Small Business Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Nadine MullingsNadine Mullings

September

23 2014

The 3 R’s of Relationship Marketing

In my previous post, How to Grow Your Business with Relationship Marketing, I defined Relationship Marketing as the activities involved in building a greater connection with your clients, prospects and partners. This strong connection often leads to the sale of products or services, and also increases loyalty to your brand or company.

The benefits of using Relationship Marketing strategies in your business include the following 3 R’s:

Referral Business– Referral business can be one of the best ways to get business, because a referral basically comes with an endorsement from the person who is doing the referring. A great source of referrals comes from current clients, partners, and even your prospects, so building a strong relationship with your clients, prospects, and partners becomes vital for your business. In order for someone to feel comfortable referring you, they must know, like and trust you. When you use online relationship marketing strategies including, email, blogging, social media, etc., these activities help people to get to know you, like you and trust you, which in turn gives them confidence in referring your products or services to others. Referrals can be a great source of new business and can be a large percentage of where you get your business from, so nurturing your relationships with relationship marketing is a great way to grow your business through referrals.
Repeat Business– Once a person becomes your customer by purchasing a product or a service, your next goal should be to stay top of mind so that they will purchase that product or service again if they need it, or they will consider your company for other products or services that they may need. That’s why conducting relationship marketing with your current customers by practicing activities to nurture the relationship and stay top of mind will help with getting repeat business from your current customers. Some relationship marketing strategies you can use for current customers include; Customer Appreciation Events, Sending Cards on special occassions including: Birthdays, Holidays, Anniversaries, Offering VIP discounts for current customers, etc.
Retain Business– It tends to be more expensive to get a new customer than it is to retain the customers that you have, so it is important to nurture the relationships that you have with your current customers to make sure that you keep their business. Some relationship marketing strategies to retain business include, showing appreciation for their business by sending “Thank You” cards, making follow-up calls to make sure they are satisfied with the service they have received or are receiving from your company, providing an excellent customer experience. The customer experience includes pre-purchase, during purchasing, and post purchase. How are you making sure that each step is a good encounter for your customer?

Are you using Relationship Marketing strategies to retain business and get repeat and referral business? What are some other relationship marketing strategies you can use to grow your business?

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Business Development, Marketing, Small Business

September

10 2014

How to Grow Your Business with Relationship Marketing

Dictionary.com defines a relationship as a connection, association, or involvement. It also defines marketing as the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer.

My definition of Relationship Marketing is the activities involved in building a greater connection with your clients, prospects and partners. This strong connection often leads to the sale of products or services, and also increases loyalty to your brand or company.

With that said, Relationship Marketing is a key part of your overall marketing strategy, and should occur both online and offline.

In this blog post I will mention a few activities that you should include in your Relationship Marketing:

ONLINE

In order to build a connection online with your clients, prospects, and partners, it is important to have an online presence. Included in your online presence should be the following activities:

A Company Blog– In addition to having a company website, a company blog can help to build the relationship that you have with your audience, because a blog allows you to show your expertise, knowledge and personality in ways that a website alone does not accomplish. The key to a successful business blog is:
1. It should be updated frequently
2. It should contain valuable content relevant to your audience
3. It should showcase the personality of your brand
A Social Media Presence– It’s not necessary to be on all the popular social networks out there, but it is beneficially for your company to be on social networks that have a high percentage of your target market, and networks that will showcase your business well. Social Networks are a great way to strength your connection with your clients, prospects, and partners because it allows you to create a conversation around your company, industry, products, services, values, beliefs, etc. The key to a successful social media presence is:
1. Know your audience
2. Post content that is interesting to your audience
3. Create conversations
An E-Newsletter or EZine– An email publication that your company produces is a great way to strengthen the connection that you have with customers, prospects and partners. It is a great way for your audience to get to know you and get to know what your company stands for. The key to a successful E-Newletter is:
1. Know your audience
2. Give valuable information in each ezine
3. Provide 80% valuable content and only 20% company promotions

