Category Archives: Marketing

Marketing is one the most important aspects of a business enterprise. Marketing encompasses the whole extent of advertising for the firm, establishing a good public relations for your company, finding the most effective pitch for your product and services as well as the logistics of the same in the market, locally and internationally.

Innovations of the information age have made marketing more bearable even for the inexperienced entrepreneur – if not totally easy. Having this fact in mind, the competition now is all about strategizing for your firm. Which sets of marketing plans will work best for you to gain the upper hand; you might ask? The skilled entrepreneur can discern this by the use scientific analysis of objective data and the use of his or her sheer instincts.

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Engaging with Customers in 5 Steps

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We live in an age where the customer dictates the essence of your business in any convresation. These are the steps you may follow in improving your relationship with them.

These days, customers could readily and out rightly reject your marketing styles especially if you do not have the right strategies to engage them. No matter what kind of material you present to them, everything else still boils down to the fact that your success heavily depends on their discretion. As they say, “they’re the boss”. Your brand value now is gauged primarily by what they hear from friends they communicate with in Social Media Networks, or by doing self research on new products using the great resources from the web.

The following are the basic steps to give you a better grip on your customers:

Listen

Make the time to listen to your customers. Get involved in their world. There’s no way you will be able to understand their propensities and expectations if what you just keep on hearing are your own words. Put yourself in their shoes and try to view things according to their perspective. Involve your customers by soliciting their insights as to how you could make your products and services better. This should be not hard to do; even in the web, you could find so many resources to which you may listen to other people’s views.

Look

Look at how you convey your intentions. You must be able to communicate to your customers your intent of helping them sort out their dilemma. You do not need to talk about yourself in particular because no one would even care. What customers need to see is whether you communicate to them and about them.

Act

Act, react and respond to your customers’ suggestions, comments and needs. When you communicate to your customers, you do not stop there; you rather take another mile in making sure that every legitimate feedback gets a reasonable response. It is your way of validating your good intent of helping them. The customers will surely know that you care.

Create

Create an environment and a community online where your customers will be given the proper avenue to communicate their voice. Creative conversation helps create fruitful marketing. By giving your customers the right medium, you might have provided your customers a chance to transform your business and bring it to a successful level.

Evaluate

Evaluate your business in its entirety. Study your strength and loopholes. Make sure to make up for your shortcomings and to take advantage of your strength in helping you answering the needs of your customers.

There could be a great number of ways of communicating with your customers; you may choose one or two that you are most comfortable with, as long as it addresses your customers’ requirements.

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Managing Client’s Expectations 101

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A client’s expectation that has gone awry may have nasty consequences that may burn huge costs and damage your reputation. You will find it helpful to consider the following outlines in managing client expectations.

1. Define the expectations

Be blunt and specific of your coverage. Exhaust all possible ways to make your points simple, clear and straightforward which makes it easy for reading and understanding.

2. Outline your boundaries

Make sure to slash off anything that states ambiguity, leaving nothing with misleading postulations. Point out your boundaries in clear cut language.

3. Don’t over promise

There’s the right time to be daring, and sometimes it is what is called for in any given situation, however, do not attempt to be so at the expense of the client. Never over promise nor exaggerate your capacity. If you accept a particular project, deliver what you have promised to deliver at all cost; otherwise, have the decency to decline or mention someone who you think could perform the job.

4. Provide samples of your deliverables

Clients are particular about results, and so they ask for some tested examples. Make sure to readily provide them your most valuable samples. If the clients are convinced of your work, everything else follows.

5. Be flexible with the clients form of communication

It will certainly help to ask your clients how would the communication flow will sound. Since the end result of your work must consistently agree with their principles and views, they will find it helpful that the communication method you use is patterned after theirs. This is your way of showing them your sincerity of helping them. However, do not go as far as providing options for the clients that are no longer amenable to you. Everything must be done with consideration.

6. Remember to touch base in writing

It is best if everything you have discussed is well-documented. It is therefore practical and helpful to send your client a brief summary of what you have verbally discussed. It shows your wisdom.

7. Be transparent

Do not project to your clients a perfect image of how you deal things. It is way better to be honest and frank of your real ability and capacity. This way, the client fully knows what he is getting.

