business needs publicity.

• Publicity is free when you do it yourself. I know you’re thinking that you NEED to hire a publicist or PR firm to do it for you, but that’s just not true. You can do it yourself.

• Publicity has much more clout and social proof because you get media coverage in some type of media outlet. Most consumers believe that if a magazine or television show features a business, it must be interesting and newsworthy.

○  Think about this - if a new restaurant, bar, or nightclub just opened in your neighborhood, would you want to go if you read an advertisement online or you saw it reviewed in Vogue, LA Times, or The Today Show? If you’re like most consumers, then you’d probably want to check it out if you read about it in a newspaper or magazine. See—that’s the point—publicity is SO much more impactful than advertising.

• Publicity has a way of reaching more targeted consumers than advertising and other types of marketing. If your story is picked up by WSJ.com, it could also be picked up on the NYPost.com and other national media outlets.

• Any type of media coverage can help position you as a thought leader and expert in your niche. When you contribute to an outlet like Inc.com or Forbes.com, then you are able to showcase your knowledge in the form of articles. Consumers or clients are more likely to trust you too more so than if you were to take out an ad or sponsorship on Forbes.com.

• Having your business featured on WSJ.com, The Financial Times, or NYTimes.com, you can attract funding from investors if you’re interested in securing those resources.

If you’re a business owner, now you know how important getting media coverage can be for your business. The longer you wait to start the process, the longer your business will flounder!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to grab the ultimate publicity guide so you can start brainstorming your campaign now.

Get the PR tips below!

Marketing Tips For Professional Services

Professional services firms such as law firms, accounting companies, or human resource agencies often have a reputation for not being very forward-thinking when it comes to marketing and more specifically digital marketing. In the distant past, professional services did most of their business on the back of referrals or face to face meetings. 

The world has moved on and professional service companies are embracing more sophisticated marketing tactics for finding their target audiences. Focus On Your Client, Not Yourself.

In professional services, it’s very easy to focus on your experience, accreditations, and credentials. Sell the benefits of your services, not just the features. Prospective clients want to know what you can do for them, it’s that simple.

While it’s important that you do have these, you need to focus on solving your client’s problems. A law firm or financial advisor prospecting for clients needs to identify and solve a problem for their clients. Every key message needs to be client-centric. 

Creating a buyer persona is a great way to get into the mindset of your potential clients. 

Don’t Forget Your Website Design and Messaging

A well designed, optimized website is so much more than an online brochure that you should just build and forget about. Your website should be working hard for you and work to drive customers to convert to qualified leads. 

Your website should be updated regularly with blogs, video content, case studies, and news stories.  Embed a way of capturing leads with calls to action and data capture forms. 

SEO should also be a big part of your online presence. This is done by researching your market and doing keyword research, optimizing your new and existing content to rank for specific keywords and keyword phrases.

A good SEO company will not only help you improve your site but should also be aiming to boost you ahead of your competitors. 

Find Your Target Market and Engage with Them

Many professional services companies try to be all things to all people and don’t target a particular niche.  This can make it difficult to effectively appeal to anyone. By targeting correctly, you’ll be able to identify and network within the right markets and gain a foothold through referrals and reputation. 

When targeting your niche, ensure you speak to them in a language they can understand. Edit your copy so that it strikes a chord and doesn’t sound distant, reflecting your brand. 

If you struggle with this sort of thing, tools like ProWritingAid can help. These provide AI-backed direction for content, showing you what you should write next, based on your objectives. There’s no need to go it alone anymore in the world of marketing.

Use Linked In To Network With Potential Customers

LinkedIn has transformed from a place to look for jobs, to a fully-fledged networking and sales platform for business professionals. LinkedIn’s premium tools allow you to target and network with your ideal customers. Sharing articles and content is a great way to attract people to your website.

It is also a good place in which to build your employer brand to attract potential future employees. 

Speak At Trade Events and Conferences

You may already attend trade shows in order to market to new potential clients. It can be a great way to get new business. Take your involvement a step further and get involved in presenting at these events. As an expert speaker, you automatically have a level of credibility with the attendees. Through your presentation, you will be able to encourage future contact through sign-ups of connecting on social networks. 

Conclusion

Embracing up to date marketing techniques can give your company an advantage in the marketplace. Don’t just look to your competitors, sometimes the best inspiration can come from another industry entirely. 

Tips For Attracting More Customers To Your Business

You’re not going to get too far in the business world without loyal and paying customers. You must make an effort to learn more about and connect with them regularly if you’re going to draw attention to your company. There’s way too much competition out there to sit back and hope that people find you. You need to have strategies in place and commit to following through with actions that help you attract more customers to your business. Put the following advice into play at your company, and you’ll be on your way to getting people interested in what you’re selling and coming back for more in the future.

