Archive for the ‘Marketing Tips’ Category

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7 Email Marketing Services for Your Small Business

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2015

Email Marketing

Email marketing is an efficient way to stay connected with your clients while also promoting your business. It can reach a wide audience in a short period of time and allows recipients to immediately act on messages. Regularly delivered email messages with proper subject lines and logos reinforce company and product awareness. Thanks to effective email marketing software, you can maintain an email list that has been segmented based on several factors including the length of time addresses have been on the list, customers’ likes and dislikes, spending habits and other important criteria. Emails are then created and sent out to specifically target members of your email list, providing them with a personalized email detailing information that they are interested in or have requested. This helps promote trust and loyalty to a company while also increasing sales.

Here are 7 email marketing services that can help you begin to build an email marketing list and use it to grow your business.

1. AWeber –  An email marketing program that provides 150 templates and a host of powerful, easy-to-use email marketing tools.

2. Campaigner – A simple email creation tool that offers 1,200 possible email variations.

3. Constant Contact – An email marketing tool that includes free personal coaching and support by phone, email, chat, and in person.

4. GetResponse – An email marketing solution that helps small business owners deliver information and convert subscribers to paying customers.

5. iContact – An email and social media marketing tool that is built around small business needs.

6. MailChimp – An email marketing tool that was created to grow with your business.

7. VerticalResponse – An email marketing service that includes 700 templates and step-by-step email creation tools.

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What is Content Marketing?

Wednesday, June 10th, 2015

Content Marketing Cycle

Content marketing isn’t a new concept. Brands have employed content to reach audience for decades, but it’s only recently that the phrase “Content Marketing” has come into vogue, largely due to audience fragmentation stemming largely from the spread of social media and shifting consumer interests. Content marketing’s purpose is to attract and retain customers by consistently creating and curating relevant and valuable content with the intention of changing or enhancing consumer behavior. It is an ongoing process that is best integrated into your overall marketing strategy, and it focuses on owning media, not renting it.

Basically, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruption marketing. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent. The essence of this content strategy is the belief that if we, as businesses, deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty. The type of content that is shared usually will be closely related to what the company sell; in other words, the comapny is educating people so that they know, like, and trust the company enough to do business with them.

Some tips to have an effective content marketing:

Use images to drive deeper engagement – Visual content platforms like Pinterest, Snapchat and Instagram are more popular with consumers than ever – Providing plenty of opportunities for brands to tell compelling stories and forge meaningful connections based on their mutual areas of interest.

Connect with the audience through compassion – Supporting worthy causes through your content efforts humanises your brand and can help demonstrate its commitment to the causes and issues about which your audience cares the most.

Give audience, the members a way to share their passions – Empowering your fans and followers to show off their personalities in a brand-relevant way is a win-win – you gain a better understanding of their needs and interests and they get a powerful, prominent platform for self-expression and creativity.

 

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What You Need to Know About Branding…

Tuesday, May 26th, 2015

Branding

Every business wants to be a customer’s first choice. Building and managing a brand can play a significant part in making that happen. In a world of infinite choices, branding that helps people remember your company is more important than ever. Today consumers have a seemingly endless choice of retailers, products and services available at their fingertips online, or at the local shopping centres or shopping malls. Some feel that for national and international companies, spending large to create a corporate image or brand works, some feel otherwise.

Does that mean, a small business owner should just forget about branding? For small businesses, what sets apart the business can be factors such as high quality, craftsmanship, personalised customer service, faster turn around, local tips to help customers make the proper product selections, and similar qualitative factors. The most cost effective way to grow your small business is using the tried and true model of direct response marketing online and in print. A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day. It is important to spend time investing in researching, defining and building your brand even it is a small business.

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How to Get Creative – When You’re Not

Thursday, January 15th, 2015

Colour Wheel

When asked in an interview with Leo Burnett Worldwide’s Mark Tutssel, whether creativity could be nurtured. No, is his take. He said “I think great creativity is something you either have or you don’t”. However, he added that certain skills could be learned over the years.

There is always a debate ongoing on creativity whether its “nature versus nurture”. Creativity plays an important role in our designing field. Here are some tips to rejuvenate your tired mind. Creativity often involves adapting an idea to make it your own. Continually expose yourself to new ideas and the creative well will never run dry. Whether it’s outside your house or just outside your mind, changing your perspective will help the ideas flow. Having a pen and paper on you at all times is the best way to catch every bit of inspiration that comes your way.

A study by Scientific American says that “Distraction is not always bad.” Insight problems involve thinking outside the box. This is where susceptibility to ‘distraction’ can be of benefit. At off-peak times we are less focused, and may consider a broader range of information. This wider scope gives us access to more alternatives and diverse interpretations, thus fostering innovation and insight”.

A 2009 study by the university of British Columbia asked the question: What colour most improves brain performance and receptivity to advertising, red or blue? The finding showed that both colours can. However, while red is the most effective at enhancing our attention to detail, blue is best at boosting our ability to think creatively. Try these tips and you’ll find that your creativity blossoms naturally. All it needs is fertile soil in which to grow.

