Author: Nibletz Staff

You know you have an idea that your customers want. You know that you have a market waiting for it. But still, you find that your business isn’t getting the kind of attention and success that it deserves. If your idea is truly that good, then it comes to finding the fundamental flaw in how you’re not facilitating it right. There are a lot of factors to business success, but having a target market that buys into the idea of the brand is an essential one. If you don’t have that, it’s time to ask why.

You aren’t getting the message across

Simply put, it’s all in the marketing. If you don’t understand marketing, then you’re going to have a hard time getting customers to even notice your existence, much less get excited about the products and services that you’re offering. Learning what it takes to build an effective brand through online MBA program marketing is going to help teach you about how to give your brand visibility, reach, and professional standards. A great idea isn’t going to make itself known. You have to find the best channels to communicate it to your customers.

You aren’t sending the message they want to hear

Getting the message across is all well and good, but you have to make sure that you’re communicating with the customer put first. Many brands start off focusing on the wrong direction, whether it’s based solely on their own brand story, their origins, or the simple practicalities of the product alone. Having your business easily understood is important, but so is championing your customer’s success. What are they going to get by buying your products and services? What kind of successful changes is it going to help them make? Some businesses even do better by focusing on a certain emotional fulfillment or lifestyle change the product can help them with.

You need to find your niche

Generic is the single worst thing your brand can be outside of incomprehensible. It’s likely that you have some competition in your field. If you haven’t done your research, you risk sending out the exact same messages that they are. If they’ve been around longer than you, then it doesn’t make a convincing case for why their customers should make the switch or why new customers should choose a new company over a more established one. Brand positioning is all about finding the niche that you can cater to that your competitors don’t. It might be about finding a service they’re not providing, or a priority they don’t have, or even a location they’re not serving. Without any kind of differentiation, you’ll have a much harder time convincing any potential converts.

First of all, you need to ensure that your message is both simple and visible to the target market. Then you have to make sure that it’s crafted with them in mind above all else. Finally, you have to make sure that you stand out from your competition. If you can’t give your brand those qualities, it will never appear to be the fantastic proposition that it might be.

When starting a new business in any sector, there is a demand for quick progress. Even if it takes some time to reach a stage where you’re making money, you need to see that things are moving in the right direction. And those sentiments are certainly true when working in the mining industries.

So, how can you be sure to see positive results from the start? Let’s take a closer look at some of the most vital stages.

Acquire Equipment

Mining is a complex assignment, and it requires the best equipment. Quite frankly, anything less than perfection will be a wasted opportunity. The reason for this is that you’ll be wasting both time and money on a daily basis.

Advanced machinery will speed up productivity, allowing you to cover more space each day. This will significantly boost your hopes of quick success and increased profits. Lease Corp mining equipment finance deals allow you to access the necessary resources ASAP. Assuming that your staff is well equipped to use them effectively, mining should become far more effective.

Assets are important in all fields of modern business. However, it’s especially important when the work involved cannot be completed by human hands. While basic tools are worthy additions to your arsenal, acquiring the right machinery is key.

Empower The Staff

As a new mining business, you may be restricted to a very small team. But don’t let this become an excuse for not paying attention to the need for great recruitment. If anything, low numbers mean that you need an even greater quality. Motivation is the greatest tool at your disposal.

Employees will naturally work harder when they think there is something in it for them. Offer them incentives such as commissions or extra days off for a job well done. You can learn more about the commission schemes with Tech City News. In addition to providing that motivational boost, it should show them that you are a boss that cares.

Staff members in this environment still have other requirements, not least with regards to safety. Regular training, combined with the necessary workwear and equipment will work wonders. Ultimately, when they feel that you treat them well, they will return the gesture. It really is that simple.

Make Connections

Once you’ve extracted those precious materials, you need to sell them on. Whether you sell them in their natural form or use them to create other items, building a client base is key. Until you know how to generate sales, you don’t have a business. You simply have an expensive hobby.

First impressions count for a lot in business, and you must not forget it. Dressing to impress consumers and B2B clients is essential. Meanwhile, it’s worth building a great looking website. After all, the vast majority of people you do business with will research your company before committing to a decision.

With those winning connections in place, the final processes in the chain will pass with far greater ease. In turn, that should enhance your immediate success while also giving you a better platform for future growth. What more could you ever ask for throughout the infancy of your venture?

Every startup faces the same dilemma – how much should I invest to attract my first major client or customer? In an ideal world, you would already have customers queuing at your door. This would spur you on to start up a formally structured business to address your customer’s needs. Of course, in the real world, many entrepreneurs are also inventors, engineers, and creators. They need a tangible product to exist so that customers know what it is that they are buying.

