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5 Top Tips On How To Run A Successful Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Run a Successful Business|5 Top Tips On How To Run A Successful BusinessCreating and running a business, let alone a successful one, is demanding and takes a lot of patience, planning and funding to get right. You also need to have a good idea that will be sustainable for years to come and will help build the business from a humble start-up to potentially a global brand. So, how can you achieve this? It won’t be easy, but to help assist, here are 5 top tips to get you started and run a successful business.

1. Plan and strategise the customer experience

You may think that having a great idea can be enough, but if the experience for the customer is not planned well in advance and tailored to them, you may struggle. Focusing on the customer journey is crucial and involves many different elements from how your website functions, to how a customer interacts with your staff. No matter the size of your company, putting the customer first can ensure that when they do discover your business, they will be able to interact with you effortlessly and without issue. Understandably, this can be difficult to get right first time. That’s why consulting with a customer experience agency can keep you on the right track and help implement necessary changes where needed. Having a strategy that has been carefully planned will minimise issues and prevent customers from having a poor experience with your brand, established or not.

2. Stay organised and focused

Organisation is key as the day-to-day running of your business can soon become complicated. As your company begins to grow, you may need to start employing more staff to ensure efficiency and that everything can be completed on time. No matter the type of business you have, without being organised, important things can be overlooked in terms of finances, revenue and deadlines for clients or customers. This is where staying focused on the task at hand will improve productivity, so having a daily, weekly, and monthly task list can ensure everything is covered and nothing is left to chance.

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3. Understand your market and competitors

Knowing your competitors as well as you know your own business can help your company grow and stay in front. To be successful, you’ll want your brand to be the first choice for consumers. If you can corner your market and provide something different to or better than your competitors, you are already one step ahead. This is where thorough market research is required and will help your business understand where opportunities are and how you can make the most of them.

This has to be consistent too, so ongoing analysis of your customer’s needs and what your competitors are doing can pave the way to long term success.

4. Create a feedback loop

Almost all successful businesses will collect customer feedback to help improve the customer experience, products, and services. Without having a feedback loop in place, you may not discover customer pain points until it’s too late. If your company is established and has consistently great feedback, this doesn’t provide immunity from issues. Even the biggest companies in the world will have their fair share of detractors, so having processes in place to address this quickly that listens to customers will help to carve a high reputation for your brand over many years.

5. Innovate and adapt

The unexpected can occur at any time and how your business reacts to this will shape whether you experience long-term success or not. In the same way the customer experience has to evolve, so does your products and services. There are many examples of businesses that were once thriving but failed to adapt to changes in the market, seeing a decline in fortunes. To avoid this happening, your business should look to diversify and help minimise the impact of any economical circumstances out of your control. Are there other products you could offer? Are you still providing the best services compared to your competitors? Be creative and this will help you survive for many years to come.

How To Ensure People Click On Your Site And Stay There

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Website Design|How To Ensure People Click On Your Site And Stay ThereWith any business, side hustle, or project you’re working on, there needs to be an online presence. It never used to be this way due to the fact that there were still many, many people not operating online or using a digital product. In 2021, however, it’s an absolute must. Your website, social channels, and overall presence online should be of high quality. If it’s not, then you’re not going to be taken as seriously, and competitors will overtake you.

Your website is going to act as the main hub of your website. It’ll tell people what they need to know, it’ll hook them in, and it’ll keep people wanting to come back for more. Well, hopefully, it will! Your job is to make sure that people want to come back, view your site again, and become even more invested in the thing(s) you’re offering. How can you do that? Well, here are a few ideas:

Don’t Be Like Everyone Else

If you have the same website like every other company in the world, then you’re not going to be very impressive or attractive. This happens a lot when a niche has been completely covered by every single business. You’ll want people to see something different in you – so make sure that you have a little bit of uniqueness. It’s easy to look at successful companies and take little nuggets from them, but that won’t land you in lots of success.

