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Ways to get your business off the ground this year

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Get your business off the ground|Ways to get your business off the ground this yearGetting your business to a point where you feel completely comfortable with its level of success can be quite difficult. Establishing a consistent turnover is a relief for any business owner, and it can be particularly hard to achieve at the start of your business’ life. Getting your company off the ground takes a business plan that is carefully thought through and is flexible enough to change as you hit bumps in the road along the way.

Loans

The reality for many businesses is that some big investments will require a business loan. New machinery or facilities that would aid your company’s growth can be incredibly pricey, and sometimes it is just more effective to pay off the full cost in gradual instalments. Loan brokers such as ONYX Finance, which specialize in financing commercial businesses are always the best institutions as they come armed with plenty of expertise.

Support

You may be surprised by how many local business services there are for companies who are just starting out. Contacting an agency that supports local businesses, particularly start-ups, could give you some much-needed advice. It’s not always easy to contact other like-minded businesses, and local resources and fairs are a great way to network and find information.

Promotion

If your marketing and promotional strategies are lacking, then now is the time to have a bit of a reformation. Unfortunately, when you’re starting out, there’s no room for retiring and shy wallflowers. As well as social media, a website and a recognizable brand, you must promote your company effectively. You can even try quirky ways of promoting yourself, such as having a company car that has your business logo wrapped on it. These somewhat guerrilla methods of promoting your company are sometimes surprisingly effective.

Upselling

If you have ever been out for dinner, and the waiting staff have asked you if you are interested in purchasing a deal that gets you slightly more for your buck, then this is upselling. It’s possible to do this in any business: you’re just making customers aware of what other products you have to offer. This encourages customers to purchase more, which is ultimately what you need to get your business up and running. Be careful not to cross the line into pushy territory, as this could put customers off.

Reward

Incentives for customers to come back and use you again is key for encouraging loyalty. It’s this loyalty that will inspire word of mouth and help to aid the promotion of your company. It’s a competitive world in business, and you will need something appealing to hook in clients. Give them a reason to return to you again: a discount or freebee is the most common route.

If you want to get your business off the ground, then the safest route is to get advice. The best way to know how to succeed is to know what not to do. You can find this out by chatting to other companies and working with local business support services.

Giving Your Business The Promotion It Needs

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
Photo courtesy of Pexels

When we start a business, we are often clueless to the types of promotion that it actually needs. In this day and age, we are living in a digital world. With this, most of the focus is on promotion via means that we can access through our computers, tablets and smartphones. This isn’t to say that that’s not a good idea – more than half of the world are connected to the internet, and it’s the biggest resource that we’ve ever had in our whole history which is open to getting ourselves out there and communicating with our target demographic. So are we missing other options?

Social Media

Although on the rise, social media is not utilised as much as it could or should be. This is a vital tool in business promotion, especially as certain platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have invested so much into making it compatible for businesses – especially small businesses. Their data analytics can prove to be such a useful tool when assessing who your posts are reaching, where in the world they’re reaching and how many people are actually seeing them. You can pay to promote the posts that you’re putting up so you could have the potential of reaching a global audience. You can’t get much better than that. Make sure that you are clued up on the rules of business for each platform that you are using – they are all very different in terms of how they are meant to be used. For example, if you put out one post a day on Facebook, this could be seen as being spammy. Put out one post a day on Twitter and it’ll be history and off people’s feeds in as little as 4 minutes.

Don’t Forget Tradition – Consider The Past

Just because this is the rise of the age of technology doesn’t mean that we solely have to rely on that in order to get our brand message seen. Think about all of the traditional methods that people used back when computers weren’t in wide circulation. Newspapers and magazines are still going round, as are leaflets. Places such as Blue Bee Printing are still able to provide customers with die-cut magnets to hand out for promotional purposes – bumper magnets are still in use, as when will people ever stop driving cars? Not any time soon, that’s for sure. The more that you think outside of the box and consider what people are still going to go for are ways that you can promote your business without really trying. Handing out little things for free such as key rings, mugs and other trinkets that people can utilise within their home with a little bit of company branding on it ensures that you will always be the first port of call should they need you for the particular thing that you can provide. Letting your customers spread the branding for you is one of the best things that you can do – and that they can unknowingly do for you.