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Responsive Website

Friday, November 28th, 2014

JCST Brochure

Responsive Web Design (RWD) simplify the layout and adapt to various screen sizes. It is targeted at smartphone users with various sizes of their handheld devices. Retailers are joining the trend providing shoppers a mobile friendly viewing across many devices be it iOS or Android. The main objectives is to let viewers easy to see and navigate with their own devices. What retailers would like to hear most is the lower cost of maintenance. One website for all devices and there is no need to re-direct. The development of RWD can be done by most web programmers with better CSS coding skills.

However, in order to get to that stage need major re-design of existing website and large amount of data exchange that will slow down performance. User may find it easier to browse through and doesn’t know the technology behind. So do retailers. The benefit of RWD may seems invisible as compared to the investment needed.

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Marketing vs Advertising

Thursday, November 6th, 2014

Marketing vs Advertising

Advertising and Marketing appear to be similar but not the same. It is confusing. As a start, all aspects of Advertising is a small part of Marketing.
Advertising is the connectivity between the product and consumer or general public. It can be print, radio, television or online advertising.

Marketing involves planning of business activities bringing together the product owner and customers. It has a wider scope which covers Advertising, Pricing Strategy, Distribution Channel, Public Relation etc. Advertising being a small part of the Marketing, incurred the largest expenses. Barron’s Dictionary of Marketing describes it as a “paid form of a nonpersonal message communicated through various media. [It] is persuasive and informational and is designed to influence the purchasing behaviour and/or thought patterns of the audience.”

As advertising cost increases, company have to maximise their advertising dollars and the choice of media mix used to target and isolate potential customers and at the same time expose the products and services in the market. Since potential customers are bombarded with thousands of advertisements, being able to stand out from the crowd definitely have a competitive edge. By choosing to work with advertising professionals, there is a better chance of getting it right.

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Social Media and Your Business

Tuesday, September 30th, 2014

Social Media

Since the boom of social media in the last decade, companies with small marketing budget now have a new sets of tools to make their known and generate new business. Social media rate of growth is phenomenal. According to Search Engine Journal, if Facebook were a country, it will be 3rd largest country in the world. Imagine the impact on your business compare to conventional media marketing. According to “The State of Small Business Report,” sponsored by Network Solutions, LLC and the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, “The study results show that social media usage by small business owners increased from 12% to 24% in just the last year, and almost 1 out of 5 actively uses social media as part of his or her marketing strategy”.

So if you are a small business owner and not utilising this tool, what are you waiting for? Choose a platform (Facebook, Tweeter, Linked-In etc) sign up and start engaging your customers. Keep yourselves and your customers up to date and stay current.

Of all the social platform out there, which one is suitable for your business? Like most convention media advertising, your target audience will determine which media platform to use. Let’s consider the followings:

1. Facebook – By far the largest social media channel. Almost everyone has an account. Suitable for Business to Customers (B2C) product and services.
2. Twitter – It is fast and great for connecting potential customers that are not in your network.
3. LinkedIn – Businesses to Businesses (B2B). Professionals looking for products and services. A social network with business in mind.

As a small business owners, concentrate your efforts to just one media platform as a start and build up gradually.

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How to write Marketing Brief

Tuesday, December 31st, 2013

A Marketing Brief is a document listing the expectations by a company’s marketing team regarding a finished project. It is the best way for the marketer to layout a framework for the creative team. Composing a Marketing Brief provides the proper amount of research, evaluation and planning needed to execute a successful marketing plan.

Below listed are the few tips to write a Marketing Brief

Introduction
Direction and Key points – General purpose and idea of the marketing plan.

Company Review
Company Characteristics – System of operation (online customer, call centre, scheduled appointments etc.).
Competitive Environment Analysis – Identifying the industry leaders and the processes used.

Marketing Objectives
Target Market – Who is the intended customer.
Profile – Defining the “Call to Action”.
Sales Objectives – Calculate breakeven point and the top end of estimations.

Implementing Strategies
Product Strategies – Product differentiations, advantages and niche components.
Price Strategies –  Defining the strongest price point.
Promotion Strategies – Plan to promote and raise awareness.

e-Marketing Strategies
Original web content, social media, online risks, email marketing, SEO & SEM.

There is nothing worse than paying for a piece of work that just doesn’t do the trick. So creating a good Marketing Brief will help the companies marketing team to do the magic.

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What is Lead Generation?

Friday, December 13th, 2013

There are different marketing and sales strategies that business use. One such strategy is Lead Generation. Lead generation is the process of gathering potential clients and making a list that may be used as basis for succeeding promotional campaigns and sales pitches.

How is Lead Generation done?