Building or producing your product before you have an order is financially challenging. You might consider investing your own cash into this kind of project. Ultimately, you’ve already invested your time and energy. Putting up your home or your life savings might be a step too far. What you need are investors. Like you, these investors need vision, or they won’t be able to invest in your idea.

What should you have in place to attract an investor?

You should have fully developed plans or schematics for your proposed building or product. There should also be a comprehensive research pack that highlights and identifies a need in the market for such an innovation. If you can turn any of these plans into a 3D illustration, this can help people visualize what you are proposing. Build a model, or simply invite a good artist to clearly sketch what it is you think this product will be.

Aside from your mockup and your research pack, you’re going to need a very compelling presentation. Brush up on your presentation skills, and make sure you have all the supporting materials you need. Ultimately, you are asking for money to build a prototype. To clarify and support the sum you ask for, you will need to have approached potential suppliers and cost the entire project up already.

Speak to companies that specialize in providing your raw materials and parts. You will have to have to be clear about size, use, and potential hazards or risks. You’ll probably need an aluminum supplier, a timber merchant, and maybe even some land if you’re constructing a building. For electronics and apps, you might need coders, engineers, and board suppliers. You must be confident that you have listed every component and every human resource you might need to get your project off the ground.

Now you need to carefully select the investors that are most likely to be interested in your project. Are you building eco-friendly homes? Then speak to local government planning offices to find out who would be most interested in that kind of project. If you’re developing low-power electronics, then maybe find an investor from one of the major electronics research centers. Online crowdfunding is also an option, but you will most likely need far more investors each offering a smaller portion of the money needed.

You also need to carefully consider what type of returns you’re willing or able to provide any investor. With a bank it’s easy. They simply want the original loan plus interest repaid over several months. What would your main investor most want for their interest, support, and cash injection? This is where you can get quite creative. This is the start of your marketing too. You have to sell the project and make sure your investors are happy to hand over their cash.

If your meetings, proposals and presentations have gone well, you might have the cash you need to build your prototype. However, this isn’t all you need to make sure customers come to you and make orders. Now you need to develop a winning marketing strategy. It should ensure a successful launch and a lot of public interest in your innovative new product. So where do you start?

Will They Come?

It’s important to consider where your target customers ‘hang out’ in the media. Are they using Facebook groups that you could get involved with? Do they all enjoy a particular TV program, or listen to a local radio station? You won’t know the answer to any of that without some careful and extensive research. You have a solution to someone’s problem but who are they? Create a typical customer persona and go from there.

Who are your competitors and what are they offering? Even the most innovative of products has a competitor solution somewhere. SWOT analyses of your competitors and their products are essential if you want to uniquely position yours. Dig deep to determine your tone of voice, branding choices, and use of media to reach your target customers.

Launching a brand new product successfully should help you take plenty of orders. As a startup, you need some experience, training, or connections to draw upon. You need to make your launch as newsworthy, topical and current as possible. What’s your hook? Why should the press print a piece about your product launching today?

A launch event brings interested parties to you, your sales team, and your product. You are there in a professional and formal capacity. Create a positive and memorable experience that customers can associate with your product. Hiring an event manager or a PR specialist is essential here. You have a lot to talk about in the evening, so make sure someone else is handling the catering, bar, and entertainment.

If what you are building, developing, or creating is exciting, then yes, your customers will come. But if they don’t know that it is exciting and solves their problems, they won’t attend, and they won’t make any orders. The prototype you are building is just one part of a wider marketing strategy. It should communicate directly, positively, and successfully to your target customers. That means that your upfront investment should cover more than a few components and materials.

Could you sell your product ideas to an investor without a tangible item in your hand? And could you sell a first-attempt prototype to the whole world? You might have a great idea that leaps off the page. You might have an incredible product that looks innovative and high-quality. But until you have a strong marketing strategy to go with it, nobody will ever know.

One of the problems with starting up your very first business is that it can take some serious cash flow before you’ve even got enough to rent an office. It can be demoralising, but it’s important to remember that without money, you’re not going to make any income on your investment. That’s why more and more people are looking at frugal ways to start a business.

Sadly, when people speak of frugal businesses they usually think about home businesses or internet-based companies that don’t even have an office. While these are perfectly viable choices for most people, it doesn’t help if your aspirations are bigger. If you’re interested in more traditional ways of running a business (such as owning an office, a factory, a warehouse and so on) then here are a couple of frugal business practices that you should follow.