Identify Your Ideal Client/Customer

One tip for attracting more customers to your business is to identify your ideal client. You need to know who it is you’re after before you can come up with a plan for getting in front of them. It’s not good enough to target a broad range of people and then hope that someone shows interest.

There are very few products that appeal to the masses. Be specific about who it is you’re after and what their interests are and where they spend their time. It’ll help you to focus your efforts appropriately so that you can draw in the right types of people.

Implement A Marketing Strategy

Once you have your ideal client narrowed down, you can start focusing on documenting a marketing strategy. It’s your responsibility to go out and find these people and make sure they know about your business and what you’re selling. Once you launch your website, you should consider getting in touch with an SEO agency such as https://www.websuitable.com/seo-agency/ and seeing how they can help you double your sales from organic lead generation. It’s also wise to engage with your followers on social media and start a blog that covers exciting and useful information and topics. Create compelling content that people feel enticed to share with their networks.

Collect Reviews, Testimonials, and Draft Case Studies

Ultimately, customers want to hear about how it is doing business with you from other customers. Therefore, make an effort to collect reviews and testimonials so these remarks are shared across social media and on the web. These days, more and more people are doing their homework and research about a brand or company online before walking into a store or spending any money. Keep an eye and tabs on your reviews so you can respond to any negative remarks you receive and show customers that you care.

Solve Customer Problems Quickly

There’s nothing worse than a business that takes too much time to solve a customer problem or ignores the situation. Attract more customers to your business by proactively solving customer issues professionally and efficiently. Listen to the feedback you receive and try to resolve the concern at hand as soon as possible to keep your customers happy and returning in the future. The word will get out and spread if you’re failing to address your customer’s needs in a timely fashion.

Offer Exceptional Products and Services

People are coming to you because they want to make a purchase and improve their lives in some way. Therefore, it’s your job to offer exceptional and high-quality products and services. You can attract more customers to your business by ensuring that people feel like their money is being well spent.

Invest time, money, and resources to make improvements to what you’re selling over time and confirming that people are satisfied with their purchases. It’ll help free up some of your time and reduce your stress because you won’t be dealing with constant complaints and returns.

Reward Loyal Customers

Another way to attract more customers to your business is to reward your loyal clients. Send them special offers and encourage them to bring a friend with them the next time they shop with you. Reach out and say thank you and show your appreciation for their loyalty and being a strong supporter of your brand over the years. These conversations are also a chance for you to pick their brains and hear more about what they think you can be doing better and what they want to see from you in the future.

Get Involved in the Community

Get more customers interested in your business by staying involved in your community. You can sponsor and host events, speak at a conference, and donate your time and money to causes you care about. Introduce yourself to new people and be prepared to answer any questions they throw at you. It’s your chance to connect with others on a personal level and build trust. You may also want to serve on a board and use it as a way to network and bounce ideas off of other business owners.

Position Yourselves as the Experts

People want to do business with a company that has a solid reputation and knows what they’re talking about and doing. Therefore, make it a point to position yourselves as the experts in your industry so that customers tend to turn to you more often than your competitors. Share and distribute knowledge and best practices and promote your expertise regularly so that it becomes well-known among consumers that your company can be trusted. Host webinars and educational conferences and post to your blog regularly to help you achieve this goal.

Conclusion

Use these tips to help you attract more customers to your business so you can become more profitable and expand your company in the years to come. Be patient and make a list of priorities so you can begin to tackle the areas you feel are most vital to your success first and foremost. Remain open-minded and flexible in your approach and track your results so you can get a better idea of what’s working and where you may want to invest more time and money. You’ll be a lot happier as a business owner when you have more customers instead of stressing out about a lack of interest in your company. 

Smart Ways to Expand Your Spa Business

Whether you have just begun your spa/salon business or have been an owner for a few years or even a few decades, you are likely looking forward to growing it for years to come. However, deciding on what to focus on and what is the most effective growth strategy is a big part of a successful expansion plan. To help you have a smoother growth experience and get the best results possible quickly, here are great ways to expand your spa biz without breaking the bank.

Carry Business Cards with You

The opportunity to network with important stakeholders could happen today, tomorrow, or another time. The reality is that you never know when you might meet someone who could help you with the business. You could be shopping at the mall, picking up a few items at the grocery store, or even dining at a restaurant when you meet potential vendors or suppliers. Thus, it’s important to keep business cards in your purse or briefcase to hand out when you get the opportunity. In addition to meeting professional contacts to help you with the expansion, you might also make a few new customers this way. I like to carry a dozen in a business card case or my wallet to be prepared.