OFFLINE

Events– Plan events to show appreciation for your customers and partners. Taking the time to host these events can build a strong connection with you and your customers and partners. It also helps to solidify their loyalty to your company. You can also have events to introduce your prospects to your business or your brand. Grand Openings, Launch Parties, etc. are all great ways for people to get to know more about you, your company, and your brand.
One-on-One Meetings– When possible, schedule one-on-one meetings with your clients, prospects and partners. This is a great way to build a strong connection, and for people to get to know, like and trust you.
Send Cards– It is important to send your customers, prospects and partners cards on various occasions. This could include birthdays, anniversary, Thank You for Your Business, Thank You for Your Time, Happy Holiday cards and more. Taking the time out to send your customers, prospects and partners cards really helps to create loyalty and build trust.

These are just a few ways you can use Relationship Marketing to GROW your business. What other ways can you think of in which you can use Relationship Marketing to grow your business?

Posted by Nadine Mullings | 2 Comments | in Blog, Business Development, Email Marketing, Event Marketing, Marketing, Small Business, Social Media

August

26 2014

8 Tips for Creating a “Social Business” (Part 2)

Image Source: copyright Hootsuite

As mentioned in 8 Tips for Creating a “Social Business” (Part 1), having a “Social Business” is different than just being on a “Social Network”. In order to be “social” on a social network, you must have a “social business”.

In this blog post, I will share tips 5-8 for creating a social business. The inspiration and original content for this post is provided by Evan LePage. Originally posted on HootSource.

Tip 5- Collaborate

Be sure to encourage your team members to distribute new learning both within the team and your organization as a whole. Keep an ongoing loop of discovery and dissemination where best practices, positive messaging or common questions are put forward for comment or collaboration. Social platforms like Yammer and Hootsuite Conversations are exceptional tools for supporting secure internal conversation and exchange of ideas.

Ultimately better internal collaboration supports improved external engagement, keeping messaging consistent, intelligent and brand-appropriate.

Tip 6- Secure

Fear over losing control is an understandable barrier to implementing social media across an organization. It is important to note that mistakes are preventable. In many popular cases the missteps were handled well and the damage to each organization was more along the lines of temporary embarrassment than anything permanent, but why not stop them before they occur?

Hootsuite developed Secure Profiles specifically in response to instances like these to put a solid measure of prevention in place. This provides an extra prompt when publishing to important branded accounts, preventing errant posts intended for personal accounts.

Limited Permissions is another unique security feature. Hootsuite offers multiple levels of account access and places limits on which team members can participate in outbound social conversation directly. The Limited Permissions puts control over publishing firmly in the hands of those who are most trusted. Your social tools should too.

Tip 7- Measure ROI

Tie social to the big picture by linking it to organizational and departmental goals. Users can start with tracking the Like, @mention, Retweet or Follow, but tap in to the power to go much further and deeper. Build the capacity for measurement into every social action. Use URL shorteners, like Hootsuite’s ow.ly links, to track your click-throughs. Integrate Google Analytics and Facebook Insights to track on-site conversions or drill in to geographic disparities in data.

One of the more powerful, recent integrations at Hootsuite is the partnership with Adobe SiteCatalyst. For the first time ever, you’re able to track the path from social message to conversion and attach a dollar value to individual social messages against Key Performance Indicators. You’re able to see which social platform performs best against certain kinds of messaging, analyze which of your Social Advocates is driving more revenue per message and understand what times of day work best for which kinds of communication.

Reporting is important. With Hootsuite you can use data gained from Adobe SiteCatalyst, Webtrends, Facebook Insights, Google Analytics, Google+ Pages Analytics, Twitter Profile Stats, Hootsuite’s custom ow.ly Click Stats to generate easy, drag and drop social analytics reports shared easily by email. More importantly, you can analyze that data to optimize future programs and messaging.