Don’t buy new, repair instead

If you’re going to start a business that requires some seriously expensive equipment, then never buy new from a manufacturer. You can make huge savings if you hire someone to repair equipment for you. If you have the knowledge to do it yourself, then you can take the DIY approach and purchase machines or equipment and repair it yourself. For instance, if you want to take over an old factory and restore it, then you’ll need to visit www.dynatect.com for more information about OEM parts and products. It can be difficult to try and find the right pieces to repair expensive machinery, which is why you need to network with these kinds of companies in order to make huge savings.

There are, however, times when buying used can be more hassle than buying new. A good example of this is with computers. Computers themselves are (from the perspective of a business) not very expensive unless you need top-end equipment. This article from www.theguardian.com will give you a good idea of what type of computer you need to buy. While there are plenty of businesses getting rid of old business stock (resulting in extremely cheap office computers on auction sites) it might be worth investing in something new that hasn’t been used and comes with some form of warranty.

There’s no such thing as industry standard

You’ve probably heard people saying that certain software tools are “industry standard”. A good example of this is in the design industry. Many people use Adobe’s Creative Cloud due to the number of software packages available and how useful they are to most users. Sadly, it can be incredibly expensive to pay every month for a business license, which is why you should turn to free software or cheaper alternatives.

Certain things are worth investing in, but if you only need lightweight tools to do a bit of design work or word processing, then there are cheaper alternatives to the industry standard ones. In fact, with so many startups popping up everywhere, sooner or later the cheaper and free alternatives will become the industry standard and expensive tools will be premium options for the larger companies that demand more features.

To be robbed is a stressful and traumatic experience. While it is especially upsetting when someone breaks into your home, seeing your company’s security threatened by criminals is no easy sight either. When you’ve first been robbed, you might think you’ve had your share of bad luck and can rest assured they won’t come back.

Unfortunately, it is more likely that the criminals target you again and return for a bigger prize; keep your employees and assets safe with these vital steps and boost your security once and for all.

Never work alone

The first step to employee safety at work is to make sure there is always more than one person present to open and close the business. This is usually when you’re at the most risk and someone shady might creep up on you the moment you’re ready to close. Remember to keep the back door locked at all times, at least when you’re not using it, and consider installing an industrial swing gate for extra security.

To never work alone also means that you should install a loud alarm system and CCTV cameras on the outside and inside of your business. Remember to cover the areas where a person could easily hide and where they might not expect to be monitored by a camera.

It works as a prevention as much as a way to keep you safe in case they should decide to make a move; as we know, prevention is much preferred to repairing the damage that has been done.

Train your employees

Although you don’t feel particularly lucky when you’ve been robbed, you can still feel relieved if it happened while the business was closed and none of your employees were around. They are the ones who are at the most risk if someone should break in during the day time, and it’s important that they’ve received vigorous training in handling potentially dangerous situations.

Train them to spot questionable behavior inside or around the premises, to comply with a robber’s instructions if anything goes down, and to safeguard the area until the police arrive. It will give them a sense of security as well, knowing that their manager is serious about keeping her employees safe – and they’ll pay you back with love and respect.

Never walk alone

You know very well that you should keep a low cash balance in your register and deposit excess money as much as you can – but it doesn’t help if someone has been watching your routine. As mentioned above, the robber may target specific industries and will often come back for more; they are calculating and may observe you for a while before they decide to make a move.

Don’t make deposits late at night, first of all, vary your times and routes, and make sure there is always more than one person who goes to the bank to make the deposit.

Safeguarding your business is as much about training your employees to spot crime and tackle a potentially dangerous situation as sensibly as possible. Make their days at work a lot brighter and happier by taking care of their safety, first of all – and then you may worry about your other business assets.

We’d all jump at the chance to work less if we could, wouldn’t we? The only thing that stops many people from working less is the idea that they have to earn less. When we have bills to pay, partners to treat and kids to look after, this just isn’t realistic. However, there are a few realistic ways you can earn more by working less!

Automate Things You Do Every Day

To automate the things you do every day, you may need to invest in high quality software. However, this software will begin to pay for itself in the long run, and you’ll have more time to focus on the important tasks at hand. For instance, you can automate social media posting, scheduling appointments, follow up emails, recurring invoices, and more.

Raise Your Prices

Many people don’t realize that they have actually under-priced themselves. When you price your services too low, you may get inundated with orders. Yes, you’ll still have lots of money, but you’ll have a lot of work to do too. Consider re-evaluating what your service is worth, and up your price point. You’ll still get orders from high value customers, but you’ll have much less work to do.