Get on Social Media, such as Twitter, Instagram, & Facebook

In addition to the in-person networking tip above, you’ll also want to create profiles on the leading social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Rather than randomly posting now and then on Twitter, develop a posting schedule and make an effort to post and comment regularly on Facebook and Instagram to reach wider audiences. To simplify the Instagram planning process, I like to use the Instagram theme planner Planoly so I can see the entire Instagram grid for the week as well as schedule posts in advance.

A strong social media strategy and presence can help more people get to know your brand, and the more people who know about you, the higher the annual revenue you can have as a spa/salon business. You can use automation tools such as Hootsuite or Buffer to set up your social media posts on Facebook and Twitter for the week so you’re not at the mercy of posting every day. These automation tools help simplify your social media strategy execution. While it takes time and energy, these investments in social media can help your organization grow and prosper.

Make Booking Easier

When you look at your website, does the process of making an appointment at your salon or spa seem intuitive? Is the website easy to navigate? Or does the visitor have to press a lot of buttons to get to that particular page?

Make online booking simple to do so that you don’t lose out on potential clients who have found your website. Often, people will prefer to fill out a small form rather than making a phone call to book an appointment, so now is the time to add that booking form, if you haven’t already. Make the booking form prominent on your website. You may even want to add it to the navigation bar to eliminate useless clicks and increase the overall click-through rate.

Provide a Referral Program

A great way to keep customers and get them buying from you again, which increases sales, is to offer a referral program. Doing so can turn someone into a loyal customer and bring new business your way. The idea of getting a discount excites a lot of people, so this makes sense. You might, for example, offer your existing client treatment for half price when they bring someone new in with them.

Improve the Spa Experience

Make the spa or salon more inviting for your customers or create custom touches to increase their level of comfort while they are an appointment. For example, you might offer them a cup of tea or a glass of cold water with fresh lime in it when they are sitting in the waiting area. Have a variety of reading materials there too. You may also want to offer free wifi so customers can use their smartphones or tablets while waiting for their appointments. The more relaxing you can make the environment, the more customers will enjoy frequenting your business.

Growing Your Spa Business

The tips above can help your organization to expand and enjoy more sales, as well as grow a loyal customer base. When you have a spa that makes people happy and has regular clients, that makes for a win-win situation.

Bad Publicity: How To Learn The Lessons Of A Negative Experience

We can all think of one or more business examples that have seen serious damage done to their reputations or even caused the demise of an organization in what seems to be the blink of an eye. A misplaced tweet or Facebook post, a lawsuit, a scathing editorial published in a national newspaper or magazine, or negative reviews on Yelp or Home Advisor can cause significant problems for a company despite how well established it may be. When your business is never more than a single controversy away from disproving the old adage “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”, it’s worth treading carefully.

With that said, there is always the possibility that, despite your best efforts, things will go wrong or issues will materialize anyway. Events often move so fast that you can find yourself in the eye of a storm you didn’t even realize was developing. Sometimes, the bad moment will happen and you’re going to need to accept the consequences. Then you’ll need to build the brand back better and stronger than before. The only way you can do this is to learn the lessons of bad publicity—and that means doing the following.

Accept the flack that is coming your way and be sure to handle it effectively

Whether it’s a result of a data breach that has exposed your clients’ information shared by hackers, a negative review in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, or a poorly-handled interaction with a good customer/client, bad publicity and word-of-mouth experiences spread fast in today’s well-connected society. Social media and blogs as well as the 24-hour news cycle provide an opportunity for stories to move faster than ever before.

For you and your business, trying to fire-fight among all of this is only going to make things worse. Even if the bad press is way beyond what the original error merits, you’re going to have to admit to the mistake and promise to make it better.

Humility goes a long way and admitting to the problem as soon as possible will mitigate any further reputational harm. So taking action and providing a statement during The Golden Hour (the first hour the crisis or issue happens) is the best way forward. Consumers and other stakeholders will be much more forgiving if you admit to the problem or wrongdoing as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the worse the issue will be. It’s that simple.

Work on a way to repair the trust with all stakeholders

If you want your business to come out on the other side of a scandal or wrongdoing, then you’ll need more than a speech, hold a press conference, or issue a press release. Consumers and other stakeholders will judge you and your business by your actions, and so it is essential to work on a way to reconcile the issue as soon as you can.

This can be as simple as asking the injured party what you can do to help or by asking the angry customer to remove the negative review. If it gets to the point of pursuing legal action, an experienced professional or mediator such as Tully Rinckey can help diffuse and rectify the issue so both parties are satisfied. No problem ever resolved itself because it was ignored; swift action is your friend in this situation.

