Category: Business

This is a guest post written by Raul Harman.

Like any new business, your small business started as just an idea in your mind and all other aspects and procedures formed themselves around that initial spark. Your logo shouldn’t be the exception to this creative strategy since it is essentially a visual representation of your brand’s identity. The essence your logo needs to encapsulate should be reflected in its font, imagery, and colors.

Each detail of its design bears deep meaning which might not be comprehended upon first glance. However, although the procedure of designing a logo might sound complex, if you take it step by step, you can come to the optimal solution for your business.

Be consistent with your story

It is not a secret that customers have an easier time connecting with stories than with numbers or dry facts. This is why your story needs to be intertwined into every aspect of your brand, including the logo. Ask yourself about the message you wish to convey and start your brainstorming from that point. Do you want your brand to be perceived as gentle or strong, traditional or revolutionary? Your logo will be the visual symbol which needs to encompass your ideas, aspirations and your brand identity. Since it will be featured everywhere, starting with your website to your products, it’s better to put some thought into it to make sure it perfectly reflects your brand voice.

Cast an eye on your competition

Checking out your competition doesn’t mean you should steal their ideas but just get a general picture of their logos and what worked for them. A wise business owner would know that keeping an eye on the competition in your niche, especially the big names, also serves as motivation, so you can have something to aspire to. Everyone has a different road but your competition is both your rival and your motivational force. So, for instance, the big brands in your line of work go with monochrome logos, so why not mix things up a bit and add a splash of yellow? If theirs comes across as classic, you can go with modern, just make sure you bring something fresh to the market.

Check your ideas with others

When you come up with a few solutions and turn them into sketches, the best manner to decide is to ask for feedback. All types of comments would be welcome and a negative reaction can also be constructive and helpful. What you can do is to print out business cards with your potential logos perhaps even accept a recommendation or two from the printing house experts and show them to your friends and family. It would be best to opt for those who seem most like your buyer type and ask for their sincere feedback upon which you can then evaluate the situation. Print just a few for starters and then once you are certain that the particular logo is the final choice, you can print more.

Consider different color options

Colors are an essential element of any logo. As mentioned, choosing a color palette that is opposite of your competitions’ could be a neat idea but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will stand out. Each color sends a specific message, so, for instance, a predominantly red logo would mean that your brand is passionate, while yellow points to gregariousness; Blue gives out a sense of reliability and purple is associated with luxury. Naturally, your brand identity should be clear to you by now so opting for the right colors for your logo would reinforce the message you wish to convey.

Make sure it’s scalable

Posted on a business card or featured on a billboard – your logo needs to be clearly displayed in all formats. For example, if you opted for something intricate, chances are those fine details will not be clearly seen in smaller formats. They might confuse your prospective customers and even omit to convey your brand’s message. On the other hand, you don’t need a logo design which would seem stretched in a big format and which seems illegible. Therefore, when designing a logo, you need to also take into account all the formats it will be incorporated with so you might ask for advice from a more experienced business owner or a team of experts.

In conclusion

The originality of your business idea around which your brand is made is what needs to be transferred to your logo. What you hope to create is a memorable symbol, one which will tell a story clearly and which will be recognized after just a quick glance. Before reaching the final solution, you need to dig deep into the essence of your brand, to understand your place on the market as well as to check your ideas with a few chosen people.

Any feedback that you get can be a useful tool if you know how to accept both a compliment and a criticism. Perhaps your interviewee would think the red color is too aggressive for your logo as a dentist or that bright pink isn’t professional enough for your bookkeeping agency. Naturally, you should have the last word but a wise entrepreneur uses all available means to come to an optimal solution. Now that you went through these guidelines, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get creative!

Author Bio:

My name is Raul and I am editor in chief at Technivorz blog. I have a lot to say about innovations in all aspects of digital technology and online marketing. Please take a minute to connect with me on Twitter and Facebook.

 

 

Have you designed your logo yet?

If not, take these tips into account!

This is a guest post written by Anubhuti Shrivastava.

If you want to keep your brand alive then it’s important to build and maintain a comprehensive sales funnel. It should have the capacity to nurture quality leads and guide them down through the pipeline in order to maximize conversions.

But the dynamism in the marketplace demands you to design the channel with a futuristic approach and optimize each and every phase. This process requires you to brainstorm and identify ways to improve the overall funnel for boosting sales.

It can be tough but a little bit of caution is enough to empower you with numerous ways to modify and make the funnel future ready. Let’s begin with the basics and try to look at the refining process with a different perspective with the motive of increasing sales.

How Can You Define A Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a tool which provides sales reps with essential insights into where the prospects are actually in the sales process. Also, it helps them to optimize different business processes which they accomplish in order to close a deal. Generally, these processes include:

• Awareness: Grabbing the prospects’ attention by providing them with amazing offers
• Consideration: Personal meeting and eventually signing the deal
• Loyalty: Converting customers into permanent clients
• Advocacy: Your loyal clients will indirectly become promoters

You can observe each and every member of your sales team and evaluate the way in which they are completing these steps. Also, measure the time required by each of them to finish one stage. Once you are done with analysis, identify the ways to optimize each and every process and eliminate the unnecessary and tedious processes.