There are an abundance of ways you can earn more by working less – so many, that we’d be here all day listing them all. If you want even more tips to add to your arsenal, here are 5 ways elite producers work less but earn more. Enjoy!

credit to CreativeOne

Volume discounts for bulk purchases benefit everyone involved, helping suppliers move inventory, enabling companies to cut costs and allowing savings to be passed on to consumers. The savings for businesses can be significant, with suppliers such as Lowe’s offering discounts for bulk quantities of as much as 50 percent. Buying in bulk makes economic sense for businesses, but doing it successfully requires following some best practices to avoid some common pitfalls. Here are five tips for getting the best deal when ordering custom parts in bulk.

Compare Prices

Like any smart shopping strategy, smart bulk purchasing is based on carefully comparing prices. The best place to start researching prices is online. You can often find good volume discounts on Amazon, along with free shipping if you have Amazon Prime membership, advises American Express. Online directories such as SupplyChainBrain and SaleHoo can also help you find suppliers and compare prices. Don’t forget to check prices with local suppliers as well. You may also be able to get bulk discounts on certain types of supplies by joining a warehouse club. After you’ve done some preliminary research, request quotes from multiple suppliers so that you can do a fair comparison.

Compare Materials

While you’re comparing prices, it’s also advisable to compare the cost of using different types of materials. One mistake companies sometimes make is choosing high-priced materials without considering the possibility that less expensive materials may also do the same job. For instance, as a long as a material is durable enough to perform its function, it doesn’t necessarily need to be the strongest material available. When considering different materials, ask your supplier if they have any recommendations. They may be aware of materials and options you haven’t considered. For instance, o-ring supplier Apple Rubber makes products out of a wide variety of materials such as Viton that have been developed for specialized applications, and has an online material selection guide to help clients choose the best option for their needs.

Consider Quality as Well as Price

While it’s good to seek the lowest available price and the least expensive materials, it’s also important to balance cost against the need for quality when comparing suppliers. Inexpensive doesn’t need to mean low quality, and when there’s a concern with quality, it may be worth it to spend a little more to meet the standards you want to deliver your customers. You should also consider prospective suppliers’ quality of service. How quickly do they respond to phone calls and emails? How reliable are they? Do they offer guarantees? Research prospective suppliers’ reputations and ask them questions in order to evaluate their quality of service before settling on a provider.

Measure Precisely

Bulk ordering a custom-made part with the wrong measurements can be an expensive waste of time and money. A mistake multiplied in bulk is a much bigger wasted expense than a mistake on a single-unit order. Avoid this problem by taking an extra effort to make precise measurements before requesting a quote or submitting an order. Use the most precise measuring tool available, preferring 1/100 of an inch to 1/10 of an inch, for example. Take multiple measurements to make sure you’ve made an accurate estimate.

Draw Up Exact Specs

Just as it’s important to draw up exact measurements before submitting a quote, it’s also advisable to draw up exact specs. Before spending money on a bulk purchase, you want to make sure your supplier is crystal-clear on what type of part you need. The best way to do this is to hire a rapid prototyping service, 3-D CAD modeling service, engineer or draftsman to create a detailed drawing of the parts you need. If you’re selecting a part from a catalog, verify that you’ve chosen the right part number.

Although the internet has only been around for a short amount of time, considering the length and breadth of human history, it’s perhaps the fastest evolving part of our lives. This is both tricky and wonderful for startup businesses. Not at any other time than now, has there been so many avenues you could do down to promote and market your business. However, it’s not technically a rule, but there is a right way and a wrong way. It’s no longer good enough just to have an advertising campaign based on targeted algorithms. Consumers want content that speaks out to them; they can relate and connect with. Explaining how you have the best product is no longer enough; you must show them why it’s better.

Why a video ad

Video advertisement can be very short, in order for them to fit onto multiple online platforms. Nowadays, all you really get is 5 seconds to hook the audience in before a ‘skip’ button appears on the screen. However, some advertisement can run for up to 20 to 30 seconds with no skip feature, so you have two kinds of options. Tell a story, think about how your product is mainly used by your customers, and why it’s important to them. Target the emotional angle, so there’s a feeling of having to rely on your product or service in some part of their lives. Cater for your key demographic, so whether it’s for a family or the youth, the angle must be representative of the particular lifestyle they lead. This way your product stays relevant to the use it was designed for.

Blogging with evidence

Blogging is a great digital marketing tactic that is content which is purely created from in-house staff and even you the business owner. The point about blogs is to write in an informal and pleasant manner, without the veil of a professional company outer shell. However, blogs often get stale, because it’s difficult to generate ideas once the main reasons why and how your product should be used are covered. A blog cannot purely live on just writing about updates and upcoming events. Content that stays alive is that which has a purpose and true evidence behind it. Companies like Detailed, offer case studies to businesses who wish to content market for their products and services. You can find out what makes your customers tick, see why kind of trends are important to them and then, tie your product into those narratives.