Assess what went wrong to prevent it from happening in the future

Apologizing for an error or wrongdoing right out of the gate is essential; compensating those hurt is equally important, but perhaps the most vital step is ensuring that the mistake or wrongdoing doesn’t happen again. That means learning why an error happened in the first place. An accident or mistake is forgivable if it takes you by surprise, but making the same mistake again means it’s a pattern and it’s time to evaluate why this issue keeps reoccurring.

If your business makes the same mistake over again, the reputational damage can be irreparable, so make sure any inquiry is thorough and its findings are actioned. All actions taken should then be communicated to any involved party or person—this includes those who were wronged in the first place.

No-one enjoys being the subject of bad publicity or being sued for wrongdoing. If we learn lessons from our previous negative experiences, we can use them to make our business better.

4 Ways Of Generating Sales Through Proactive Marketing

Do you have trouble coaxing sales out of your customers? Then what are you doing to incentivize them? 

The retail sector is competitive. Whether you exist online, offline, or have a presence in both areas, then you’ll find that you are competing with everyone; from the large companies such as Amazon, through to the smallest independent business.  You need to be effective and ruthless in your marketing. 

Here are four ways of generating sales through proactive marketing in your business. 

Online Voucher Codes

Voucher codes are a great way to increase your sales on your online platform. The most effective way to use this to full effect is to share codes for very limited periods of time.

Create a “flash” event that means that customers need to act quickly to take advantage of the offer. 

Create an email campaign using a service such as Mailchimp and email all of the customers that you have on your database. 

By using this a mailing service such as this, you’ll be able to monitor who is opening and interacting with your emails. This will give you a gauge of their effectiveness. 

Coupons

Many customers still love a physical coupon. In fact, there are many people out there that will collect hundreds of coupons together so that they can get the very best deals they can. 

Of course, you don’t need to be into extreme couponing to appreciate a deal, and it might be worthwhile investing in a mail coupon book that you can distribute to your customers if you have a bricks-and-mortar store. 

Think about offering coupons across a range of different products. The idea is that you entice the customer in with the coupon that will give them a small discount, and they buy more items when they’re in the store. 

Be sure that you put expiry dates on all of your coupons. Many retailers forget this and end up with problems on their hands months or even years later. 

Recommend a Friend

Do you want to grow your customer base and encourage sales from your existing customers at the same time? 

One of the best ways to do this is by getting people to recommend a friend to your products or services. By generating a code for each of your customers to share, you can track provide a discount for customers who have recommended a friend. That way, you’ll get two sales and an increased customer base. 

Promote Scarcity 

Do you only have limited stocks of certain items? If you have an item with a limited stock level, that you won’t be replenishing; let customers know. 

Scarcity is a great driving force to increase sales. You may not even need to reduce the price to entice customers into buying the item in the first place. 

Remember, be honest with your customers. Don’t try and trick them into buying anything under false pretenses, it will only come back and bite you if you lie to them. 

3 Steps to Build a Small Business Marketing Budget

Budgeting is something that many people struggle with in their personal lives, so it should come as no surprise that it's often difficult for small business owners as well. There are many different facets of running a business which requires an operating budget. Some, like paying staff and acquiring merchandise or raw materials, are quite obvious, and typically well accounted for. Things become a bit more nebulous, however, once it comes to budgeting for necessities of a less physical nature.

The area that often suffers the most for small businesses is marketing, which traditionally relies heavily on word of mouth. While word of mouth can certainly be a powerful way of getting your name out there, you still need to find a way to get your business in front of somebody to start that word of mouth in the first place. Here are a few steps that can help small business owners establish a marketing budget which makes sense for their size, income, and industry.

Identify Your Target Demographics

If you're running a business, you need to have a good idea of who your customers will be. Do your products attract more women than men? Is it perhaps better aimed at younger, more tech-savvy audiences than older consumers?

You might think your business is more simple than that—a restaurant is mostly interested in serving food, and “hungry people” hardly qualifies as a demographic. Even here, however, there are considerations to make.

Is your restaurant providing a luxury dining experience, serving food made with the finest ingredients? Or are you aiming to offer more casual and quick fare? All these things can drastically affect how your marketing should be designed, where you will see the best results, and how much it will cost. Better still, aiming your marketing at the right demographics may actually save you money, by ensuring a higher return on investment and minimizing advertising venues that won't reach your intended audience effectively.

Establish an Online Presence 

No matter what you're selling, it's essential these days to have some sort of an online presence for your business. At minimum, this keeps anyone from impersonating you and trashing your business's reputation. More importantly, however, is the fact that researching businesses online is an extremely common consumer tactic, and by having accurate and detailed information readily available on the internet, you can guarantee they're getting the right impression.