Based on the outcomes you can choose the best sales CRM and tweak it in order to stay away from wasting time on redundant processes. The insights provided by the CRM tool can be used to create a precise sales funnel.

Which Factors Can Be Optimized To Improve Your Sales Funnel?

First of all, in order to empower your sales team, it’s necessary to guide them in creating a reliable funnel. This will allow them to analyze each and every movement of the prospects. But it’s not enough to just recognize key business processes and keep an eye on sales reps to gain an idea of their performance.

Along with this, sales managers must have knowledge of using the data generated by the CRM system and use it to improve the following aspects:

1. Identify the niche audience serving to which can be the most profitable venture for your business.
2. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your sales team and provide them with proper training to help them in filling the gaps.
3. Study the way in which sales reps are engaging with new customers and track all the conversations to identify the bottlenecks.
4. Evaluate the most profitable region for your business and optimize your efforts in the same direction.
5. Figure out which of your products are performing better and which fall short in fulfilling the customer requirements. Discovering the products with maximum conversions will allow you to develop an effective product line.
6. Analyze different channels such as webinars, cold calls, newsletters, conferences, advertising, etc. and recognize which of the channels are proving to be the best in providing you with maximum quality leads.

How Can You Make Your Sales Funnel Future Ready & Capable To Endorse Your Products & Services In The Best Possible Manner?

1.) Remarketing Can Be The Magic Wand To Grab More Leads & Increase Conversions

You can identify a different set of targeted audience and use remarketing campaigns or tools to attract them. For example, you can focus on prospects who have placed orders or abandon their shopping carts at the last moment or those site visitors who explored a few pages but left the portal without taking any action.

One of the best ways through which you can engage with one of the above set of potential customers is by providing them with something unique. You can come up with some interesting ideas to organize a contest for grabbing the attention of prospects. Also, building a visually appealing and intuitive landing page can act as an anchor to capture quality leads.

It’s a better choice to leverage one of the website builders available in the market for building an impressive landing page for your sales funnel. It will help you in building a concise page with high-end images, compelling CTAs, and personalized content to attract more visitors. You can use precise forms to gather details and discover quality leads that can be easily converted.

2.) Make Your Offer Unique

The majority of the sales reps provide their prospects with exciting discounts, redeemable coupons, and free deals to capture their attention. But all these have become common ways which are used by most of the brands. Therefore, to implement a unique strategy you can leverage marketing apps to grab more leads.

With the help of integrating analytics these apps can provide you with the following insights with which you can make well-informed business decisions:

• Tips on how to enhance the performance
• Comparative analysis with business rivals
• Examining current actions and identifying the problematic areas

3.) Eliminate Blockages By Studying Your Conversions

Visitors should not feel pressure to explore more pages of your business website. But they should feel that curiosity from inside. You can revoke their interest by incorporating small changes which can streamline the entire experience. For example, by analyzing your conversion details you can locate the points where the visitors are losing their interest.

Make their journey interesting by providing them with elements like appealing images, simple forms, seamless UX, intuitive interface, etc. Test your product and consider valuable feedback to improvise its functionality. Experiment with payment options and evaluate the impact of integrating features such as completing the purchase using special menus or choice of delivery.

In a nutshell, nowadays it’s not important to use conventional tools for building a sales funnel but it’s more relevant to leverage out-of-the-box techniques. This can allow you to create a funnel which can grab more customers, maximize sales, and build awareness for your brand.

Author Bio:

Anubhuti Shrivastava is a content crafter at Arkenea and Benchpoint. She is passionate about writing articles on topics related to design and the software development industry.

 

 

Any comments/questions? Let us know!

This is a guest post written by Evelyn Lopez.

Excel is a potent business tool. Some business owners mistakenly think of it exclusively for accounting purposes. In truth, Excel can be used in some capacity by every department and individual. It’s incredibly useful for organizing lots of information and data into a format that is easier to derive insights from. It can speed up day-to-day processes and ultimately make an organization run more efficient.

To unlock all of these benefits and more, businesses should think about training their employees on how to utilize Excel. Saving time and money and staying more organized are indeed compelling reasons for a company to want to ensure its employees are adequately trained at using Excel. But, if you need more convincing, here are 6 more reasons why you should invest in Excel training for your employees.

They May Not Be As “Proficient” As You Think

Excel is a skill that many applicants and employees claim to possess. “Proficient at Excel” seems to be a fairly common attribute, yet there’s a wide range of possible skill levels that fall under the umbrella of the word “proficient.” While you may think that the majority of your employees are experts in Excel, the reality is that many don’t have a lot of the know-how to really unlock all of its benefits. Alternatively, they may be working with the knowledge that is dated because the program is frequently updated. Learning Excel in 2009 doesn’t do as much good after ten years have passed.