Responsive updates

When you release an update either for a service or a product, the update patch notes, or the blog or video that ensues, should explain why you made these changes and updates. You could read out customer questions in a video, and respond accordingly, citing a pattern of inquiries which made you perform the changes. Equally, in the blog or the patch notes, you could briefly explain the reasons why you felt the specific changes has to be made. This lets the consumers know that you’re thinking about them, and willing to take on board ideas from buyers to make a service or product better. Customer service which stands true to the term is greatly appreciated and not easily forgotten by customers.

Live Q n’ A sessions

Customers like to watch videos which go into detail about a product which they use. Having a live question and answer livestream over a social media platform such as Facebook, is a superb outreach strategy. It allows users to meet you, almost face to face. They can finally put a face to the business and hear your thoughts on the industry you operate in, where you think it’s headed and what the future may hold for your company. You’ll be getting questions from the audience, so being quick on your toes is something you’ll have to prepare for. Make sure to have notes with you, so you’re not left umming and ahhing, at a question that asks for specific evidence or data. Spread the word before and during the livestream, on your social media accounts so you can get the maximum amount of views watching you. Facebook and other livestreaming videos of CEOs are becoming more and more common as the need to personally connect with the people who buy your products and services, begins to be the most important goal for marketing.

Content that has a purpose stands a greater chance of connecting with the consumer. Stabbing aimlessly in the dark is great to keep viewer traffic on your website stable, but it doesn’t have the punch behind it, to make waves in the market. Therefore, listen and respond to feedback and be creative.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you should know one piece of wisdom. Startups are fragile, but with the correct attitude, competency to succeed, and a sprinkling of luck, you can make a success of your idea. However, running a great startup is not only an effort in making sure you do everything right, but it’s also an effort in trying not to do anything wrong.

A marketing mistake or PR blunder that happens can be recovered from with quick thinking and smart implementation, but one area that is much more difficult to recover from if handled poorly is the drive of your employees. As a startup, it’s likely you’re working with a thin skeleton team, likely with those employees taking on multiple departmental roles simply because there isn’t enough capital justification to take on more employees.

With this already heavy load that you as owner are no doubt experiencing too, it’s worth making sure the following issues are resolved or prevented, and we’ll help you figure out how.

Contracts

While it’s not exactly common for startups to offer full on reliable contractual terms of employment to their staff, it is worthwhile noting something in writing and reliably giving your employees a regular paycheck. It’s only fair. Remember, they are taking a chance on your idea and in the process eschewing their job security, so the least you can do is compensate them often for their time. In the early days, if you can’t afford a regular competitive paycheck, you need to make this absolutely clear before you take them on.

This should be in writing. You can draw up basic terms and have them ratified by legal counsel if you’re worried about the effort coming back on you. However, even if a staff member is willing to contribute for little to no payment, you should keep them in mind for when your business does well, and reward that trust placed in you in kind. If not, you can find yourself hurting for employee numbers, while finding it difficult to hire more.

Hygiene

Now, in your effort to forgo the cost of a rental space for your office proceedings, it might be tempting to view your makeshift home office as a place to ‘relax and work.’ This runs counter to optimal efficiency. Yes, it’s true that even huge conglomerates such as Google place staff creativity on a pedestal, and so provide the rooms with snack bars, bean bag chairs, and even poles to slide down from floor to floor.

However, despite the relaxed attitude that they espouse, if you’re lucky enough to visit their office, you’ll realize that it is never unclean. This is why using commercial cleaning services is a must no matter how humble your operation, because as you grow, you’ll find it harder and harder to stay on top of your work duties, tidying and office cleaning. It takes up hours of the day you don’t need, and a messy office can kill the drive of anyone inside, especially your employees.

These two issues are some of the biggest killers of workplace drive up and down the country. But you’re smarter than letting them affect your business, and the previous tips will help you do just the opposite.

Blogging may have been around for 50 years, but business blogging has gained traction in the last decade more than any other time. The developments in technology and computing are to thank for this, and so blogging has grown exponentially. If you want to give your business a little more oomph, starting a blog to tell the world about yourselves is the best way to do it. The trouble is that there are so many different ways to do it, it can be difficult to untangle what the best for your business is.

There are many business social media sites, such as LinkedIn, that really put emphasis on business blogging. This is mainly because blogging can help you generate leads and gain more traffic to your site, so promotion is key. Business blogging still remains a fairly niche category, but there are far more platforms for business blogs than ever before. Still confused about where to start? Don’t worry. We’ve put together five of the best business blogging platforms around so you can make an informed choice of where you start showing your personality to the world!

