Archives for July 2018

Social Media Marketing Campaign Tweaks To Make In 2018

July 5, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

When was the last time you looked at your social media marketing campaign and figured out whether it needed a bit of an update? Your social media marketing campaign may have worked just fine for you in past weeks and months, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look at ways to tweak it and make it better consistently. This year, there are some tweaks you should look at making to your social media marketing campaign if you haven’t already:

Create Content That Is Viral Ready That Adds Value

The content you put out on your social media profiles should all be viral ready and add value to your audience. Posting only filler content or sharing content from other brands just isn’t good enough. Posts that cover tips and ideas that are genuinely helpful can be viral ready and add value, as people can really use them and they might feel compelled to share them.

Reach Out To Influencers

Reaching out to influencers is one of the most effective things you can do to create a strong social media marketing campaign. All you need to do is find influencers in your niche, approach them, and see if they would like to work with you. They should suit your brand and appeal to your target audience. This is a great way to grow your business and get more traffic/sales. Bear in mind that certain influencers will want more than a free product to work with you. Some of them already have rates.

A/B Test Everything

How can you know if something is better for your business than something else if you don’t test it? A/B testing everything will help you to figure out if you should carry on doing something that you’ve introduced or not. If you’re not familiar with A/B testing, it’s also called ‘split testing’. It can help you to figure out what appeals to your audience more when you do it correctly.

Make sure you split test your posts, campaigns, and everything else you can think of. There are other tools you can use to assess your marketing plan too, of course. Squared is one marketing tool that people are using, but many don’t know about it. If you’re one of the people wondering what is squared? Then read up on it to see if it might be right for you and what you’re trying to achieve.

Plan And Schedule Your Content In Advance

We’ve already mentioned how you need to make sure you write content that is shareable, ready to go viral, and helpful. It needs to add value to your audience – you know that. But how about scheduling and planning your content in advance too? If you write content only when the feeling takes you, you might find that it’s inconsistent and isn’t getting the results you want. Regular content is key, and staying on top of various social media platforms is a must. There are apps you can use to help you schedule and stay on top of your content.

3 Defensive But Necessary Means Of Treating Problem Customers

July 5, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Customer Service

Customers are important, and sometimes appealing to their best nature is required. We all need to grow and sustain our audience, but sometimes, the customer is not always right. Be careful taking this attitude, because sometimes it can lead you to alienate a large proportion of them. However, in the effort to ensure your business is well respected and maintains its cash flow and reputation, you might want to implement important requirements for your customers.

While you are absolutely there to provide a great service, this doesn’t mean you cannot defend yourself or your business if being taken advantage of. The best method of relating to customers is to clearly communicate with them, and leave absolutely no doubt about the pillars of the relationship. Here are some methods to help you relate to your customers more clearly, and as a result respect your own position in the market:

Pursue Invoices

Pursuing invoices for custom work can help you maintain a healthy cash flow. Sometimes, customers push this limit to the point where you have to send a few reminder notices. Keep a note of clients who pay on an extended timeline, and keep this in mind when forecasting profitability for the next job you complete for them. Also, consider invoice finance. Invoice finance gives you quick and easy access to money owed by customers and helps with fluctuations in your cash flow, by offsetting the payment arrangement to a purpose-built service. Validate your invoice, and you could have 90% of your invoice much sooner than expected.

Respond To Reviews

The customer is not always right. This means that you should respond to negative reviews online, especially in a public forum. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should refute true statements. Sometimes thanking people for criticism and offering a solution can help you seem a competent and caring company. However, if you are rated lowly for a happenstance which you can prove is incorrect, or you are being negatively criticised for no grounded reason, you can refute this.

You have to be very careful, treading on eggshells not to offend or seem unprofessional. However, sometimes resolving the issue online in a public forum can prevent the damage from a negative review to deter customers. Be careful how you proceed though, and be sure to repay complimentary reviews with thanks in kind.

Never Be Afraid To Blacklist

It might be very worthwhile to blacklist certain customers from your brand. For example, let’s say you run a bar, and a neighborhood drunk is quite happy to come and take a central seat at the bar. Perhaps they aren’t aggressive, but rather deter new customers with comments or with a strange presence. This impacts your firm. Some customers are going to be more heinous in their approach, and they might affect other people. Some might steal, try to deceive, or dislike what you have to offer and makes use of your facilities without paying. It’s perfectly reasonable to blacklist or warn someone about this outcome in this instance. This can help you avoid future issues, or prevent issues from escalating.

Pursuing, defending against or banning customers is never a fun activity. However, sometimes it’s necessary. With the willingness to try, you might help your business through some difficult times.

Associating Your Business With Quality

July 5, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Business Branding

Associating your business with quality is always important. But it can be easier said than done. It will not happen by itself. Of course, selling quality products and giving great service are always important. In fact, that is such an obvious aim that it will not be the content of the article. You needn’t hear about how giving a competent service can bring clients, as you know that already.

However, you might be interested in learning how to associate your business with luxury, quality, good ideas and a premium nature. That can take a little more finesse to achieve but is more than worth it. It will also take a little more investment to fully embody in your client’s perception, but when this is achieved you will benefit again and again.

To associate your business with quality from the ground up, consider the following:

Branding

Branding plays a large role in how you are perceived. It might be that the best way to take advantage of this is to care for your image completely. Consider what colors might be considered with quality in your industry. If you run a law firm, it’s likely that blacks, greys and browns are going to be considered learned and wise color spectrums. If you work as a wine company, it might be earthy reds, deep maroons and humble greens.