The exact type of online presence you'll benefit from most will vary depending on your business model. A restaurant, for example, may need a website, equipped with menus and online ordering, while a retailer may want a digital storefront to sell their products to consumers around the globe. Social media can be beneficial to those who may need to communicate quickly with customers about changes to operating hours, menu items, or events, as well as acting as a type of customer service to handle complaints.

What you need for your online presence will also determine your marketing budget, to an extent. While web hosting servers can be quite cheap (many plans are available for under $10 a month), there are some upfront costs when it comes to setting it up, and websites do require regular maintenance to continue functioning securely. While hiring professionals can be an added expense, it's very often worthwhile to ensure your customers have a safe and simple experience with your business.

Crunch the Numbers 

With the above in mind, it's now time to figure out what your budget should look like. Demographic data of your target audience informs your choice of advertising medium, which you can use to estimate marketing costs. You'll also know, at this point, what it will cost to build your web platform and its monthly maintenance costs.

Putting these numbers together into your budget will provide some kind of baseline, but there are other things that you may want to account for in your budgets, such as events and promotions. This is where budgeting can get complicated, and education may need to step in. Finance degree programs are specifically designed around managing money efficiently in this way, so hiring or consulting an expert to fill out a budget more thoroughly can be beneficial in the long run.

Of course, you could also earn this education yourself and keep things in your own hands, if you so desire. Holding a degree in an area of business like this can also be advantageous to your business's image and assist in securing loans and funding by proving you have trustworthy expertise. 

Budgeting can be hard, but it doesn't have to be. Marketing is a critical part of your business's success and should be accounted for in its budget at an appropriate level. You can help your marketing budget to go farther with less by targeting the right demographics through the right venues, building and maintaining a presence on the web, and consulting experts with business degrees (or acquire one yourself) should you get in over your head. Handled properly, this marketing budget can help your business soar to heights you might never have dreamed possible.

What Are Inbound Marketing Systems? And How Can It Help?

Inbound marketing is two-way communication between you and your users, whether that’s other colleagues or your customers. You can release information and your users find you, through search, social media, or referrals. It’s quick and easy access and can be hugely beneficial to your business, especially if you are an SME.

To put it into simpler terms, it’s a type of marketing that engages with an audience. This is done through creative and informative content through organic means, such as search engines and sharing links with friends. This may be on any type of social media or if we text a link to a friend. Another example may be a blog post that talks in detail about a specific product that can reach someone more so because of its intimate content and will reach more people than a specific banner ad tagged onto a page somewhere.  

Businesses can utilize this by creating the right content that will benefit their company. You can then look to create and then distribute relevant and valuable content that the customers want, whereas outbound marketing would include a more traditional approach. This may include direct mail, cold calling, radio ads, television ads, trade shows, and telemarketing. Both have benefits but it depends on your message, your target audience, your goals, and your budget.

Not every company can afford a lavish television advert that can cost hundreds of thousands. It’s time to find the best inbound marketing services. They will help you grow organically and give your business the boost that it needs in order for it to grow and develop. You don’t need to be a marketing genius but here are some further areas that will assist you in understanding what inbound marketing is and how it is used: 

• Topical blogs.

• Social media campaigns (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest)

• Ebooks.

• Search Engine Optimized (SEO) website text.

• Viral videos.

• Web-based seminars and Trade Shows.  

It is very digital-focused which is great because everyone is digital now. It is such a huge part of our lives and everyone can consume things digitally so easily now, and it is only going to grow. So using these areas will be vital for business growth. SEO is huge because it looks at growing your popularity on Google and allowing more people to see you before they see others which helps you beat the competition but this takes time and most often professional help to get this up and running to such an extent.

Looking at your options for inbound marketing is going to be a very practical thing to do because communication is always key. Looking at blogs and social media campaigns could really put you on a path to bigger and better things because it is so consumer-focused and you can get out the information that you need in a simple way which is effective also. It’s time to take your business to the next step with some high-quality inbound marketing and start to see it thrive today! 

How to Prepare for Your First Trade Show

Trade shows provide business owners with the opportunity to show off the products and services that they have to offer and make valuable connections with potential customers. They are held in convention centers and hotels in major cities around the world and are targeted towards almost every major industry. Preparing for your first trade show is a major undertaking, and you should begin to prepare a budget as well as your materials several months in advance. Read on for some tips on how to make your first trade show a success.

Contact Attendees in Advance

Since those attending a trade show generally must pre-register, it may be possible for you to acquire a copy of the attendee list for your trade show. If the show's organizers provide you with a list of attendees, do not hesitate to research the people who plan to attend and reach out to those who you believe may be interested in becoming clients of your business. Keep the initial contact light and informal, and provide information about where your booth will be during the show or the best way to reach you. Don't go for a hard sell right away, since being too aggressive with your sales techniques right from the start could be a turn-off.