WordPress.com/WordPress.org

WordPress is a user favorite among personal and businesses bloggers, mainly because of how simple it is to run. It’s also the biggest content management system around on the web today. You can choose to use it simply for the blog you want to run, or you can build your company website around it. You can look online for a WordPress hosting comparison so you can choose the best place to have your blog running from. Don’t forget that the .org site is the software and .com is the social network built around blogging. It’s easily confused.

LinkedIn

Not just a social media site for businesses to network, LinkedIn now allows its users to publish content directly onto the website. It’s always been hailed as a businessman’s Facebook page, but now they’re expanding into something more, allowing your content to be seen by business professionals worldwide.

Medium

You may not have heard of this one, as Medium is fairly new to the blogging world and is exactly what it says on the tin. WordPress has developed substantially in its capabilities but it has inspired sites like Medium to stay as solely a blogging platform.

Blogger

Google-owned, Blogger is one of the original blogging platforms and is a social network that has been built around blogging and isn’t software that you would directly install onto a server. You can share gadgets and widgets on your blog with Blogger, and make it interactive.

CEOPress

Only launched last year, CEOPress is a new blogging platform exclusively to CEOs, startup businesses and entrepreneurs. This will allow for a little exclusive networking for the business community and be a good place to start something that is solely for business use.

The platform you use for your business blog can really determine its success. Doing the right research and utilizing the right platform will surge it to success.

If your business is going to succeed, it’s going to need the right people working for it. This all starts with the hiring process. Many employers forget that it’s not just the candidates that need to impress them. It’s just as important for the business to attract the right candidates and to show them why their business is one that they should want to work for. Here’s how you can make that happen for your company.

Have an Impressive Benefits Package to Offer

Candidates always look at the benefits package that’s on offer from a company when they first think about whether to apply. Make sure that it’s available straight away. You want them to be sure that they are getting something positive in return of working for your company. Everyone likes to be able to make the most of certain perks and benefits, and if yours stand out more than other companies that are looking for employees, you might be able to attract the best people.

Use the Opinions of Your Existing Employees

The opinions of your existing employees do matter quite a lot, and you should use them to your advantage when you are running your business and hiring people. For example, you could make testimonials available to your candidates. This could show them what it’s like to work for your company according to the opinions of people that already do. Indeed Reviews can also be very helpful for this kind of thing. They can show that people really do enjoy working for your company. That can make all the difference when it comes to attracting the best.

Run the Business in an Innovative and Ambitious Way

It’s up to you to make sure that your business is the kind of place that looks like a company that people want to work for. If people don’t look at your business and see it as being exciting and interesting, it means that fewer candidates will want to work there. They won’t even apply for positions. And the ones that turn their noses up at your business for lacking innovation and ambition are usually the very best candidates. So, this is not something to take lightly.

Impress Them as Soon as They Walk Through the Door

The way your office looks when those candidates first walk through the door and into the room matters a lot. This is the first impression they get, so you want it to be good and positive. If it’s not, they will just feel disappointed, and their opinions of the business could be affected for the worse. So, make sure that your workplace always feels modern and up to date. It should have a bespoke design and layout that aims to look modern while also meeting the needs of the people that work there.

Hiring the right people could be the difference between success and failure for your small business, so you need to get it right. Make the most of the ideas discussed above.

There’s good news, and there’s bad news. We’ll start with the bad: it’s no longer enough to only develop a marketing campaign. Putting all your resources into marketing will be a waste of time and money if you’re not adopting a sophisticated approach. And now the good news: you have everything at your disposal to incorporate that sophisticated approach, which will, in turn, allow you to foster a more substantial relationship with your customers. Below, we take an in depth look at how you can personalize your marketing, as well as the benefits of doing so.

Benefits

Right, before you begin the journey toward personalizing your user experience, let’s take a look at what you’ll actually get in return. For starters, you’ll be making your customers happier, as well as making it easier for them to continue doing business with you. If you treat them as individuals rather than just another number, you’ll also be making it more likely that they stay as customers in the future (and improving customer loyalty is always a good thing). On a practical level, having one eye on personalization can help focus your marketing and develop a long term strategy.

Problems and Difficulties

Of course, personalized marketing doesn’t just happen. It takes effort, sometimes more effort than a company can give. If you’re intent on reaping the benefits of personalized marketing, you’re going to need a dedicated team to untangle the vast amounts of data that is needed to make it a reality. Also, you should be aware of the limitations: you will not be able to precisely tailor your marketing to each customer. You’ll need to make a few assumptions and guesses here and there; it’s more about making it generally personal rather than comprehensively so.