Tip 8- Amplify

When you have a piece of content that is a “hit,” double down. One of the benefits of good measurement and understanding of your data is the ability to hone your messaging and understand what did and didn’t work from a content perspective. Organic social is testing your content for you. Paid social allows you to commit dollars with data-backed belief in your programs and messaging. Invest in promoted tweets, accounts or trends across social platforms or accounts that have already demonstrated the highest yield.

With paid social companies can drill down to microtarget users – either their own followers or people “like” their followers – based on literally hundreds of different interests, by country and city, gender and even device. Companies only pay when users “engage” with the Promoted Tweet in some way, i.e. by clicking on a link or retweeting it. Native ads are also very agile. Members of an organization can log in at any time, create a message and instantly push it to a global audience as a Promoted Tweet. An eBay-style bidding system means prime ad spots always go for the lowest price, minimizing ad spend. The time-consuming (not to mention pricey) requirements of traditional ad campaigns – design teams, creative agencies and media buyers – can’t make the same claim.

Summary:

Social is here to stay and to maintain a competitive advantage, businesses need to stay abreast of this ever-evolving space. Hootsuite Pro helps teams engage with audiences and analyze campaigns across multiple social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn from one secure web-based dashboard.

Sign up for a 30-day FREE trial

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Marketing, Small Business, Social Media

April

07 2014

7 Surprising Ways to Get Repeat & Referral Business

It is a fact that one of the best ways to grow your business is by building the relationship that you have with your current customers. Most small businesses overlook this fact and concentrate on new customers and new business, but don’t neglect your existing customers because they can really help you grow your business.

In this blog post, I will cover 7 surprising ways you can get repeat and referral business from your current customers:

Send your customers a birthday card. Yes, I am talking the old fashioned in the snail mail birthday card. Now a days, so few people take the time to send family, friends and customers physical cards that it would be a welcome surprise for your customer to receive a card from you. Depending on the size of your customer database, this could be an expensive undertaking, so I suggest if you cannot send a birthday card to every customer, make sure that you send one to your most loyal and repeat customers. It’s a great way to show that you care about your customers, and it’s a great opportunity to add a special offer for additional products or services. I get a birthday card and a $10 off gift card from a popular women’s apparel store every year, and most of the time I go in the store to use my gift card. I am pretty sure this strategy is working for this retail store because I continue to get a card every year.
Send your customers an anniversary card. You should have the date that your client started using your services on file, so wouldn’t it be great if you sent an anniversary card close to the anniversary date? It is a great way to stay top of mind, and to stand out in your client’s mind. An auto dealership used this strategy and sent out anniversary cards to all customers who had purchased a vehicle from the dealership each month. The card included a discount to use their auto parts & service department. It was a great way to strengthen the relationship with the customer and get them to come in for additional services.
Send your customer a “Thank You for Your Business” card. Whenever you close a deal or get a new account, it is the start of a new business relationship. Why not show your customers how much you appreciate this new relationship and send a thank you for your business card. You will be surprised how this can make you stand out as a business and strengthen the new business relationship. Paying attention to the little details also makes customers more encouraged to send referral business to you because they know you will treat the person who they refer with as much care as you have treated them.
Send your potential customer a “Thank You for Your Time” card. Sometimes you may not get the business on the first appointment. That’s why it is important to follow-up with the prospect with a card thanking her for her time. This will allow you to stand out and when the customer is ready to make a purchase because you took this additional step, your chances of being the one to get the business is much higher.
Send your customers holiday cards. Whether it is one of the popular holidays like Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, Independence Day, or one of those less popular holidays like President’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, etc. take the time to send your customers a holiday card for the holidays that you feel would be appropriate. I know I have said this before, but people just don’t get a lot of cards anymore, so receiving a card from your company on a special holiday can really make your company shine!
Send a customer a life milestone card. Sometimes you may know of a special event that occurred in your customer’s life, like the birth of a grandchild, or the graduation of a child, or an engagement or marriage. Whatever the special occasion may be, sending a nice card to your customer to recognize the milestone is great way to build the business relationship and for you to stand out as someone who cares about your customers.
Send your customers a special invitation to an upcoming promotional event. Having consistent events to promote your business is always a smart thing to do, but making sure you send a special invitation to your VIPs, loyal, or repeat customers is sometimes overlooked. Receiving an email about an event can sometimes get lost in the shuffle, so sending an invitation via the mail can help your event to stand out and will keep your company and the event top of mind for your customers.