Don't Forget Logistics

What types of materials will you be bringing to the trade show? If the show is far away from the town or city where your company is based, you will need to plan a way for all of your materials to reach their final destination intact. Custom shipping cases are a worthwhile investment since they can be any size or shape you choose and will protect even the most fragile items. As your company grows and you make plans to attend other trade shows and industry-related events, you will be able to use the cases again and again. Other important logistics to consider include booking flights (if necessary) well in advance and building time into your schedule for setting up and breaking down your booth.

Give Away Free Stuff

Trade show attendees expect to collect free items, also known as "swag," from booths. Having enticing giveaways is one of the easiest and most effective ways to get potential clients to stop at your booth. Don't hesitate to think outside the box and be creative when it comes to choosing what you will give away. If the trade show will take place during the summer, water bottles or mini fans could be good choices. If, on the other hand, especially cold weather is in the forecast, consider giving out winter hats or cups of hot chocolate. Pens are always a safe choice. Don't forget to brand the items with your company's name and logo!

Good luck with your first trade show! By setting up a booth and having a presence at an industry-related gathering, you will increase your company's brand recognition and make important networking connections. Remember to greet everyone with a friendly smile and firm handshake, and have fun!

Tips for Marketing to Millennials

Depending on your intended audience and product, you may want to target millennial customers. Do you find yourself baffled by where to start reaching out to younger consumers? Learn the finer points of the marketing art so you don't waste time, and so you improve your chances of experiencing favorable results. 

Make Your Content Social 

Millennials embrace new technology that allows them to connect with other people. From a marketing standpoint, that means you want to make your content quick and easy to share on multiple social media platforms. Not only is this how you appeal to younger consumers, but it's also a great way to let your target consumers handle marketing and advertising for you. This helps you save money and time. 

Concentrate on Word of Mouth 

While true of consumers of all ages, millennials are especially apt to let people know just how much they enjoy (or dislike) a specific product. To make it easier for millennials to sing praises of your product or service, offer a free trial. Such offers make it easy for shoppers to give your brand a try, as there's one less hurdle for them to clear. Marketing professionals like Eyal Gutentag would surely recommend that you encourage those who take you up on your trial offer to share their thoughts with their friends and family if they enjoyed your service or product. 

Offer Rapid Responses 

The world has never been so connected, and communication has never been so instantaneous. From a business standpoint, that means your shoppers and potential customers want a quick answer to their inquiries, especially younger consumers. Set up your customer service so that shoppers always receive a quick and thorough response to their question, no matter if it's early in the morning or late at night. Take too long to respond and you may send a potential long-time customer into the arms of your competitors. 

Know Their Values 

When you want to either market to or manage millennial's, you've got to appeal to their values. That means learning which causes millennials care most about and see how your company can support those causes. This could mean supporting a charity, a specific organization, or just doing what you can to support your local community. Even if you aren't targeting younger consumers, supporting charities is good for your company's public profile. 

Remain Transparent 

Millennials shop with a fair degree of skepticism, and who can blame them? No consumer wants to feel taken advantage of or become a victim. That means you need to operate with complete transparency about how you do business, what ingredients or components you use in your product or service, and how you use customer information. Remember, it's easy for modern shoppers to do a bit of research on their own to see whether companies are as reputable and honest as they claim to be. Make it easy for younger consumers to understand where you're coming from. 

Once you gain the attention of Millennial shoppers, take steps to keep it. Once you have their loyalty, it could be easier than you think to keep them coming back to your company again and again.

How to Improve Your In-Store Marketing

Your customers are in the door. Success! You have managed to get them into your store so that they can peruse your stock and hopefully buy something. All the hard work is over and it’s up to the customer from here on out. Right?

Wrong!

In-store marketing is so important to help encourage a customer’s behavior and to provide a better overall experience. From signs that help direct them to exactly where they need to go, to in-store services like color-matching. There is so much you can do to improve the experience of your customer through some simple marketing tricks:

Make Use of Dead Space

Dead space will often include your walls or your ceiling. By taking advantage of these areas you can add a more harmonious approach to your design. This is particularly true if your store is larger than average. High ceilings don’t often get a lot of use, but they can be the perfect spot to place a few wall signs that help reaffirm your brand and give your customers a better sense of who you are overall.

Try using your logo, as well as a few great bylines that help customers feel like they found the right brand. A DIY store could have an uplifting message geared towards those who work with their hands and have endless imagination for their home, for example.

By bringing the eye up in this case you balance out your entire store and can actually improve the overall vibe when shopping.