It Can Be Taught On-The-Go

Because most of your staff is, at the very least, familiar with Excel already, you don’t need to dedicate a lot of time to training. The beauty of teaching Excel is it can widely be taught on-the-go through lessons that apply to each individual’s duties. This will allow everyone to learn Excel lessons that are actually useful and will immediately impact their day-to-day work life.

Arguably, the most frictionless way to teach Excel on-the-go is to encourage employees that have already demonstrated superior knowledge in the program to offer their guidance to neighboring employees.

It Isn’t Just For Numbers

As touched on before, there is a popular misconception that Excel is only useful for crunching and organizing numbers. While it is a powerful accounting assistant, Excel is usable in some other capacities. For starters, the ability to arrange lots of information in convenient and organized cells helps make sense out of complex material and allows us to see patterns that would otherwise be invisible.

Excel is also a powerful tool for creating schedules, to-do lists, time logs, forms, project management charts and much, much more.

Gets Everyone On The Same Page

There’s a good chance that your business is already using Excel in certain areas, like accounting, CRM or inventory management. While the program saves individuals in these departments lots of time, as those spreadsheets move to other departments, where Excel isn’t used often, it can create roadblocks. Excel training gets all of your employees on equal footing when it comes to navigating spreadsheets and charts. This makes it easier for information to be communicated across departments or during meetings, especially when in the format of spreadsheets.

Simplifies Common, Cumbersome Calculations

On the other hand, when it does come time to do some number crunching, Excel can save some serious time. Learning even some fundamental Excel formulas can make quick work of having to add large lists of numbers together or perform complex calculations. Plus, there’s less risk of human error causing miscalculations and inaccurate figures.

When new data has to be entered, you don’t have to start the calculation all over; Excel does it for you. This will save your company and its employees lots of time, which can then be spent on more critical tasks.

Other Businesses Use It

Even if your business only relies on Excel for a couple of small tasks, you should still consider teaching employees basic Excel tips and functions because other companies that you do business with may use the program to a greater extent. Thus, being familiar with the program, even if you don’t use it much, is also essential. After all, you wouldn’t want your employees to be confused or at a loss if these companies send over important information business spreadsheets.

Conclusion

Excel has a lot of business potential, yet many organizations fail to unlock all of its value because their employees are not trained in using the program to its full ability. If you genuinely want your company and its employees to work as a cohesive and efficient unit, Excel training can help get you there.

Many businesses are competing in the online market. The fact of the matter is that it’s an ongoing effort and struggle to maintain your presence, influence and reputation online. Once you’ve established your visibility, you can’t neglect it. Otherwise, your business will soon lose its relevance and fall behind your main competitors on the market. That’s why it’s very important for companies to continue competing and find new ways to stand out from the rest. However, this endeavor is more difficult than it seems.

The main reason is that online consumers oftentimes change their preferences, buying decisions and overall behavior. Based on the current market trends and modern technology, consumers can change their behavior overnight. On the other hand, businesses must be on alert at all times, so that they can adapt on time and ensure they can meet new consumer expectations. Boosting your online influence is one of the surest ways to achieve that. Therefore, here are a few ways to boost your influence online in 2019.

Understand your audience’s needs

The key to boosting your influence these days lies in truly understanding your audience’s needs. Online consumers are getting savvier each year and their expectations tend to increase. Knowing what your audience needs and wants is one of the best ways to improve your online influence. Therefore, do a lot of research. One of the most effective ways you can achieve that is to directly ask your audience what they want, need, expect and prefer.

Asking for feedback isn’t a sign of incompetence. Instead, you’re making sure you understand your consumers, in order to deliver a seamless experience to them at all times. Another way you can learn a lot is to listen to what consumers are saying about other businesses, mainly your competitors. Try to understand what your competition does right and what they do wrong, in order to learn from their success and their failures. That way you can improve your own efforts, in order to gain a competitive advantage.

Provide convenience

One of the things that consumers hold on to, no matter how much their overall behavior changes, is their need for a seamless experience. Consumers want to do their search, shopping and other activities online in an efficient and convenient way. What’s more, consumers generally dislike interruptions, difficulties and hindrances. That being said, you will vastly improve your influence by simply ensuring convenience for your customers.

For example, if your customers prefer to pay via invoices, then let them. Sure, invoices may not be so convenient for your business, as they may hurt your cash flow, but that can be easily remedied with reliable invoice finance. There are more ways to improve cash flow management, like focusing on forecasting and supplier payment terms. Multiple payment options provide benefits to every customer and that way, customers won’t suffer any inconveniences or misunderstandings.