Don’t Bombard With Content And Information

When someone first enters your webpage, they’re going to want to be pleased with what they see. First impressions make a big impact on the human brain – especially with regard to customer experience. Make sure you set the right tone. If you have lots of pictures, images, and information straight away, they’re not going to be happy. They’ll feel somewhat overwhelmed, in fact.

Work Together With Agencies That Have Been There And Done It

There are hundreds of digital marketing agencies around that know how to make your website and your overall online presence a lot more attractive. They won’t just give you generic advice, either – they’ll take a look at your project and cater to your needs. You will also want to work with an SEO Company in order to boost your search engine optimization and score. This aspect is absolutely vital when looking to make your website rank highly online.

Give Them A Reason To Stay Hooked

You’re going to want to offer up high-quality products and services, obviously, but the way in which you point towards them will make a difference in terms of your success. If you have a bland, boring, and colorless advertisement, people aren’t exactly going to be enthused. Offer up extra incentives for them, and they’ll want to see what you have up your sleeve going forward.

Provide Attractive, Interactive Content

The good thing about websites is that they’re not like books in that you just look at them and get information from them. You can click on certain widgets and get involved. There are many kinds of interactive content that you can implement – including videos, graphs, polls, competitions, and so much more.

How To Make Sure You Stay In Your Customers’ Good Books Indefinitely

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article |Customer Relationship|How To Make Sure You Stay In Your Customers’ Good Books IndefinitelyHaving a great product that satisfies people’s annoyances, or creating a wonderful service that solves problems is obviously great. If you can do the job that’s required of you and do things swiftly, then you’re going to have more good days than bad. In business, however, it’s not just about doing the job on the day and bringing in the cash – you need to be able to keep the work flowing; you need to be able to make people want you again and again and again. You want to maintain your business for a while, and then build on what you have, after all.

If you can’t keep your relationships with your customers/clients healthy, then you may end up falling a little or going stale. You’ll survive if you manage to monopolize your market, but that’s not really how most verticals stay. Competitors will come along and take people away from you in an instant if you’re not careful. You need to stay perpetually in your customers’/clients’ good books. Want to know a few ways you can do this? Well, here are some for you now:

Work Hard For Them

If people see that someone is working hard at their craft, then immediate affection is thrown at them. We all appreciate a trier, after all. If you actually get off your backside and bother, then you’re going to be seen as a group that will do whatever is necessary to get the job done. Sitting idle and shrugging your shoulders when things get tough will not exactly boost customer satisfaction, will it? You need to show that you mean business at all times.

Don’t Make Constant, Quick, Dramatic Changes

People gravitate towards your business because they feel as though they can relate to it in some way or another. If they don’t and they still find you magnetic, then it’s because you’re doing something that they feel is correct. You should stick to the fundamentals of what you’re doing – that foundation is what got you to where you are now. Sure, change a few things, but don’t make massive alterations. It’ll more than likely upset the applecart and cause people to question where you’re going with things. They’ll wonder what else you’re going to shake up.

Focus Your Energy On Customer Experience

From the initial meeting onwards, you’re going to want to ensure you treat customers with the love and respect they deserve. Customer experience is absolutely massive in keeping relationships flowing. If you’re unfamiliar with the whole idea, then you can always read something like this guide to customer experience here. Basically, if you nail your interaction with your customer base at every single point, then you’re going to be in a much better position in the long-term.

Build On What You Have

This may sound like a contradiction regarding the idea of not changing too dramatically, but it’s not. You don’t need to move things around when you’re looking to grow. If you show that you’re ambitious and are looking to add more to your repertoire, people are going to be even more attracted to you. Wanting the best, and wanting to be the best is a very emotive idea for most.

Adjusting Your Marketing Strategy: What to Implement and What to Avoid

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |marketing strategy|Adjusting Your Marketing Strategy: What to Implement and What to Avoid2020 has kicked off with a variety of new marketing trends.

Marketing is all about getting your business out there and building a relationship with customers. In many cases, businesses will start marketing campaigns to push products or rebrand themselves.