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Winning Strategies For Sales Success

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Conversion rate gauges someone’s sales’ success. You will find it helpful to know how much your sales is improving by tracking it through conversion.

Total Sales ÷ Total enquiries or presentations = conversion rate (%)

By being able to know how conversion rate works, you may now learn how to start improving them

1. Improve your listening skills

Sales is about listening just as much as it is about speaking. When a prospect speaks, negative or affirmative, you may only need to give your time to listen to them air their views and solemn voice. Great listening skill allows you to pick out the words and the passion that goes with it. It affords you to time and polish your responses for the benefit of your prospects. When you learn to listen, and listen well indeed, you will start seeing your conversion rate hit the mark.

2. Understand body language

Whether you believe it or not, your body language speaks volumes about you. Your prospects may not only listen to what you say, they may also observe how your body moves. With your body language, you will be able to create connections with your prospects with far better effect than all the other factors. Body language creates an image of being one and the same with your prospects and consequently earns trust. And trust makes sales!

3. Think about your questions

Formulate your questions with the sole intent of providing help to your prospects. When you ask your questions, you already must have established and created a need, a need that your product could properly address. So ask questions that could generate informative answers. Make sure to make follow up questions on their answers of the previous question. And never allow yourself to be caught off guard by making preparations for every sales call. By asking the right questions, you already might have convinced your prospects even before you introduce your products and services.

4. Price it well

When you are already in the phase where price is being discussed, keep things simple or better yet simpler. Improve your chance of success by trimming down the price options for your prospects.

5. Ask for the sale!

You must know when to make the sale or ask for it. A good salesman knows the right time to say the magic word and when to exactly just wait for the response. Do not talk too much though; you might inadvertently scare off the prospect. Ask for the sale and then spend your time waiting for the nod.

6. Learn how to handle objections

Weigh your options when you hear objections. Do not be hasty in your responses. Listen first before you react and you will certainly turn the event into your own advantage. If you could take a grip on your bearing, and then you will be able to answer the objections with clarity and poise, you might just win those people over to your side and make the sale.

You already learned the steps, now it’s time to put these to test. Do the conversion rate formula and judge for yourself whether indeed these ideas work.

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Top tips for Article Writing

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Here are some of the most practical and effective ways of writing an article that will capture the interest of both the clients and the target audience.

Provide useful information

You should be able to address your target audience’s concerns and in one way or another should offer some insights about how to go about them. The context of your article must somehow capture your audience’s interest and not entirely of your own.

Save the advertising for the author resource box

Reject any impulse to project self advertisement as the main context of your article; otherwise, it jeopardizes its credibility. Editors hate the fact that some writers do not know the difference of an article from a press release; and when they see one, they out rightly reject them. Your article’s priority is to give information rather than for advertisement purposes.

Use correct spelling

An erroneous article is good for nothing especially if its primary errors are in spelling. An error free article commands greater credibility.

Be aware of word count

Be sensitive of your readers’ need for brevity. Make your point concise and free from clutters. An ideal online article contains about 300 to 500 words. If you want your articles to really help the readers absorb the information you want to convey, then limit your words without actually limiting the ideas. This pointer is a premise to my next one…

Break up big blocks of text

You must be able to present your most important pointers with big blocks of text arranged in subheadings or bullet points. This is so you could highlight the essential ideas even if the readers are just skimming.

Use an effective framework

Sure there are a couple numbers of ways to write an effective article, but the following contains the most practical article writing framework I have been using in my writing jobs. It helps to get to know these pointers as it might help you along the way just as it does for me. .

1. Heading: Be sure to make an effective heading with a statement that clearly states the general context of the article. For example, efficient ways to lose weight.

2. Teaser paragraph: Include a brief yet beguiling article summary to give your readers the desire to continue reading the article.

3. Body: Use subheadings or bullet points in capturing the main ideas. And make sure to expound the most important things you wish to convey

4. Conclusion: make an effort to give your readers a short wrap-up that sums up the whole thing.

5. Author Resource Box: Make sure to state your identity, your purpose and your target audience. You could even include your website address or any contact details for a more comprehensive profile.

Follow the contributor guidelines

The success of your article also heavily depends on your adherence to the guidelines set forth by your contributor.

You may now start putting into practice whatever you have learned from these tips and witness firsthand if indeed it works.