Become an industry expert

Today, consumers aren’t just looking for businesses that can provide them with an excellent product or service quality. In fact, they want to get informed, educated and assisted before making a purchasing decision or other desired action. Nowadays, boosting online influence oftentimes comes down to positioning yourself as an industry expert. The way you can do that is by providing consumers with relevant and useful content, such as articles, white papers, research papers, eBooks and so on.

Help consumers solve a problem or answer questions and they’ll regard you as influential and valuable. Also, provide detailed product descriptions to help consumers familiarize themselves with your offers and also help them decide to make a purchase. You can post such information on your own blog, as well as publish articles on other relevant sources through guest posting. That way, you’ll not just gain influence but exposure as well.

Establish your social media presence

Social media is the key for both business visibility and their influence online. The majority of target audiences reside daily on social media networks, and the best way to make a name for your business is to impress your social media followers. There are various ways companies can boost their online influence by leveraging social media platforms. For example, establish a meaningful relationship with your audience by engaging in conversations with them on a regular basis and by providing them with relevant and top-quality content.

What’s more, establish a relationship with social media influencers. Influencers, as their name suggests, can influence purchasing decisions for their followers, encourage them to endorse a business and persuade them to follow someone else. Having the support of an influencer on social media can do wonders for your own influence online. Another thing you can do is develop a brand. Brands are meant to elevate businesses on the market and vastly improve their presences, reputation, awareness and of course, influence.

When it comes to boosting online influence, not much has changed. Businesses that want to be influential on the market in 2019 will have to make an effort to meet their consumer needs, demands and expectations. What’s more, keeping up with the latest market and technological trends is also an excellent way to not just remain relevant but also become influential.

Author Bio:

Lauren Wiseman is an entrepreneur, currently based in Melbourne and a regular contributor to bizzmarkblog.com. She assists clients in growing their personal and professional brands in a fast-changing and demanding market environment. Covering finance and investment topics, Lauren strongly believes in holistic approach to business.

 

What is your plan to boost your online influence in 2019?

This is a guest post written by Evelyn Lopez.

Working for someone may be an easier or even safer choice for many people. You have a boss who can decide what you have to do, you’re not responsible for crucial matters in the company, and you can sleep soundly at night because you have less overall work obligations. Yet, there are still numerous people out there who prefer starting their own business and being their own boss.

Here’s the thing: starting a small business is no walk in the park. You will be competing against 30.2 million small businesses and there is no guarantee that yours will succeed among the others.

Thankfully, there are tools to help you get started and headed in the right direction.

Anti-Virus Software

Cybersecurity is among the biggest threats faced by companies these days. Did you know that in America, only 38 percent of organizations are prepared for an impending cyber-attack?

Therefore, make sure you install anti-virus software on your computer to protect your business against hackers and malware. This way, you can protect precious data as well.

Microsoft Excel

Call it old school, but Excel is still one of the most reliable partners you can have as you manage your business. It offers basic financial accounting activities, is effective in scheduling work among your employees, helps you track product sales, is a reliable storage for contact information and much much more.

Here’s the best part: it is not difficult to learn Excel. In fact, you can find free online Excel training for beginners and discover the power of VLOOKUP and other such techniques which can be helpful in your daily business tasks. It will make managing your business easier and more convenient too.

You Need a Budget (YNAB)

No, this is not a tagline. In fact, it is actually the name of a tool that helps small business owners calculate their profitability.

Keep in mind that many small businesses fail within two years for a variety of reasons. Through YNAB, you will gain access to debt visualization and categorization techniques to accurately calculate not just the scalability but also the profitability of your product or service. This way, you can easily make adjustments to be able to weather critical phases in your business.

Shopify

E-commerce is continuously growing these days, with more startup companies preferring to launch themselves in the digital world. There is also an increasing percentage of mobile users and sales reported by different companies.

This is where Shopify comes in. This platform offers a fully customizable website, online storefront, and a blog where you can share information with your customers. Just make sure you have a proper marketing strategy in place so you can generate more traffic and awareness to your brand.

MouseFlow

Now that you have a website, thanks to Shopify, you need to know customer behaviors when they browse through your site. If you need a tool that will give you more insight on how customers are interacting, then MouseFlow is there to help.

Think of MouseFlow as a CCTV of your website. It tells you what features on your website were clicked or visited the most by the users. You can use the data gathered to help you either tweak your existing approach or keep moving along the same path.

Google Docs

Sadly, Gmail only allows you to send up to a 25MB file size. This could be problematic if you are transacting with a supplier or a potential customer where the exchange of documents is crucial in the business.

In that case, make sure you learn how to use Google Docs, which comes with your Gmail account. This will allow you to share lots of data that can be easily sent in just a few clicks.

HootSuite

In this digital age, social media is life. There are millions of people who can’t put their phone down just to make sure that their social media profiles are updated. If you are a business owner, you really want to tap into this market to showcase your product.