You will notice that the common element for each one of these tips is to send a card! A great system to use to automate the sending of cards and gifts for your clients is SendOutCards. SendOutCards is an online system that allows you to select a card, customize the card, add the contact information for the recipient or upload a list of contacts, and hit send. The card will then be printed, stuffed, and mailed to the recipient(s) all by the click of your mouse. In addition, you’re able to keep track of all the cards and gifts that you send because the system keeps a record of everything for you.

For more information go to www.SendOutCards.com If you decide that you want to use the system to send your cards and gifts, you can use id#155454 to join.

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Business Development, Business Events, Event Marketing, Marketing, Small Business, Uncategorized

March

25 2014

Do you have a business MAP?

When you’re planning a road trip, it is important to map out your route and decide the best way to reach your destination. In the old days, when people went on long road trips, they would use an old fashion map to plot out the best roads to take, and to decide which route would be the shortest, the most scenic, or would have less traffic. Now a days, in the technological society that we live in, people have GPS systems in their cars or on their smart phones. These GPS systems help to guide them to their next destination. No matter whether you are using an old fashioned MAP or a GPS, it requires that you take action (drive) in order to get to your destination.

Similar to a road trip, navigating where you would like your business to go requires a MAP that will help you determine the next step to take, and the best way to go. I consider a MAP for your business to be a Marketing Action Plan (MAP). A MAP shows what action you need to take daily, weekly, monthly or yearly to get your business to your destination (whatever that destination may be for your business).

So how do you create a business Marketing Action Plan (MAP)?

Step 1- Determine where it is you want to GO.

The key to this step is to be specific in what you want for your business. For example, do you want to reach a certain amount of sales for the month? Do you want a certain amount of qualified leads? Do you want to have a certain amount of referrals per week? You need to be clear on exactly what your business goals are, before you can put a plan in place to reach it.

The key here is to set your goals before you start your trip!

Step 2- Determine the ACTION required in order to reach your goal

Sounds simple enough right? Now that you have determined what your goals are, what necessary steps and action do you need to take in order to reach your goal? It could be as simple as two prospect meetings a week, three follow-up phone calls a day, four networking meetings a month, etc. You have to work out the numbers that make sense for your business and take the necessary ACTION to reach those numbers.

The key here is once you know how many meetings, events, phone calls, etc. that it takes to get a closed sale, then you need to take the ACTION in order to achieve those numbers

Step 3- Create a PLAN

Ok, I know I say this a lot, but you really need to have a plan for almost everything you do in business, and this includes having a plan for the action you are going to take on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. Your plan is something that is forever changing, but you MUST have it in place in order to be successful and reach your destination. A Marketing Action Plan is different than a Marketing Plan. Check out my last post about creating a Marketing Plan. An action plan is more like your daily, weekly, or monthly “To Do” list that helps you to move forward to reach your ultimate business goals.

The key here is to have it in writing! It’s amazing what will happen when you take the things you have in your head as to what you need to do and put it on paper. Once you put it on paper, you are bringing it to life!

So in conclusion, much like when you go on a trip you make sure you have directions, a map, your GPS, etc. the same applies for your business, you must have a business MAP in order to successfully reach your destination. Once you have taken all the necessary ACTION, you can say, “I have reached my destination!”

Do you have a business MAP? What do you do to make sure you are taking daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly ACTION in order to reach your business goals?