Consider the emblem you portray, how the title of your firm sounds and what your slogan emphasizes. For example, a law firm named ‘Jefferson & Associates’ will sound much better than ‘Jeffro’s,’ which sounds more like an informal restaurant. Even names that are made up have this connotation. For example, Lexus is a completely made up word for that brand of car, but it sounds like quality, professionalism and a prestigious product. Think about this long and hard, because your decisions will have an effect.

Merchandise

Merchandise can be a great method of cheap advertising, but it will speak to your branding well. Have you noticed that expensive hotels only use the best towels, the best complimentary shampoos, and other items? This is because the details matter. To use examples from the previous heading, it might be that the stationary with your law firm branding is more in the vein of a fountain pen and ink pot, rather than a cheap biro. It might be that your wine company will buy 6 bottle wine totes with a real quality and thickness to them, maybe even branded personally for your firm. This merchandise is not just a way of getting your brand name out there. The package matters. Make use of it with careful and curated choices regarding all of your branding outputs.

Expressed Attitude

Your firms expressed attitude will also make a difference. By this, we mean the expression in which you talk to your customers, or drum up sales through your advertising. To use previous examples once more, a law firm will be direct, clear, concise with promotions or contact information. They might try to digest complex information about their practices to an understandable and coherent presentation for clients. A wine distributor might use expressive and sensory language to describe tastes, promotions, and events they are involved in, highlighting the luxury and beautiful indulgence of using them. None of this is a mistake. Your expressed attitude is absolutely essential to consider and can develop your brand with only the use of words. That is powerful in itself.

With these simple tips, associating your business with quality will become nothing if not achievable. Good luck!

Four Questions You Need To Ask Before Starting An Online Business

July 5, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Business Startup Questions

In theory, beginning an online business is a wonderful idea. It’s just you and your computer, with no (or few) other overheads to worry about. Other people are doing it, so why shouldn’t you? And if you are currently stuck in a hostile working environment, this is your opportunity to get out of the rat race. However, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself before you take the virtual plunge. The following are just some of them.

What is your motivating factor? Don’t start an online business because you think you will get rich quickly. Don’t start an online business because it’s better than ‘working for the man.’ Don’t start an online business because other people are doing it. You need a better motivating factor – a passion for a product or a service, a skill you want to share, a desire to build something great. And yes, money will be a factor, and escaping the daily commute is another, but ensure you have that inner drive to make the business work, as otherwise, you may lose motivation down the line if profits and results don’t seem to come your way.

How will you build your business? On pen and paper, you may have great ideas, but how will they work in theory? Do you have the skills to set up a website, or should you choose from the range of ecommerce sites as your starting point? Do you have a particular type of customer in mind, or do you need to commit to research for your target demographic? Do you have a product to sell, or will you be needing a supplier to provide what you need? Are you able to work alone, or are you in need of support to make things work? For your business to grow and develop, these are just some of the questions you need to ask yourself.

Who are your nearest rivals? It’s unlikely you will have an original idea, so you need to look at the competition. What do they do? How do they market their product? What is their pricing model? What is their USP? Find out who they are, how they operate, and what they offer. You need to match them, and to truly succeed, beat them at their own game. Make your business unique, even if your idea isn’t original. Think about pricing. Think about the functionality of your product. And commit to marketing your business, as even if your business idea isn’t unique at all, you can still brand and market your business to make it appear better than your rivals.

Do you have the time? Is this going to be a part-time or full-time proposition? If the former, time may not be a problem. But if you are going to work full-time, and this is your main source of income, you are going to need the time to fully commit. So, look at your other commitments. How will your family be affected? Are you happy putting certain aspects of your life on hold while you get established? Will you need to work weekends? Take stock of your life before you come to a decision.

Success does beckon you, but answering these questions will stand you in better stead as you plan ahead. By getting a sense of clarity, you will be in a better position to begin your online business.

The Real Signs Of A Professionally-Run Workplace

July 5, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Clearly, if you want your business to achieve great things, you need to make sure that you are running the workplace as well as you can. It is only by having a workplace that you are happy with that you can really expect to achieve what you want in business, so this is something that you will want to think about if you are hoping to improve your business prospects as much as possible in the future. If you are aware of this, but less confident on how you can actually expect to run a workplace professionally, then you are not alone. This is a struggle that most business owners go through at one time or another, and it is bound to cause some distress sooner or later. Nonetheless, as we will see below, there are some effective and simple ways to make sure that your workplace is being run professionally, so let’s take a look at what the signs are that that is really happening.

Professional Workplace

Everything In Its Place

When you step into a well-run workplace, you instantly get the feeling that there is a lot of logic to how it is set out. You need to make sure that you workplace has everything in its place, so that it can be found easily and that people can therefore attend to their work much more easily. This includes absolutely everything you might have in the workplace, whether it is the warehouse or the office. Getting hold of equipment from good conveyor manufacturers could help with this process, as could ensuring that you use the right equipment in the first place. Designing it in such a way that everything is in its place will ensure that you are able to keep running it as professionally as possible. This is definitely something to consider if you want to have that more easily.

A Happy Workforce

If the people in any workplace do not seem happy to be there at all, you can be sure that there is something inherently wrong – and usually what’s wrong is that the management is not really aware of how to run it properly. Fortunately, this is one of the real indicators you can look out for to determine early whether or not your workplace is in trouble. If your people are starting to be unhappy and complain more than usual, you might want to take a step back and see if there is anything wrong. It could be something incredibly simple, and you might be able to get to the bottom of it fast – or it could take some digging and a few big changes.

A Happy Workforce

Automation & Workmanship In Equal Measures

Clearly, there is much use for a certain level of automation in pretty much any workplace. But that doesn’t mean that you should go overboard with it. You will probably find that you want to find a balance between having automation and employing people with good skills, and as long as you get this balance right it will make all the difference. Having the right is a sure sign of a workplace which is bound to succeed in all its ventures.