However, managing social media channels can be time-consuming. You also need to constantly update your pages and engage with your customers. HootSuite can help. Aside from this, you can manage multiple social media channels, schedule posts, and interact with your followers. This way, all of your social media efforts are managed under one roof.

Aweber

Never underestimate what email marketing can do for your business. Email marketing is still one of the most effective platforms in promoting your products or services.

One of the best email marketing platforms around is Aweber. Aweber allows you to set up customized email follow-up series and really automate the entire email marketing process. You can also update your subscriber base with one-time broadcast emails. Aweber provides detailed reporting and analytics within your account to help you understand your data better.

Now of course there are many other tools out there that will be useful as you start and manage your business. But in the meantime, make sure you check out out the tools listed above to get you moving in the right direction!

Did you know that the first concept of workflow was introduced in the early 20^th century by Frederick Tailor and Henry Gantt? Striving to optimize industrial efficiency, they focused their research on the rational organization of work and were the first to introduce queuing systems.

With the rise of sophisticated IT solutions, the mere notion of business process optimization (BPM) has changed. Today, AI-powered tools and the workflow management system can be applied to any business, irrespective of its size, budget, and industry.

So, why are optimized workflows important and how do we implement them?

Let’s find out!

Why is Optimizing Business Operations Important?

Your competitors are adapting their operations to the changing norms and disruptive technologies. And, if you don’t do the same, you will soon start lagging behind them. On the other hand, staying on top of trends and optimizing your business operations brings numerous benefits to the table, including:

• Maximizing workplace operations and productivity
• Reducing human error
• Minimizing operational costs
• Making your customer service consistent
• Maintaining the highest quality of services
• Making data-backed business predictions

Compare your Current Process Life-Cycle against your Goals

Before you start optimizing your business operations, you first need to set clear goals to guide you. Once the objectives are set, it’s time to audit your current business operations and productivity. Start by dividing your key business processes into smaller components and analyzing each of them. Pay attention to the number of employees and departments involved in these processes and measure how much time and resources they need to get the work done. Then, collect this data into a comprehensive summary of your overall business performance.

You should also compare your current performance with the business optimization goals you’ve set. Identifying your business’ key problems, you will be able to fix these problems and build your BPM strategy around the operations relevant to your business growth.

The Aspects of your Workflow to Optimize

The next step is, of course, building an actionable implementation plan. It needs to include the main processes that need to be improved, the tools you will use in the process, the stages of optimization, teams that will implement the change, and clear end results.

Now, there is no uniform rule to optimizing business operations. The implementation depends on your niche, size of business, budget, and much more. Here are a few examples that may serve as an inspiration to you:

● Online Invoicing

Invoicing is probably the least favorite aspect of your job. Research says that 64% of small businesses have unpaid invoices that are over 60 days old. Poorly managed accounts receivable may hurt both your bottom line and client relationships. Most importantly, not having full control of your cash, you won’t be able to give your business a nudge it needs.

One of the simplest ways to keep your accounts receivable under control is to switch from paper copies to the online landscape. Let’s take cloud-based fee financing as an example. A fee financing provider allows a client to pay the invoice in monthly installments, while you will be paid the invoice in full within a few days.

● Use Collaboration Platforms

As a manager, you need to improve your teams’ collaboration and enable an interrupted flow of information between them. This is where collaboration software like Slack or Skype for Business shine. Instead of formal, time-consuming emails, these platforms will enable simpler and immediate communication between your team members.

You should also invest in great task management tools like Basecamp, Asana, or Trello that let your employees leave comments, share files, and collaborate on multiple projects and tasks effortlessly. Apart from making the communication between your staff members smoother, these platforms also increase the transparency of your business operations and help managers track their employees’ progress over time.

● Invest in CRM Software

Simply put, CRM is the process of acquiring and nurturing leads. Of course, to turn those leads into paying customers, you need to provide them with exceptional user experiences. Understand their preferences, identify their major problems, and tailor approach to the specific needs of each customer. Only this way will you be able to turn your leads into paying customers.

This is where automating your sales and marketing efforts shines. With the help of the right CRM software, you will be able to (re)engage your customers, provide customer support across multiple channels, personalize your interactions, and track the performance of your campaigns.

Create a Change-Capable Organization

Your planning and strategizing would be purposeless if you don’t have a team that recognizes its importance. They need to have the knowledge and skills needed to meet BPM objectives. Most importantly, they need to understand how reaching these objectives will skyrocket your business operations in the long-run. As a manager, you should talk to your employees, hear them out, and see whether they’re on board with the stated goals and objectives. Only if each staff member is ready to embrace the change will your business process optimization work.

Keep Testing your Operations

Even though your BPM plan may look spotless on paper, you need to test how it performs when implemented. Most importantly, you need constantly check whether your teams have adapted to these changes.

Remember, not aligning your workflow optimization tools and practices with your business goals will only kill your business growth.