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Business Development, Marketing, Small Business, Uncategorized

February

09 2014

4 Reasons Your Business should be on Social Media

When it comes to social media for businesses, the question really isn’t if you should be on social media, but which social network your business should be on. There are so many social media networks out there that it can be hard to decide which social media network is right for your business, but for those business owners who are still undecided as to whether they should even be on any social networks, here are 4 reasons why your business should be on Social Media:

To Stay Top of Mind with Your Current Customers- Social Media is a great way to keep the conversation going with your customers. It allows your customers to be able to see another side of your business through the posts that you include on your social networks. This also helps to build a stronger connection with your customers. Statistics show that people who follow a company on social media are more likely to purchase than if they do not. Being in someone’s news feed is a great way for them to remember your business and when they are in the market for what you have to offer, your business will be top of mind.
To Reach New Prospects for Your Business– Social Media is also a great way to reach new prospects and potential customers. You can reach new prospects through two main avenues via social media:

Organically– When one of your followers or fans share your information with their networks, it gives your company an opportunity to be introduced to a new group of people. If they like what you posts you could also get some new followers and fans.

Paid– If you have a marketing budget, you may want to consider investing in some advertising on your social media networks because this allows you to reach individuals who are not current fans or followers and potentially get new fans and followers.

3. For Market Research– Social Media is a great place to conduct market research. No need to hire a market research company, you can question, survey and poll your followers on social media. This is a cost effective way of finding out the needs of your market and to make sure you are providing the right solutions.

4. To Remain Current– As much as we don’t like to admit it, customers kind of expect that your business will be on social media. You want to show that your business is current and involved in the newer ways to communicate. It’s kind of like when businesses first started to get websites, after awhile if you didn’t have a website your business did not look current or up to date, so it is important to stay current, which includes being involved in social media.

What reasons do you have for your business to be on social media?

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Blog, Business, Marketing, Small Business, Social Media

January

15 2014

How to pick an Email Marketing Service Provider

Are you using email marketing for your business?
Are you trying to decide what email marketing service provider to use?

If you are using email marketing for your business, or you are considering using email marketing, you have probably found out that there are hundreds maybe even thousands of email marketing service providers out there. So how do you decide which one is right for you? It would be impossible for me to mention them all in this post, so I have narrowed it down to the top three that seem to be at the top of everyone’s list; MailChimp, Constant Contact, and AWeber. Based on the popularity of these companies, I decided to do a post that compares these companies on customer base, price and product features.

MailChimp

MailChimp has the largest customer base with over 4,000,000 customers according to their website. I suspect that their large customer base may have to do with the fact that they have a “Forever Free” product that allows small businesses to use their product and several of the main features for free as long as they don’t have more than 2,000 subscribers. In addition, if someone opted to upgraded to a paid account, MailChimp has the lowest priced monthly package of the three companies at $10/month.

Another advantage MailChimp has over the other Email Marketing Services providers is that they have several great features like automated list segmentation. Their system allows you to segment your email list based on several already defined factors that you can select or adjust (i.e. member rating, subscriber activity, location, etc.). MailChimp is also great if you want to upload an unlimited amount of images to use in your email. Constant Contact and Aweber have limitations on the amount of images you can upload to their systems or the storage size available for the images you upload.

MailChimp also offers the following features that neither Constant Contact or Aweber offer:

Event Triggered Autoresponders– this allows you to send a follow-up email to someone based on an action they have taken within your email.
A/B Testing– this gives you the option of testing elements of your email campaign to see which one works better via A/B testing.
Inbox Preview– this offers you the ability to preview your email and see how it looks over various email providers like gmail, yahoo, aol, etc.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is in the middle of the three companies with over 500,000 customers according to their website. They are also in the middle with price. They offer a 60-day FREE trial option, and their lowest priced package after the trial period is $15/month. One of the features that stands out with the Constant Contact email marketing product is the fact that they offer you an extensive Contact Management System that allows you to treat your list as not just subscribers, but contacts in which you can add additional information on each contact like the person’s phone number, address, special notes, social networks, etc. making the system more of a type of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) instead of just a list of subscribers. Constant Contact also offers its customers direct access to quality stock images to use in their email, but there is an additional cost for this feature.