Different Shades of the Same Color

Everyone is unique, but not overly so. People have characteristics that make them stand apart from the crowd, but only slightly. It’s like a zig-zag in the ocean: up close, the points look far away from each other. From a distance, it just looks like a straight line. As such, people of the same age and who have the same income (more or less) will have more similarities than they do differences. This allows you to create a number of “customer personas,” which you can then apply to your clients. One character might be “aged 29-36, $50,000 income, likes high quality, eco-friendly goods’. From there, you’ll be able to create marketing materials that you only send to your customers who fit that persona.

Targeted Emails

If you’re not making the most of email marketing, then it’s time to start. The stats surrounding email marketing not only suggest that it’s effective; they say that every company, no matter the size, should be incorporating them as a central part of their marketing campaigns. Put simply, people respond to emails. If you’ve already got a database full of email addresses, then put it to good use: the addresses you have are of people who have already shown an interest in your company. They are “on the hook,” so to speak. If you can make it so that each email uses your customer’s name, then all the better. Blanket emails are more and more failing to make it through spam filters; if someone has signed up to your mailing list, and you have their name, you’ll notice a significant increase in click through conversions.

Exist in their Personal Space

The lines between a customer’s personal and private space are becoming more and more blurred, for the simple reason that the vast majority are carrying in their pockets a device with which they do everything. There’s enough information about mobile marketing to suggest that it’s a highly useful tool, provided that you use it wisely. It’s easy to abuse this function, but if you do so, you’ll quickly lose the trust and patience of your customers. Sending an SMS message with a particular offer, ideally one that is time limited is a great way to prompt your customers to make a purchase. Mobile marketing isn’t just about SMS, either: you can also create an app and send targeted promotions through that. People have little objection to this form of marketing, providing it’s relevant and not spammy.

Tailored Website

You shouldn’t just have one website: you should have thousands, each unique to your visitor. Of course, your site will only have one address, and these “thousands of websites” will only differ slightly, but they will have differences. You have enough data at your disposal to show a version of your website that is relevant to your visitor. For example, if a customer has previously bought – or search for – say, a hiking bag at your website, then you should be showing them more camping supplies the next time they visit because it’s obviously something they have an interest in. For a closer look at this approach, look no further than Amazon’s recommendations system: it accounts for a staggering amount of the website’s income.

Appealing To Their Desires

There are smart ways to personalize your content to a user, and one of these is to allow them to customize their content. There’s a great example of this, which formed part of an Iberia Airlines marketing campaign. They asked their customers to pick a place on earth they would love to travel to, as well who they would like to travel with. That’s a nice question to answer, and many did – and they also provided the email address for the person they would go with. From nothing, Iberia Airlines have created a deeper connection with their existing customers and boosted their mailing list at the same time. It’s also just a great way to conduct market research: rather than just asking customers for feedback, which is pretty boring, you can dress it up in a way to ask them what they want.

“Personalized” Rewards

If you have an ecommerce site, you’ll know all too well that many people put things in the basket, go to checkout, and then vanish from your site altogether without making the purchase. It happens all the time. One way you can get round this is to intercept your customer before they have a chance to leave. If they’re inactive on the checkout page for thirty seconds or more, it’s more likely that they’ll leave without buying rather than it is they’ll make the purchase. If they’re suddenly offered a “unique” discount that applies just to them (for whatever reason you want to invent), they’re more likely to complete the transaction.

When in Doubt, Don’t

Of course, there are ways in which personalization can go wrong. And that is when you get the personal details wrong. If you’re a customer called Steve, and you get an email or other correspondence that begins “dear John,” then you’ve just lost a customer. While personalizing your content to your clients is a good idea, you should only do it if you have the workforce and resources to get it right. It’s much worse to get it wrong than not do it at all!

Getting Too Personal

And talking of getting it wrong, it would be a bad idea to go too far the other way, and get too personal. People have, for a good reason, become more guarded about their privacy. Using their name in an email is fine: getting too specific, such as using information they haven’t volunteered but which you have access to (such as location) is crossing a line. Above all, respect your customer’s privacy – you’ll never get them back if you use the data you have to gain an unfair advantage, using information that they have not voluntarily given up.

Pay Attention

In many ways, it’s not so much about how you personalize your content. If you’re trying to make your customer feel like an individual, then you’re on the right lines. In some cases, it’s the small details that can make the biggest difference. For example, if a customer hasn’t yet made a purchase, then the focus should be on gently nudging them in the right direction. If they visit your site after the purchase has made, then the tone should shift to making sure they’re happy with their experience, with links to your customer service team. Personalisation should be mutually beneficial: all great relationships work best when they flow both ways!