Author Bio:

Lauren Wiseman is an entrepreneur, currently based in Melbourne and a regular contributor to bizzmarkblog.com. She assists clients in growing their personal and professional brands in a fast-changing and demanding market environment. Covering finance and investment topics, Lauren strongly believes in holistic approach to business.

Any questions? Let us know!

There are simple steps to start a business, but if you want everyone to know about it, you need to make it shine. You can differentiate from the competition in many ways, but what will really set you apart is a company image that is respectable and sustainable. There are many overlooked threats in the business world, but the challenge of boosting your company image is the most delicate one that requires a strategical and wise approach.

We’ve gathered some methods that will get you on a track in no time.

1. Meaning & Value

Before you start growing your business, you need to know precisely what you’re going to grow. Your brand is much more than a clever marketing campaign with a catchy tagline and a pretty logo – underneath all that is the need for personality and connection. It needs to be recognized by your audience and communicate something unique, which means it needs to have a personality that stands for something. Before you invest in your marketing efforts you need to perform a detailed assessment of your brand, pinpoint what makes it unique by understanding the rational and emotional concerns of your audience and asking yourself does it solve their problems and how. In other words, before you inform people of your purpose and vision, you need to have a clear understanding of what is it you’re offering to the world.

2. Build a Bond of Trust

Marketing efforts can be pretty expensive, but not if you know how to use the word of mouth. The cheapest and most effective way is one of the customer-driven strategies. In order to turn them into loyal promoters and advocates of your business, you need to meet their exact needs and to do it better than anyone else. The whole point is to aim at solving problems they face, giving them the attention they deserve and treating them with kindness. This will not only bring you publicity but will also establish your reputation which is a foundation stone of your company image. And the first step to all this is to understand the importance of their feedback. In order to build a strong and durable bond of trust, your interactions with customers need to be consistent, dependable, and honest.

3. Start in Your Own Yard

If you want to obtain loyal customers, you need to be aware that they want to do business with people, not an institution. As your image is managed by your communication and advertising skills, it’s also managed by the atmosphere of the physical space where customers encounter your business. This means that one of the most effective means of differentiation is through your employees – if they can provide and demonstrate responsiveness, reliability, credibility, courtesy, and competence, that will certainly boost your company image. That’s why it’s very important to value them and establish a healthy company culture. This process begins already in the recruitment phase where it’s mandatory to employ people based on their potentials and abilities, staying clear from discriminatory hiring practices. Your employees need to be treated in an ethical way – they all want to be more than individuals who simply get the job done. People are looking for safety and security, and since workplace injuries are a common part of every business, it’s mandatory to have a trusted and competent work injury lawyer who will make sure that the rehabilitation requirements of every individual are met accordingly. Employees are your most valuable assets, and the proper worker’s compensation is the most important mean of their protection.

4. Embrace Storytelling

There is no quicker way to boost your company’s image than showing the human side of it. And the best way to do this is to share your personal story. Maybe you think yours is not particularly interesting, but it doesn’t have to be a Hollywood movie – every company has its struggles and they make a perfect David and Goliath story full of experiences your audience will have no problem connecting and relating with. It is not the point whether you have a story or not – you certainly do – but how you craft it. It needs to be done in a relatable and authentic way that will form emotional connections with your customers. But don’t just talk about yourself – establishing a successful blog that provides valuable information will certainly set you up as an authority in your line of business.

5. Find a Cause

Nothing creates a positive company image more than charitable events, but running a charity campaign is worth only as long as you’re honestly involved in the cause, which means you really have to believe in it. Forcing yourself to find a cause, especially the one that is related to the activity of your company, can be quite exhausting. But when you look at the alarming effects of air pollution and global warming, respect for the environment comes as a natural cause to support. This doesn’t mean you have to invest large sums of money into various green movements – you could simply make the ‛recycle, reduce, reuse’ practices a part of your corporate social responsibility efforts. Simply switch to more energy conserving appliances and bring in some recycle bins, and there’s no person alive who won’t appreciate this improvement of the relationship between your business and the planet.

These methods rely one upon the other, and only their combination will make your company image truly shine. Everything depends on your relationship with the customers, where your employees are the linkage, your brand a solution for their problems, and your stories the source of emotions and authority. Finding the right cause will seal the deal, and the planet is constantly in need of help.

Author Bio:

Alexander Hunkin is an Australian based startup advisor with in-depth experience in growing business. His meaningful and strategic advice has helped in setting and growing many startup companies in Brisbane and Perth. Alexander is also a content creator for different niches. The top ones are business, career, finance and marketing. He aspires to share his experiences and is always on the lookout for the next opportunity to enhance his skills. When he isn’t busy working, you can find him cooking exotic meals, scuba diving and cycling.

Every marketer’s goal is to help a business thrive in the market. It’s important that you’re updated of the latest marketing trends. It doesn’t mean you should be jumping on all of them. It’s your job to scrutinize each trend and find out what works well for the business you’re handling.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the tried and tested marketing strategies that can help your business flourish. These tips can be especially valuable for small business who have limited resources to invest.