In addition, although email marketing is their main product, Constant Contact offers a suite of solutions for small business owners (at an additional cost). Allowing you to create a dashboard of online marketing tools that complement your email marketing product. These tools include:

EventSpot- A tool to help you manage events online
Social Campaigns– A tool to help you grow your fans on social media
SaveLocal– Allows you to create offer deals to send to your customers
Online Surveys– Online Surveys, Polls, & Questions to get your customers feedback
And more…

Constant Contact also offers a lot of support. Depending on where you are located, Constant Contact offers many local FREE workshops and seminars to help educate the community about email marketing. Another great feature that Constant Contact offers is FREE coaching for its customers and phone-based customer service.

AWeber

AWeber comes in at the lower end as far as amount of customers served with over 120,000 customers according to their website. AWeber does not offer a free option or free trial, but does offer the first 30 days for $1. After the first 30 days the lowest priced package is $19/month. As far as features, an outstanding feature that is include in the AWeber email marketing system is the ability to convert your blog post into an email newsletter with the click of a button (MailChimp also offers this feature). AWeber also claims to offer some of the best email delivery rates in the business.

AWeber also offers customer service via phone 7 days a week (Constant Contact also offers phone support).

So the key takeaway from this analysis is you have to figure out what features are most important to you and select the company that has those important features!

Please see the chart below for a full comparison:

	MailChimp	Constant Contact	AWeber
Customers	Over 4,000,000	Over 500,000	Over 120,000
FREE Option	Forever Free	60-day Trial	No (first month for $1)
Lowest Priced Package	$10/month	$15/month	$19/month
Features of Lowest Priced Packages:
Subscribers	0-500	0-500	0-500
Emails per Month	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
List Features:
Contact Management System	Limited	YES	NO
List Segmentation Available	YES	YES- Limited	YES
Sign-up Forms	YES	YES	YES
Geolocation	YES	NO	YES
Email Features:
Customizable Email Templates	YES	YES	YES
Image Hosting	Unlimited	Limited (Up to 5 images)	Unlimited (Up to 10 MB)
Access to additional Stock Images	YES- via APP	Additional Cost ($5/month)	NO
Drag & Drop Editing	YES	YES	YES
Mobile Responsive Email Templates Available	YES	YES	YES
Autoresponder Emails	YES- New Subscribers and Event based	Limited- New Subscribers Only	Limited- New Subscribers Only
A/B Testing	YES	NO	NO
Inbox Preview for various Email Providers (i.e. gmail, yahoo, aol, etc.)	YES	NO	NO
Integration Features:
APP & Integration	YES	YES	YES
RSS/Blog Integration	YES	NO	YES
Social Media Features:
Share Email with Your Social Networks	YES	YES	YES
Social Follow Buttons	YES	YES	YES
Social Share Buttons	YES	YES	YES
Reporting/Archive Features:
Campaign Archives	YES	Additional Cost	YES
Reports	YES	YES	YES
Google Analytics Integration	YES	YES	YES
Customer Service:
Phone Customer Service	NO- Text or Chat Only	YES	YES

All information in this posts is based on information on the email marketing service provider’s website or obtained after talking to a representative from the company. Features are based on current (January 2014) information.

Disclosure: I have used both Constant Contact and MailChimp for my clients. I have not used AWeber. Although I like to feel that my analysis is not bias, I believe it is important to mention that I am a Solutions Provider for Constant Contact.

Posted by Nadine Mullings | 1 Comment | in Blog, Email Marketing, Marketing, Small Business

December

27 2013

When it Comes to Your Marketing Message, What You Say Matters!

When it comes to getting your potential customers to take ACTION and PURCHASE your product or service, what you say really matters! For a business to consumer (B2C) type of company, potential customers are more moved by emotional reasons rather than logical reasons for purchasing, so creating messaging that plays into the emotional side of the sale, really works well for a B2C type of business.

On the other hand, for a business to business (B2B) type of company, businesses are less interested in the emotional side of the sale and more interested in the cold hard facts and the bottom line!

So how do you make sure you are communicating your message effectively?

