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Marketing Strategies To Consider To Drive Your Business To Success

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Starting up a business, especially if it is something you feel passionate about, is one of the best things any budding entrepreneur can do. Having that drive and ambition to make something a success is potentially what fuels and motivates you to get up in the morning. Whether you are just starting out, have a fully fledged business, or even class your company a huge success, I think we can all agree that the marketing strategies you put in place are vital to your business growth. It is certainly one of the ways you can steer your business in the direction you want it to go.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
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However, we can all become a little blinded by it all. Focusing on the here and now, your targets, your sales potential, product, and service. We can forget to invest the time to look at how we make the journey, instead of what it is all about. It takes a while to get your business to where you want it to be, but do you consider how long this will take? Do you contemplate what tools and actions you will need to undertake? A decent marketing strategy can be the difference, the reason someone steps into your store or clicks on to your website. With that in mind, I thought I would share some of the best marketing strategies and ideas you could easily implement into your business model.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
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When was the last time you took a look at your branding?

Branding may not sit high on your list of things to be thinking about right now, but this is where you are making a big mistake. Your branding, your logo and your website are all the first impressions your business gets to make. A first impression can be decided upon in a matter of seconds. If someone doesn’t like the look of your website, perhaps can’t even find it on a google search ranking, or finds your colour choices bright and offensive, they will click off and look elsewhere. It may sound materialistic, but it’s true to society today.

Take some time to look at how your branding looks and your website. It’s important to ensure that you stick with an easy to use dynamic, as well as considering lighter and a more cleaned up approach to your brand. Keep things simple, often those simple designs and websites do the most talking. While on the subject of your website it’s all well and good it looking the part, but if no one can find it, what is the point? How you rank in a search engine is vital to your business success online. So many people will start out a web search on websites like Google. Placing in a few keywords or a sentence into the search engine and often look at the first few suggestions. If you happen to be ranked on page two, you may not get a look in. However, putting some focus on search engine optimisation could be a great investment. This is creating backlinks to your site, making those search engines think your website is of importance. It’s also about placing keywords in text, giving you again more opportunity to show up in searches your company will be relevant in. If all of this sounds a little alien to you, then get in touch with an seo company who will do all the hard work for you.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
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Don’t forget the power of social media

Your social media profile, be that on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to name a few, is your direct line to your existing and potential customers. It’s important to ensure you have an engaged audience. What they can do is extend your reach without you needing to do much else. Commenting on updates in Facebook, for example, will show in their followers feed. They may then take a look at what that person has been looking at, as we can all be a bit nosey, and then the chain reaction continues. You get to put eyes on your business by simply keeping your social media profiles updated, engaging, and full of content people want to see and read.

You can even consider investing some money into advertising through social media. Facebook and Twitter, for example, can then place your ad in front of people within a demographic you have requested. For very little, normally a daily charge, you can increase your presence and reach for your business.

Giving your business a voice actually can humanise your company and make it much more appealing to deal with. This can be done through status updates and call to action comments, but it could also be done through a blog. Allowing you space to discuss offers or share knowledge in a non-offensive un-sales like manner. A blog is another page of your websites, helping you with that all-important SEO we mentioned earlier.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
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Call to action comments could be a little different for you. Perhaps you ask for feedback on your social media pages, maybe run a completion which could get your page shared and increase your audience. There are many things you can consider. The trick would be to take a look at what other businesses are doing. You may not want to copy the style, but you can take note of what some businesses do well, or improve where they fail.

Consider your local community

A great tip is to ensure that you consider your locality. Perhaps you have a shop front in your local town, or just want to capitalise on being the only supplier in the area. Maybe you have competition and want to do things a little differently. Your local community could be a little gold mine for marketing and advertising.

There is a popular trend that more people want to shop locally. Be that for local produce or simply supporting the smaller or local businesses. So it’s a good strategy to be the local expert in your field and industry. This in effect could create great word of mouth advertising for you. You may also want to consider sponsoring local events or even getting involved in local charities. A charity needs all the help that they can get but it also opens up a new potential audience of customers for you. It can be a lucrative relationship on both parts. Advertising at events could mean supplying prizes for raffles or simply helping out. It can all depend on what your expertise are but getting your business heard locally will never be a bad thing.

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Relationships with other businesses and your employees

When it comes to people you have working for you, they are your biggest advocate. Many people in social surroundings or at events will talk with other people, and one common subject is what you do for work. It’s word of mouth advertising without you even realising. Having a happy employee will mean that they will sing the praises of your business. Which could then lead onto a conversation about a potential new client then or in the future. If you don’t have happy people working for you, it could work against you. Meaning people will remember the negative vibes and not consider giving you their business.