1. Market your business through email

Email marketing is not new. In fact, smart marketers have applied this tactic for quite some time now. Many of us use email nowadays so it only makes sense to market your business in a platform that people hold dearest to their hearts, their inbox.

Invest in email capturing methods on your website. It’s not enough that a user visits your site. If you can get their email address, you can continue sending your marketing messages through email.

The ideal amount of exposure in their inbox along with targeted email messages will help turn those subscribers into paying customers.

2. Get on social media

If you’re not on social media yet, now is the time to jump on it. No, I’m not kidding. You should really get on it. Your customers and prospects expect you to have one. It’s not just to get information about you but to communicate with you. Most online users will turn to social media to raise their queries and issues with businesses.

Aside from customer support, social media is a way to keep your followers updated about your business. Got a new product launching soon? Announce it on social media. Or if you’re running a promotion, social media is one platform where you can spread the word spread quickly.

Identify that platforms that your audience uses the most and get an account for those social media sites. There’s no point being in all of them when all your customers really just use, let’s say, Instagram or Facebook.

Managing social media takes time and you only want to spend yours in platforms that bring you the best engagement.

3. Create graphic design for your business

In this social media age, images are everything. The popularity of platforms like YouTube and Instagram reinforces the fact that we humans are visual creatures. We like to look at things. It’s not enough to market your business using chunks of text. You have to attract people with images.

A good place to start is through graphic design. It’s a medium that allows you to be creative and express your brand’s personality. Using tools like Canva or PicMonkey, you can create marketing materials such as flyers, posters, and stickers for your business that will help drive growth. Don’t know how to create a flyer design? Most print vendors will have their own in-house graphic designer. But you can also hire

4. Invest in mobile marketing

Smartphone use has spiked over the past few years. It’s evident in the hordes of people you see in public that stare at their phone longer than they do their food. Kidding aside, mobile marketing is essential since it caters to a large number of people who use their smartphones to communicate, surf, and buy.

For your business to grow, mobile marketing has to be on top of your list. Some businesses have even taken it as far as creating an app of their own since it’s more efficient to use. However, this is not a requirement. If you’re just starting out, you only need to make sure that your site is mobile friendly. Make your site responsive to every device, minimize pop-ups as much as possible, and make buttons actually clickable. These are just some basics things to keep in mind with mobile marketing.

5. Facebook ads

Facebook maintains itself as the most used social media app in the world, with over 2 billion active users all over the world. If you’d like to get more visibility for your business, it’s worth looking at Facebook ads.

Facebook has billions of data on its users allowing businesses like yours to target ads on audiences that matter the most. You’re not going blind on this one. You’ll be able to filter who gets to see your ads and tailor your marketing messages based on who sees it.

In Conclusion

At the end of the day, you get to decide what is best your business. Be selective in the strategies you invest in and spend time only in those that have proven to deliver worthwhile ROI.

Do you have other growth strategies you can recommend? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

As a business owner, one of your missions is to look out for new opportunities to grow your company. However, most of us look outside the organization rather than inside. But what if you could actually start that growth from tools that you might already be using?

In this article, we’ll explore several tools that will not only improve your team’s productivity but also widen the window of opportunities for your business.

1. Pocket

It’s hard to resist the allure of Related Articles. One minute, you’re reading a piece about business strategy, and the next thing you know, you’re in a rabbit hole of articles which aren’t so related anymore.

We live in the age of distraction. Keep your eyes on the prize and learn how to block out distractions. Thankfully, there’s tools like Pocket which lets you save articles and pages that you can view later. Share this with your whole team, not because you want them to procrastinate, but because you understand that everyone has the capacity to get distracted. Pocket can be that friend that will help them keep those useful articles and documents for later.

2. Salesforce

Increase your sales team’s productivity with Salesforce. Using this tool, you give each team member the power to close deals like never before. Not just that, but Salesforce also allows you to manage your existing customers, partners, distributors, suppliers, and more. It also helps you keep track of your marketing efforts from a wide variety of platforms including web, social media, mobile, and email. Use it alongside an inventory software so you can keep track of every team member’s sale and item that you sell.  Whatever size your business may be, you can definitely benefit from Salesforce.

3.SurveyMonkey

Surveys are not dead yet. In fact, they are much easier to conduct now with the help of technology. Send surveys to your customers and prospects and find out how your business is doing. Using SurveyMonkey, formulate questions that get to the heart of the issue and find out the best ways to improve your business. You will be amazed by the insights you gain straight from your customer’s mouth.

4. Sprout Social

Manage your social media with ease and find new prospects for your business using Sprout Social. It goes beyond collecting data as it helps you create real connections with people who already love your brand. Being a social marketer becomes easy when you can effortlessly view the progress of your efforts in one clean dashboard.