Whether you’re starting a business or already have one, marketing will be essential to the long-term success of it. Many business owners understand that they need to develop an effective marketing strategy but they’re not sure where to start. A recent study by Safari SEO Brisbane found that the majority of small to medium enterprise businesses invested between 10-15% of net revenue back into the business each monthly through various marketing channels with paid and organic digital marketing initiatives being the most popular mediums.

Read on to learn about some of the most effective trends to use in your marketing strategy.

Customer Experience

As companies are settling into their 2020 plans, improving customer experience has become a priority of many.

Providing quality customer experience is a major part of marketing because it will encourage customers to keep coming back.

As the internet has grown, customers are given a lot more power in terms of what kind of content they’re seeing.

Nowadays, most customers are purchasing products as a result of their research and not advertisements.

When you provide great customer experience, people that are researching your company will see that in reviews and referrals. You can’t tell customers that you have a great product. Instead, you’ll need to show them why what you have to offer is a good investment.

Although many businesses are prioritizing customer experience into their business marketing strategies, they often don’t know what makes a great customer experience.

Quality customer experience consists of these things:

  • Efficiency
  • Convenience
  • Intelligent and Friendly service

By focusing on these, customers will start coming back and recommending your company to others. Consider including easy payment options to further simplify the purchasing process and make customers happier.

Employee Management

Proper employee management goes hand in hand with customer experience. If you have employees that are rude or don’t know what they’re doing, most people will stop doing business with you.

The best way to approach employee management is to develop efficient and effective training programs. If your company has a variety of positions, you’ll need to make training programs for each one. Everyone will need to understand the basics of the business, but put the focus on their role in the company.

For example, you shouldn’t train a cashier how the warehouse of your business works. Instead, ensure that they understand everything there is about being a cashier. This includes both using the teller and interacting with customers.

What you can do if you’re looking to train everyone about a certain subject is how to behave when dealing with customers. When running a store, cashiers aren’t the only people that customers will interact with.

Building a Brand

One of the main concepts of business marketing is building a brand using a variety of methods. Some businesses prefer to advertise their way into mainstream success whereas others like focusing on what their business stands for.

Building a brand is all about creating an image for your company. Many people have the misconception that creating a logo is building a brand for yourself. When you think about companies like McDonald’s, you think about much more than their signature logo.

McDonald’s has managed to build a brand that makes consumers think about their logo, colors, affordability, and employee-customer relationships. When people think about getting quick, cheap food, McDonald’s is one of the first that comes to mind.

This is essentially what you’ll need to do for your business. No matter what industry you’re in, you must focus on what the goal of your business is and how you’ll portray it to customers.

If you had a business that revolves around fitness, you wouldn’t incorporate video games into your image. Instead, you’d focus on healthy food and exercise. You need to make it make sense.

Advertising on Social Media

Out of all the new marketing trends over the past few years, social media has remained one of the most effective. To this date, businesses focus on social media because there are over 3.2 billion active daily users.

Anyone looking to effectively grow their business will need to use social media because putting up physical ads no longer earn you customers.

Putting up posters and billboards slightly increases the chance that someone will see it. The chances of someone looking into your business because of these ads are much less.

When you advertise on social media, you can choose your target audience by selecting a variety of filters. You can go on something like Facebook or Twitter and choose the age range, gender, and location of people you want to see your ads.

Running a social media account is also effective because it will give customers a way to interact with your business outside of cash transactions.

You should also create a website to give customers something to redirect to from your ads. Having a website allows customers to learn more about your business and they can purchase products from it, allowing you to maximize your profits.

If you’re looking to make a name for yourself in the digital world, you can get involved with a digital marketing service. One of the popular services are Climb Online, so consider checking them out if you want help with SEO and social media.

Start Developing Your Marketing Strategy

An effective marketing strategy will allow your business to quickly grow and start earning regular customers. Your strategy should target those that would be interested in your product or service. By using the marketing trends in this article, you’ll quickly make a name for yourself.

We encourage you to start looking into building yourself up on social media. You’ll be able to start interacting with potential customers and you’ll get an idea of what people want. From there, you can start working on creating a great customer experience.