To The Future

We’re really just getting going when it comes to personalized marketing. As technologies and attitudes evolve, we’ll see it forming a much greater share of a company’s marketing campaign. The biggest barrier at the moment isn’t data – there’s plenty of that – but decoding the data that’s the issue. In any case, over the coming years it will take off, and by implementing it into your strategy now, you can position yourself ahead of the curve.

The scope for personalized marketing is limitless. Engage with your customers, treat them as the individuals they are, and you’ll see an improvement on your conversions and sales.

We all know that your trusty website is one of the most instrumental tools that will help you grow a startup. It’s a landing page for when others link to your services and products, it’s a way to expand your business into the digital realm and it can be used in conjunction with social media like Twitter and Instagram to grow your brand. It goes without saying that without a website, you’re not going to have a good time growing your business, but it pays to learn how to utilize your website in order to get the most out of it.

The most common type of content on a website is in written form. Be it articles, blog posts or product descriptions, content is usually put into word form because it’s the easiest to produce, it’s cheap to order and most people appreciate being able to read something that their own pace. However, that’s not to say that other forms of media can’t be used, and this article will show you how to leverage other types of media in order to grow your business.

Images

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and there’s no better way to show that than to put it in a business scenario. Instead of explaining what your products can do, pictures to show them in motion and in their intended environment will sell your wares a lot faster than a bunch of text. However, you need to learn how to mingle text and images together to create the best content. Images are one of the key ingredients that make great content for your website, and it’s important to focus on using the right images at the right time in order to bring more attention to your business. Using stock photographs from free websites all the time can get boring, which is why taking your own photographs or creating your own images (or ordering them from a freelancer) can be a much better choice.

Video

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video would be worth millions. Shooting video will require some dedicated equipment (or a smartphone if you’re feeling frugal). Most startups and small companies can’t afford film crews to help them create an advertisement that looks presentable, but there are services like Rotor View that could provide you with some excellent stock footage to be used in your videos. By using drones, you can film large landscapes and buildings to use with your products (if it’s applicable) and it’s far cheaper than hiring a professional film crew to get the shots you need.

Audio

We can’t forget about audio either. Many bloggers are also involved with podcasting, which is similar to a radio talk show only on a smaller scale. Episodes are released at the podcast owner’s own pace, and they can cover almost any topic that you can imagine. If you have a blog on your website or if you want to provide a service for the visually impaired, then you can use audio to your advantage.

Future Media

With technology advancing at such as fast rate, it’s inevitable that new forms of media will be introduced that you can take advantage of. The early birds are going to catch the worm in this case, so be on the lookout for ways to use virtual reality and augmented reality in your business marketing strategy to stay ahead of the game.

You’re passionate about law- you’ve completed all of your education, have gained the necessary experience and are now ready to make big bucks. Setting up your own law firm is one way to go about this. However, as with any kind of business getting off the ground can be difficult. Here are some things you will need to bear in mind specifically when it comes to law.

Plan Ahead

You will need to think about financials, market analysis, mission statement, competitive advantages and so much more. You need to know how much it’s going to cost, and how much you will need to earn in your first year to keep everything ticking over and break even. It’s worth saving a contingency fund just in case things don’t go exactly to plan, that way you leave yourself a buffer without risking going broke. Another thing you will need to plan is what area of law you will be going into. You are sure to have your favorite areas, but of course, some are always going to be more profitable than others. There’s always a call for family lawyers for example, and personal injury does well too. For the most part, these are clients that won’t have worked with a lawyer before and will be more easy to secure. Start specializing in corporate law or other areas and you might find it tricky to get hold of those clients, especially in the beginning.

Finding Clients

You won’t have any clients in the beginning when you first setup your firm, but that doesn’t mean you have chance to laze around. Quite the opposite, if you want to make it a success you need to find ways to get your business out there. Invest in a good website design for lawyers, get all of your social media setup and work on marketing. Just like any business, if you don’t get the word out there, how are people going to find you? It’s worth getting some additional help if this isn’t your area of expertise, but make sure you know what you’re paying for. Some companies will happily take your money without actually doing much, and whatever you try it’s not likely to be an overnight fix. When it comes to marketing, you have to think of the long game.

Business Premises

As a legal firm, you will want to portray a very professional image, so the premises you choose is incredibly important. Smaller businesses can usually get away with small, shabby offices to save money, but since you will be having clients come in this something that has to be right. Legal offices don’t need to be right in the center of cities, you could save money by setting up in a location that’s a little further out. As long as it’s still accessible, it’s not like a shop which relies general passing individuals to go in and purchase from them. Make sure your office is nicely laid out, the signage is professionally done, and the interior and exterior are both clean and well decorated.