There are many ways to do lead generation. One of the most known technique to gather leads is to use website contact forms. These are fields of inquiry that are placed in the actual website of the business. They require essential information like the name and contact details of the potential lead. Those who are interested with the product that the business offer can sign up so they can receive updates about the brand. Business owner can also use lead generation software that can be bought straight from the developers. This is a tool that is integral in the launching of lead generation campaigns because it gathers the list of potential clients and then categorises them in terms of qualifications. Other lead generation strategies that can be used are networking groups, brochures, participating in trade shows, referrals, cross promotions and co-marketing, SEO & SEM, using social media etc..

Using these strategies combined with other marketing activities such as newspaper advertising and directory listing will ensure that the business will always have a constant stream of new leads to convert into.

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Small Business Marketing Plan

Friday, November 29th, 2013

Every small business owner needs a marketing plan in order to grow his or her business. It is important to select a marketing plan that suits your needs. A marketing plan forms the first part of your overall business. Marketing plan can benefits from the sections outlined below.

Outline your Marketing Strategy
Before getting in to the detail of your marketing plan, it is important for you to create a marketing strategy that outlines your business essentials, your target market, tactics on how you intend to reach that market, and your competitive position in that market. Often, the marketing strategy can be captured in a simple mission statement that provides answer to questions like “What are you doing?” and “Why are you doing it?”

Identify your Target Audience
Determine who constitutes the target market for the purchase of your product. It is important to have a good understanding of the products you are selling so as to understand the nature of the customers.

Determine and define what makes your company unique
You may want to prepare a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) that describe how your service differ from those of your competitors, make an analysis of your competitors. Evaluate other business that engage in the same kind of product and service. A SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) analysis can be an effective tool for analysing competition.

Create a Pricing Strategy
A slightly lower price as compared to that of competitors can be employed to promote market penetration.

Create a Marketing Budget
The overall marketing budget should cover the strategies that will work best for your industry.

Establish a Break-even point and Performance Metrics
How many products you need to sell before you start realising a profit & measuring what has been achieved so far will help you understand areas that you need to improve on.

As a small business owner, identifying and focusing on the potential ideal customer can help you generate a small business marketing plan that can be extremely beneficial in expanding your reach and revenue base.

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What is SEO & SEM?

Wednesday, November 13th, 2013

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) are two very common buzz words that are used when we want to promote a website or a product. SEM is simply marketing by aiming to gain visibility in search engine results. This can be done in a variety of ways including paid placements, contextual advertising, paid inclusion and of course via SEO. So the main difference between SEO and SEM is that SEO is simply one aspect of the much bigger SEM.

SEO is the practice of optimizing a site’s content so that it would rank higher in search engines. This mostly involve the proper distribution of keywords, increasing the number of backlinks and making it easier for robots to proper index the site. A robot or spider is the software used by search engine to determine how relevant that page is to what the user is searching for.

Other aspect of SEM, like paid placement and paid inclusion, require an additional cash outlay but are not really essential to the site. On the other hand, good SEO should also include making content that is relevant to the user. Even if a site mange to get a user with the other SEM methods, user would not stay if there is no usable contents on the Site. In this regard, it is easy to conclude that SEO is the cheaper option as we would be hitting two birds with one stone. Since we would need content anyway, making sure that it is optimized for the search engine is just a smaller adjustment.

The main disadvantage of SEO is speed, while other SEM styles get results instantly, employing purely SEO produces results in a delayed fashion. This is because it takes some time before the crawlers go through the site’s pages that constantly change content because the indexed data may no longer reflect the true content of the page.

SEM is a broad topic that covers a lot. SEO is only one part of it, but it is the important aspect. With limited resources, SEO is the best option to pursue. But if we want results quickly without concern for the expense, using the full array of SEM techniques should get us instant results also SEM allows you to do a 6-month or 12-month campaign therefore cutting the cost down.

In conclusion, SEM works like a quick fix and SEO is for long term, obviously also need more time to implement.

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What is a Creative Brief?

Tuesday, November 5th, 2013

A Creative Brief is simply a document that provides a detailed overview of the project. It often includes information such as the goal of the project or campaign, what needs to be created, the product or service featured and its top features and benefits. Details on special offers, pricing, or incentives, insights into the target audience, an analysis of the competition, the project schedule and etc. A basic creative brief always should includes the purpose of the ad as well as the profile of the target audience. The purpose of the ad refers to the desired reaction of the target audience, including how should the ad make them feel or what should the ad make them do. The brief may also contain the background of the client and/or ad campaign, if relevant to the project. To cut down the amount of bother to the client, however, the creative brief will almost always spell out any definite things the client doesn’t want to see in the ad as well as any things the client wants to be included. If the creative team is fairly inexperienced, the brief may add a considerable number of copy points to help focus the ad. For example, the brief for a cough drop ad may list suggestions such as mentioning the soothing action of eucalyptus by looking for the special blue circle symbol found on the package. This way, the copywriter would include information about that in the ad copy while the art director could ensure the blue circle is shown in the graphics for the ad.

So let the Creative Brief act as your guiding instrument and understand that time spent on a well-designed brief is an investment paying handsome dividends; greatly improved process, a higher quality of output and ultimately a more trusting relationship with your team or client.

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