Unify the Color Scheme

If you are looking to improve your store then you need to have a look at color theory. The right color can really drive home the feel and energy you want in your store. This way it’s not just design working in your favor, but emotion too.

Add Purely Decorative Elements

We like pretty things, so make your store pretty. Add photographs on the walls, find fun decorative elements you can secure to your store’s displays, and so on. It will help you stand out and drive the eye in towards your store and products.

Make Your Store Feel More Like Home

Almost every brand can benefit from making their property feel more homely. A clothing store with wooden floors will feel more like your customers’ personal closet and entice customers to bring home your clothes. A DIY store will feel rustic and help drive home what can be done with your products for your customer’s vision. 

Declutter and Reorganize 

You should always use redesigning opportunities to reassess how your store is laid out and how you can improve the flow of your store. This way you can encourage more window shopping, and might just remind your customer of something they need that they almost completely forgot about.

Try to take customers on a journey that moves them through your store without making them feel like a rat caught in a cage. This can be done through visual pathways, by placing top-selling items near the back, and by having a great design that encourages customers to explore.

The Advantages of Offline Marketing

In the day and age we live in, with technology right at our fingertips, it is important for any business to have an online presence. People are online, and if we want them as potential customers, then we need to be online too. However, it is important to not forget about the fact that having an offline presence can also be important. There are offline marketing strategies that have been shown to work, but they just get forgotten about.

Benefits of offline marketing

One of the big benefits that comes from offline marketing is that you don’t need to use the internet, and rely on having an internet connection. If your website goes down for whatever reason, for example, then during that time, you can lose some important custom. If that is all that you have, then it can be tough for your business. 

Another aspect to think about is that online advertising is something that is so present, but as a result, it can lose a little bit of its impact. So for some people browsing online, it can be something that they ignore. Whereas if you give someone a business card, it is something they hold in their hands and pin on their boards; it isn’t something that can be as easily ignored. There has even been research in printed media and reprographics that has found that something visual physically causes reactions in the brain that are more likely to lead to purchasing, compared to digital media.  

One aspect to also consider with offline marketing is that it can make it much easier to concentrate on just using a local area, with specific selling to what you want to do. The potentially large customer base that comes with online marketing means that it can be easier to get lost a little in the digital crowd. If you specify your business to your local area, then you will have a much better chance of understanding what your local customers want, and then you can target what they need directly. Being a local business also means that you can get involved with a local community, through local events, local newspapers, and so on. 

Types of offline marketing

Offline marketing covers a range of things, which could be business cards, as well as the use of banners, leaflets and flyers, and even billboards. Offline marketing can also be in print, like magazines and newspapers, as well as face-to-face networking, or giving speeches and presentations.

Direct mail is another aspect to think about. When you use email marketing, your email could get sent to spam, or just not opened. Similar things can be said of direct mail, of course, as they could just get thrown in the recycling. But if you are reaching your target customers, they will be more likely to read something, rather than throw it out. Target your offline marketing directly and then it will work well for you.

The Best Ways to Promote Your Business in the Community

When you’re looking to improve your business and ensure it reaches customers, it makes sense to promote the business within your community. After all, capturing the local market before you try to branch out beyond that is the most sensible way to grow your business. If you’re not sure how to promote your business in the community, we’re about to help you with that. Read on to find out how and then put the ideas below into action.

Host Gatherings and Events

When you host gatherings and events, you can connect with people in the real world who might be interested in what your business is offering. It could be just what you need to start making face to face contact with the right people and delivering the right first impressions.

Ask for Online Reviews

Asking for online reviews is useful because it helps you to raise your profile online. When people are thinking of using a service, they tend to go to Google My Business or other such options and do a little research before they go any further. You’ll want them to find good reviews and positive things about your business when they do this, so actively ask customers to review you on these platforms.

Offer Rewards for Referrals

One of the best ways to encourage more people to start buying from you or using your services is to offer some sort of rewards for referrals. This would work by a person who introduces a friend or relative to your business for the first time getting a discount that they can use for themselves or something like that. It’s very simple but it works extremely well.

Hand Out Promotional Merchandise

One great way to connect with customers in your community is to hand out promotional merchandise. You can give customers this stuff every time you sell something and you can hand them out at events and pretty much any chance you get. Head to Pin Factory to find out what kind of merchandise options out there. If people use your merchandise items, more people will see your brand name and logo in your community.

Target Local People and Opportunities Online

You can also use the internet to make your business more likely to be seen and heard by your target customers in the local community. This can be done in a variety of ways, including targeting specific keywords such as the location of the place where you live. People will often search for their location next to the services they’re looking for so by dominating these keywords, you should be able to reach more of the right people online.