5. Crazy Egg

Google Analytics only gives you so much information about your site. Take it a step further by finding out how your website visitors are interacting with each page. Using Crazy Egg, you can get a heatmap that shows where your visitor’s mouse are hovering and clicking when they visit your website. This gives you a good idea of what elements in your website attracts your customer the most, and which ones don’t. You can then optimize your pages accordingly making sure each part serves a purpose to the user.

6. MailChimp

Take advantage of your list with the help of an email marketing tool like ConvertKit. It goes beyond emails and lets you create elaborate drip campaigns tailored to each customer. Segment persons based on factors of your choosing, send them targeted messages, and increase your opportunities for sales.

7. Unitrends

Before any kind of unexpected disaster happens, your business should already have a data recovery plan. This is when you plan for the worst and ensure that all your information is stored somewhere that you can access later should anything happen.

Unitrends is a backup and recovery service that allows you to secure your company’s most important data. In this day and age where almost everything runs on big data, it’s essential that your business is able to retrieve its assets even after a disaster or accident has occurred..

8. Office 365

A product of Microsoft, Office 365 lets you perform your company’s most important tasks in one platform, whether it’s email, file sharing, or online conferences. No need to switch back and forth between different office tools when you can access it all in one interface.

Which of these tools are you already using? Do you have others that you can recommend? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Author Bio:

Damien Clarke…Born and raised in an urban lifestyle of Johannesburg. I traveled around a bit, exploring South East Asia, Canada, Mauritius, and a few other wondrous places. My passion for writing is only overridden by my wanderlust. Finally, settling down in Cape Town, South Africa and making a living doing something I truly am in love with. I specialize in travel, technology, B2B, and fitness articles with a bit of leisure on the side.

How well does your business manage its finances?

If you’re like most business owners, you are always looking for areas where you can improve, and trying to find new ways of generating profit. But to achieve financial bliss for your company, there are some things you can’t overlook. Here are 4 essential business finance tips you should follow to manage, evaluate and improve the financial state of your business.

1. Crunch Your Numbers Regularly

When business owners don’t have a clear insight into the financial state of the company, they are unable to stay on top of how much cash is going in and out of the business. So, it’s important to keep your accounts and books in order from day one.

If you feel particularly financially inept, automate the process with bookkeeping software solutions like Quickbooks. The program is very simple and easy to use to manage overhead business expenses, record all transactions, send invoices and calculate returns.

If you have the capacity, you can also hire a bookkeeper, or put an outside bookkeeping firm on retainer. But, whether you do it yourself or you use someone else, make sure to regularly set aside enough time to complete these tasks and keep your business finances manageable.

2. Keep Track of Cash Flow

What business owners fail to realize is that their cash flow can change every quarter. When it comes to revenue streams, a business can experience major spikes and significant losses in just two quarters depending on their industry.

For example, if your company manufactures swimwear, you can expect a surge in business during Q2 and Q3 (from April to October). For accounting businesses, they generally see a significant increase during tax season.

In order to manage finances effectively, you will also need to understand how sales cycles affect your business. If you do most of your work B2B, your sales cycle can last a few months. It’s necessary then, to secure extra capital in your business accounts, so your business can operate at normal capacity during these periods.

3. Invest Your Earnings

A business has to reinvest its earnings to be able to achieve growth and become successful. Having a zero balance on your accounts isn’t a bad thing, because you are investing profit in key areas of your business process to scale it and expand your operations. It’s a much better option than piling up cash because at one point it will become unsustainable since you won’t be able to keep up with demand.

However, business owners have to make smart financial investments to keep their business afloat. This means monitoring the financial market, keeping track of gold price and its effect on currency, and realizing what areas of the business process can bring the most significant financial gains.

For example, if you want to increase sales, investing in market research is a great way to discover an untapped market which can be exploited. Or, you can increase the marketing budget of your company and attract more customers by improving brand awareness.

It’s never to early to start investing. Invest in just one or two areas, check the performance and progress, and if one investment doesn’t start bringing in returns after six months scrap it and start over.

4. Pay Taxes on Time

Paying taxes on time is an important aspect of maintaining a good financial balance for your business. It can help you secure business loans and stay on good terms with the IRS, not to mention the possibility of claiming a tax deduction.

Hiring a tax professional to take care of all your federal and state taxes ahead of time is a great way to ensure your business doesn’t get fined and comes with a lot of benefits. Among other things, your business will improve its credit rating, get a smaller tax bill, and become more eligible for various government subsidies.

Use these financial tips to help your business achieve a positive balance. Stay on top of cash flow, pay taxes on time, and invest your profits in various key areas that can help your business grow. That’s all your business needs for financial health and future success.

Author Bio:

Diana Smith is a full time mom of two beautiful girls interested in topics related to finances and latest business technologies. In her free time she enjoys exercising and preparing healthy meals for her family. Follow Diana her on Twitter and Google+.

 

 

Are you currently using any of these tips?