You could also strike deals with other businesses in the area. Perhaps offering a discount for their employees and vice versa. This works for different industries as there is no competition, but you are securing potential future business.

There is so much that you can do to try it all could be a huge task, but stick with certain areas and do them well. The rest will follow.

Making More of What You Have: Optimise Your Business in These Ways to Achieve More

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Every business has its limitations, so yours shouldn’t get you down. Instead, you just need to make the most of what you do have, and that’s called optimisation. It’s all about getting more out of your business without having to spend more money or live beyond your means. It’s about improvement without any of the risky unsustainability that can so often come with it. Here are some top ways to achieve that kind of business optimisation.

Adopt a Customer-Centric Approach

First of all, you should definitely try to adopt an approach to business that is a lot more customer-centric. If you can do that, your business will be sure to go much further than ever before, and that can only be a good thing. Some business owners forget that everything they do has to be geared towards customers. If they don’t like what you’re offering and don’t buy what you’re selling, then nothing else really matters at all. By taking a customer-centric approach, you can maximise and optimise your business’s appeal to customers and, ideally, make more sales.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
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Achieve Growth Through Continual Training

Continual training is vital, and it’s something that any business can focus on. It’s a great way to improve your team and get more out of the people you employ. It allows you to maximise their talents and capabilities, and this should lead to further growth for your business. If you allow your employees to stagnate, they will never improve and never be able to push your business on in the ways you might want them to. You have no right to keep expecting more from your people if you are not willing to offer them the training that allows them to improve.

Get Something Out of Those Unpaid Invoices

Lots of companies find that they end up with a backlog of invoices that haven’t been paid. Clearly, this is not an ideal situation to be in for your company. But rather than waiting and waiting for payments, you can make the most of those unpaid invoices. It could improve your cash flow situation and help your business to survive any tough financial times. Accounts receivable financing allows you to get more from companies that buy up these unpaid invoices. It’s something that is definitely worth considering if you need the cash quickly.

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Create Better Balance in Your Team

By creating better balance in your team, you can get more out of that group as a whole. Balance is one of the most underrated attributes when it comes to group dynamics in the office. If you have too many people who are good at one thing and not enough people who are good at another, the team will be unbalanced. This might not sound like such a big deal, but it can have a pretty big impact on your business and how it’s run. You will sooner or later find that you can’t be as efficient nor as productive as you would like if you don’t fix this.

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Take Your Business Online

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A strong presence in the world of the Internet is a necessity for the businesses of today. As a business owner, you probably already know that. You’ve probably created your business a website, and all the social media handles to match. You’ve probably liked a few photos, ran a few competitions and uploaded a few videos. But there’s so much more your business can do online. In fact, there’s a world wide web of opportunities out there. Below are just some of the things you should consider when it comes to taking your business online.

As a business owner you want to make profit from the goods you sell, right? Well then, there’s no better place to start than with e-commerce. Setting up a stall in the Internet marketplace is an online option that all manner of business owners are taking to in this day and age. And it’s no wonder they are when you consider how easy it is. All you need to do is find a service that will cater to your e-commerce needs and help you create your own marketplace and you’re up and running. An example of such a service is Shopify. They can help when it comes to building your site, ensuring that is is mobile friendly and making it as easy to customise as possible. And once you’ve set up your marketplace it’s time to decide upon the most important aspect: what you are selling. When it comes to this you should most certainly have a snoop at your competition. To find your competition simply search for the keywords linked to your marketplace on a search engine and, voila! They’ll appear. Once you find them take a look at what they’re selling, how much they are selling and how much they are selling it all for. And you should also take notes on a host of other things on your competitor’s site too. This includes taking notes on the overall theme of the site in order to figure out how to make your store as user-friendly as possible. Scribbling down information on how they are linking back to their parent website. And jotting down anything that you think contributes to their USP (unique selling point). You need to come up with a USP of your own, but there’s nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from the USPs of others.

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And if you haven’t dipped your business’s toe into the pool of blogging yet, then you should most certainly do so. Blogs have turned into big business in recent times. So big in fact that some businesses have taken to hiring somebody that is known as a webmaster in order to keep their blog active. Blogs allow consumers to access and interact with like minded people. They allow consumers to see the development of a business in real-time. They allow them to feel close to the business. If you want to induce a healthy and incredibly modern relationship with your customers, then starting a blog should be at the forefront of your plans.

So, if you want to increase your business’s ROI and it’s relationship with it’s customers, make sure to take heed of the advice above! The Internet offers a plethora of opportunities for a business to thrive upon it, you just have to be brave enough to embrace the digital age to take them.