Each of these ways of promoting your products or services will be a great help. Sometimes, the best way to reach new customers is to focus on your own community and surroundings. It provides you with a good base on which you can later build for further success, so get to it.

Want to Try Affiliate Marketing? Here Are The Main Factors You Should Consider

Whether you’re currently running a blog or looking to start one in the near future, you might be considering implementing affiliate marketing within it. 

A way of scaling and monetizing your blog involves promoting certain products or services in return for revenue. Once a reader clicks on the link associated with the affiliate and purchases the product or service, you’ll receive a percentage of the sale. 

How Much Can You Earn From Affiliate Marketing?

You’ll be glad to know that the industry surrounding affiliate marketing has been steadily growing throughout the last few years. With spending predicted to reach an impressive $8 billion by 2022, there’s seemingly no better time than now to join an affiliate program. 

However, it’s important to keep in mind that businesses differ when it comes to how much they will offer someone that’s promoted their product or services. Therefore, it’s good to hunt for the highest-paid links possible – even if there is a lot of competition for them.

Top Things to Consider

Before you start with affiliate marketing, there are certain things that you should consider. By knowing the ins and outs of how it works, you’ll be in a better position and be able to potentially unlock higher revenue. For example, you’ll want to keep the following in mind:

Creating a Strategy Plan

While it might seem simple to start, if it’s done incorrectly, you won’t receive the income that you initially hoped for. To prevent this from happening, it’s therefore advisable that you create a strategic plan. Going in with a solid game plan will give you the knowledge to recognize:

• What products or services you will focus on promoting

• Where you should look for the best links and opportunities

• How much you’re willing to invest in the process

• Who you should be working with

What Products or Services You’ll Promote 

Following on from the above factor, you’ll need to establish what products and services that you promote on your blog. Typically, these will align with your blog nicely, e.g. if you’re a parent that has a family-themed blog, then you might include affiliate links in your content that are from vacation websites, toy stores, etc. 

When deciding on this, you might want to ask yourself the following questions:

• How much money is associated with this niche?

• What topics am I particularly passionate about?

How Transparent You Are

When you start to include affiliate links on your blog, it’s a good idea to disclose these affiliations. Your readers will appreciate you being honest about this and maybe more likely to contribute because of this. If you’re not honest, it might lead them to ignore the link and go directly to the site – meaning that you as the ‘middle man’ will miss out. 

Not only this, but it’s also required by the law – so make sure that on the bottom of the page and on each article that has affiliate links, you’ve included a sentence or two stating that they are within the content. 

It Will Take Time

It’s important to keep in mind that you have to be patient when it comes to affiliate marketing. The revenue that you receive from each promotion will build up over time–not all at once. However, that’s not to say that you shouldn’t focus your efforts on continually promoting products. 

The Content Should Be High-Quality

When including affiliate links within your content, it’s vital that the copy surrounding it is of high quality. Without this, your readers will soon lose interest in the article and will either go back onto the homepage or click off of your blog altogether. 

To ensure that they stay engaged and are interested in what you have to say, spend time crafting each article and include the affiliate link in a natural way that doesn’t distract from the copy. If you’ve inserted an affiliate link that’s unnatural and doesn’t fit within the context, it will stand out in a negative way.

Keep Up With Trends

When you’ve started to implement affiliate marketing into your blog, it’s essential that you keep up to date with the latest links and offerings on affiliate programs. You don’t want to be left behind because you’ve missed out on quality links. So, each day, take a look to see if any new ads have been posted. 

By constantly being on the lookout for new services or products to promote, you’ll be able to offer your audience relevant and intriguing content–while being able to make more money in the process. 

Consider Buying a Product or Service Before You Promote It

Of course, this isn’t necessarily essential. But if you want to have the most accurate and reliable opinion of what a business has to offer before you promote it, then it’s worth checking it out beforehand. This way, you’ll be able to establish yourself as a trustworthy and credible blogger that’s taken the time to do this, before promoting it to your readers. 

This is particularly important if you’re planning on writing a comprehensive review of the product or service. Sometimes, if you don’t do this, it will be obvious to your readers. 

Know Your Audience

Although this might be an obvious one, especially if you write a blog that’s within a certain niche, it’s important that you know your target audience and considers what they are interested in. There’s no point including affiliate links just for the sake of it–if you know that your readers won’t be interested in them.

So spend some time researching the different affiliates and ensuring that you can craft content that not only seamlessly complements the link, but that will intrigue your audience and tempt them to click on it when they are on the article. 

Keep Your Values at The Forefront

Following on from the above, it’s critical that you don’t start to tailor your blog based on the affiliate links. If you’re in a niche, don’t randomly start writing posts to do with something that you’ve never written before. Stay true to your blog and you’ll be able to find affiliate links to suit it.