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Low Cost Market Research

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How you can exactly learn and strategize in customizing your product so as to give your market the satisfaction that they deserve. Here are some of the most practical steps in accomplishing market research.

Huge known multinational brands have known for a fact that their products and services have markets that are entirely different from each other, each with varying degree of competition and expectations. This variation is due to the fact that these markets differ in tendencies and propensities; factors that are mainly contributed by demographics and geographic location.

What is true for the big corporations is also generally the same with small businesses; target markets have significantly varying expectations and needs.
There are basically no exemptions; every business is thought to be wise to conduct market research before introducing a product. Resources may be of the essence, but you may still conduct your research at the most practical cost with equally great results.

Consider potential targets

It is important to identify the potential targets. Take for example a business in photography that is making consideration of augmenting its sales on portrait shots. The business proprietor lists down all the potential targets and then grouped them according to a predefined set, which covers the corporate people, small scale proprietors, families and school children.
After much consideration, the business owner concluded that the market from the corporate group is the most viable candidate to expand the business.
That was already a head start; the business owner however must also classify the necessary points to lay down to the decision makers before he even consider committing any marketing and sales materials.
Identify the decision makers – and ring them
In the given example, it would have been safe to conclude that it is the executives who make and call the relevant decisions. A soloist however thinks way better than that. Sure it will bring no further harm to channel his intentions to the company CEO through his PA. It may not necessarily be true but PA’s more often than not are windows of opportunity of a business and most likely books the needed photographer; adding to the fact that they could be the best subject of your market research.

Be prepared

Never allow yourself to be caught off-guard. Have your notes ready way before you make your calls in a market research.
The following are some of the effective question for a photographer to ask in his market research:
• What is your impression of a good photographer?
• When was the last time you had a portrait picture taken?
• What are things in pictures or in processes that you would want to see improved or altered?

No need to jot down everything. You just need to listen with adept ears and you must be able to recognize the hints when your sales pitch is called for.

Use your insights

Make it a point to include in your marketing materials the expectations of the potential target that you happened to gather during your market research. When a potential client openly emphasizes promptness, then he makes sure to mention in his marketing materials about his habit of always being on time.

Market research does not necessarily be too costly. Any research, even the ones done in practical cost range, helps you get a better perspective of your target market.

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Publicity – Free Vs Paid

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It helps to be able to know which publicity is paid and which one is free; it hard is to tell sometimes but sure its benefits for your business is great. Here is how you can spot the difference and how to use it for your advantage.

I have a knack for telling and differentiating paid advertisements from free publicity. I developed it while working for more than a decade writing and doing marketing. It may be easy for me to tell the difference but most people find it that hard. Let me help you how it is done, and its benefits:

Paid advertising

It does not take a rocket scientist to recognize a paid advertising material mostly because it is apparent and obvious. Those of course are the materials you see during commercial breaks in TV and radio. These materials are also seen as those colourful publicity materials in some portions of a web page.

Advertorial

These are advertisements that are embedded in an article, mostly being projected as part of an editorial. Sometimes advertorials are presented in the form of news.

Free publicity

This is the kind of publicity of which clients do not necessarily pay for the advertisements they post on any media outlet. This is the job of a PR consultant; to help their clients secure this kind of publicity. This is seen in a form of articles or as news broadcast. Free publicity, despite for being free, is favoured and more trusted by the clients because of the credibility it possesses. Public relations expert make it a point to make good use of the recent news to embed their plans of projecting their clients as experts of the certain field. When the Government announced a significant change in its policies on home buyers’ grant, a number of people from all the other related industries made press releases and signifying their stand on the issue. This is their way of establishing their knowledge and authority to increase their credibility in their area of expertise. A good public relation performance is not having your work recognized once or twice. It is has to be a regular routine of your business. Meaning, you must reach a point when the media people automatically think of you when they are faced with queries on issues related to your area of expertise.

Paid advertising assures you that your products and businesses are advertised exactly the way you want it to be marketed by paying for it. However, it is not entirely credible. Free publicity on the other hand is viewed to be more credible and trusted by the people because of the way it is presented. The thing with free publicity is you really must exert an effort to stand out among your competition so that you will earn your ticket for free advertising.