Business to Consumer (B2C)

Know the WANTS of your customers
Know how your customer FEELS
Know how your customer would like to FEEL
Show your customer how your product or service can make them FEEL
Show the BENEFITS of your product or service
Show other customers just like them who are enjoying your product or service

Business to Business (B2B)

Know the NEEDS of your customers
Know the PROBLEMS your customers may be having
Show how your product or service solves the PROBLEM
Show how your product or service can INCREASE the bottom line
Show other companies who have used your product or service and have found success

How you communicate to your target market can make the difference between SUCCESS and FAILURE. Use messaging that your target market can UNDERSTAND and RELATE TO.

What type of marketing messaging have you found to be successful for your business?

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Blog, Business, Business Development, Marketing, Small Business

December

17 2013

How do you differentiate your small business from all of the rest?

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cynergy/2607120416/

Your small business is probably not the only business in the world that does what you do, so how do you differentiate your company from all of the other companies out there? The answer can be found in identify your unique selling proposition (usp). These are the things that make you and/or your company different, but sometimes it can be difficult to figure out what your unique selling proposition is? Follow these three tips to help you to differentiate yourself from the rest of the market:

KNOW YOUR INDUSTRY– the first step is to know what is going on in your industry. What is the latest and greatest thing out there. What changes have you seen in your industry? What has remained the same in your industry? How can you be an innovator within your industry? You want to make sure your company is doing things differently, don’t go with the flow, go against it! Most of the major brands out there became successful, by doing it differently or offering it in a different way. Apple did not get to be such a major brand by following the crowd and doing it the same way as the others in their industry, no Apple became a super brand by being innovative!
KNOW YOUR COMPETITORS– It helps to know what your competitors are doing, so you can be aware of what they are offering and how you can offer it in a better way. Nobody really likes to snoop around (well maybe some people do), but it helps to secretly shop your competitors and get to experience the way they do business. Sam Walton the founder of WalMart was known to be obsessed with his competitors, he wanted to know what they were doing, how they were doing it, when they were doing it, etc. so he could do it better!
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE– I know I probably say this in almost every post, but knowing your target market inside and out is really key in knowing the needs of your customers, and identifying what makes your product or service the ideal solution for your customer. McDonald knew that people wanted food quickly. They did not plan to be the best burger and fries out there, but created a system that offered reasonably good food (I know that is debatable) in a very fast way, which is what the consumers wanted!

So if you strive to be innovative, to do things differently than your competitors, and to know the needs of your audience, you are on the path to differentiate yourself from the rest of the market and becoming a successful brand!

What ways do you use to differentiate your small business?

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Business Development, Business Planning, Marketing, Small Business

December

11 2013

How to reach your IDEAL Target Market

One of the first steps to any successful marketing campaign is to IDENTIFY your IDEAL target market. When it comes to identifying your ideal target market, there are two main factors that you should consider:

DEMOGRAPHICS– this is a description of your target market that includes factors such as age, gender, income level, marital status, ethnicity, etc.
PSYCHOGRAPHICS– this is a description of the personality type and interests of your target market and includes things like, values, beliefs, characteristics, hobbies etc.

Once you take the time to describe your target market, then you are better able to REACH your ideal target market!

The next step after defining your target market is finding out where your target market gathers in LARGE quantities both online and offline. This could include places like:

Associations
Clubs
Organizations
Conferences
Tradeshows
Networking Events
Meetup groups
Facebook groups
LinkedIn groups
Specific Social Networking Groups

Now you know WHO your target market is and WHERE they hangout, the next step is HOW to reach out to them, and this could include activities such as:

Sponsoring Events
Participating in Tradeshows
Attending Conferences
Speaking at Meetings
Joining Clubs & Organizations
Partnering with associations
Online Advertising
Adding to conversations on online groups

Once you know WHO your target audience is, WHERE they hangout in large quantities, and HOW to reach out to them, you are ready to start executing your marketing campaign.

What other techniques do you use to identify and reach out to your target market?

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Business Development, Business Planning, Marketing, Small Business, Uncategorized