Forget Digital Marketing & Go Old School

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
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With more and more white noise filling the internet on an hourly basis, it is becoming increasingly hard for companies to get their voices heard.There is just so much competition online, and no direct consumer competition, just competition to get seen, to even be stumbled across. What’s more, there are now hundreds – if not thousands – of online marketing strategies, each with acronyms that require Googling: SEO, PPC, CTA, AIDA, CTR, CLV, CRM, MoM and a thousand others.

As such, a lot of companies and a lot of marketing executives are steering away from digital marketing options and heading back toward more traditional options. They are veering back into the realm of physical marketing and giving their potential customers something they can touch and feel and experience. And here are the best of the bunch, that is to say, the most effective of the lot.

Advertising In Papers

Recent research by neuroscientists has shown that paper-based adverts tend to be more memorable and more impactful than digital ones. This is especially true with regards to direct mail strategies. The reason for this is paper-based ads are easier to process mentally and thus they made for far improved brand recall. A lot of this is to do with the habits we have gotten into as a society of tech users. When we are watching an advert on Youtube, we aren’t concentrating on the message of the brand or anything but that skip advert button. The same goes for any pop-up ad, we instinctively look for that cross that will allow us to carry on without batting an eyelid. This means that digital marketing is losing its impact, while physical marketing has never lost ground.

Get On The Road

Of course, by this we mean, get yourself to some trade shows. If you are not present at a trade show then you are missing out on a massive chance to grow your exposure, and to people who interested enough in your industry to have bought a ticket to attend. Of course, the stigma around these is that a banner amongst a conference center full of banners is not going to have any impact, and you are right. That is why it is worth looking at what more you can do to improve your booth and raise your voice, and going to get that much more from Steelhead Productions. What we are saying is, there are experts out there, people who will be able to make you look like the leading professionals and industry experts in your sector.

Older Customers Like It Physical

A lot of older customers don’t respond to digital marketing efforts for two main reasons; they don’t trust the internet and they don’t respond to adverts. That means that if you are solely focussed on digital marketing strategies then you are missing out on a huge sector of potential business and potential business that tends to spend money. That is where good old-fashioned physical mail comes in; something that falls through their letterbox, get’s picked up and read. This is what older customers know and like, and it has proved to work in garnering sales and spreading through word of mouth.

The Digital Entrepreneur’s New Business Checklist

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In today’s fierce business climate, new entrepreneurs are far more likely to target online audiences instead of offline ones. Running a company in the digital arena can reduce overheads while the potential for profit is far greater also.

Those possibilities should not fool you into thinking that the journey will be easy. Competition in the online arena is stronger than ever. If you aren’t prepared for the battles ahead, your business will inevitably follow the same path as the vast majority of failures.

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Perfect your strategy with these factors, and you should be just fine.

  • Invest in the quality of your team. From successful recruitment drives to promoting improved motivation, those steps to a productive staff are key. After all, you are essentially putting the fate of your entire operation in their hands. If they perform well, the business will too. Combine the perfect internal team with the help of remote-based freelancers, and you should be set to thrive. As they say, teamwork makes the dream work. Do not forget it.
  • Appreciate the importance of your website. As an online business, your domain is the most important asset of all. It shouldn’t simply promote products. It should additionally generate trust from the consumer. Hiring an ecommerce agency to get your platform in perfect health is advised. Unfortunately, if the selling systems are lacking, transactions won’t be completed. Without sales, the entire company is destined to crash and burn.
  • Be prepared for the worst at all times. All business operations will encounter low points. But prevention is the best form of protection and can reduce the damage greatly. This could range from keeping the working environments safe to factoring in potential returns. Gaining this sense of control won’t only limit the risks involved in business. It’ll also help you make education decisions when growing the company.
  • Understand the needs of your customers. First and foremost, finding your place in the market will allow you to target your primary audience with far greater effect. Consumers don’t only deserve smooth transactions, though. Many online businesses fail to focus on customer care, but yours mustn’t fall into this trap. Even if it means using a virtual assistant service, attending to the ongoing issues of the clients is critical. Otherwise, one bad episode could see them take their custom elsewhere. Conversely, positive experiences should bring long-term loyalty.
  • Keep an eye on spending. Spending money is a necessary part of running a business, but excessive overheads will pile on the pressure. Finding the best deals on operational costs like energy rates will inevitably increase your profits. As well as maximizing short-term profits, this can also buy more time for the venture. The vast majority of failures occur because they run out of money before reaching sustained profitability. So this could be a killer component.

Following the right blueprint won’t guarantee success. After all, you still need to produce great products while marketing your goods in a suitable fashion. Nonetheless, those strong foundations will increase your chances.

If nothing else, adopting great habits now will serve you well in the future too.