Browse our articles if you’d like to learn more about marketing.

The Four Stops On the Way To Compelling Customer Story Content

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Customer Stories|The Four Stops On the Way To Compelling Customer Story ContentAsk any experienced marketing professional about the top moves you can make to accelerate your marketing campaigns at any level of business, and an overwhelming majority will point to the weight that compelling customer testimonials carry. From the days of infomercials on television making using of customer stories to sell anything from kitchen knives to toaster ovens, all the way up to 2019 in which unboxing videos comprise a major section of YouTube’s most viewed content, and it’s easy to see that we as humans attain some level of comfort in hearing from others experiences with a product.

And while still requiring a little bit of planning and scripting to pull off in the best way possible, customer stories alleviate some of the stress from the marketing team in that they can generate tons of content with a minimal time investment. That’s why we’ve looked at this awesome marketing method and identified the four stops on the journey to a successful customer video venture. We’ve arranged these four stops around four simple questions that you can ask yourself when assembling a customer story video:

  • What do you need to prepare a dynamic testimonial?
  • Which customer should you approach about interviewing?
  • What should the time and locational context of your video be?
  • What platforms do you intend to promote the finished product on?

First Stop: What do you need to get ready?

Think carefully about who you want to interview the customer during the video. Whether you’re the one doing it, guided by a vision for the final product, or a coworker with a more charismatic energy is the one, it’s important to recognize strengths and weaknesses, then find the best person for the job.

  • A good interviewer will help the customer relax and forget that they’re even being interviewed, delving into conversation that flows more naturally.
  • They’ll ask product related questions, but in a way that comes across as organic, tying the overall discussion about the product back to a driving theme in the video.
  • A strong interview relies on collaboration to develop appropriate questions in advance and map out how the interview should be conducted, with pre-established cues prepared

Once you have your interviewer figured out, turn attention towards the logistical matters. What’s your overall budget for the production? How many cameras do you need, and what kind of camera? Multiple will help in getting a stronger viewing aesthetic. Will internal microphones work? How will you handle things like lighting and makeup? What are your post-production options?

The answers to these questions will depend primarily on the first: budget. Just know that you can get this project done with any size budget, from high-tech camera equipment down to your iPhone.

Second Stop: Who should be the focus of your interview?

This is pivotal to the success of your testimonial. You want to find a customer that’s not just interested in doing the video, but that succeeds on camera just as strongly as your interviewer. Be deliberate with this. Entice if needed, through free products or however else you may incentivize active participation. If they represent a client company that you work with closely, ensure that the company is aware of the participation so there aren’t any surprises.

Third Stop: Where and when should the video take place?

This can vary greatly, but one excellent strategy is seeing how a client uses your product successfully in their place of business. Other strategies include setting up a dedicated interview space and having a casual sit-down conversation. You could also introduce a new variant of your product and catch the first glimpses to simulate the unboxing experience. It’s all up to you.

Fourth Stop: Where will the video go?

This question will shape the length of your video, from short fifteen second Instagram stories to extended YouTube comment topping out at an hour or more in length. The awesome thing is a single day of filming may yield multiple production outcomes: you might make one extended video for your YouTube channel, then use footage and soundbites for your social media feeds. Carefully curate it to funnel traffic in the directions necessary.

Make sure to visit each stop along the journey and you’ll soon discover what it takes to draft and publish creative customer testimonial content that will boost your business and maximize your marketing potential!

About the Author

Sean Gordon has an extensive track record recruiting, hiring, training, and unlocking the talent of people. For 20 years, Sean has been on the front lines of business across North America. He started with AT&T, where he built award-winning teams in sales and operations from coast to coast. He delivered equally stellar results for EMC, Aetna and West Corporation before becoming CEO of a technology company in need of innovation.

Sean founded vidREACH.io to engage candidates, prospects, customers and employees – all on one platform. Sean has created new lines of business, reinvigorated stagnant company cultures, and mentored hundreds of employees who have gone on to do great things.

Connect with Sean Gordon on LinkedIn.