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Things Your Business Should be Offering to Attract Customers

Attract Customers

When you own a business, you know that customers are central to success. As such, much of your time is probably dedicated to marketing and bringing in new customers. However, while implementing a good marketing strategy is a crucial part of any business plan, there are other effective ways to bring in customers. In addition, retaining customers is cost-effective, leading to additional sales and reducing expenditure, meaning you need to focus on retention, too.

To help increase your sales as well as attract and retain customers, consider offering these additional things as part of your business.

More Shipping Options

While slow delivery options can prevent a customer from ordering, fast delivery is one of the best ways a business can outperform their industry competitors and increase sales. To improve your services, you could consider offering a range of shipping choices such as standard, next-day and collection, but this alone is not enough. Your delivery selection also needs to be competitively priced to drive sales. Furthermore, take lead from ecommerce leaders and offer cheaper or free delivery when customers reach a specified threshold, encouraging consumer spending.

Offer Perks and Incentives

Offering incentives is a proven method for bringing in new customers. It is also an effective way to show your existing customers appreciation for their dedication to your brand. Depending on the type of business you own, you could offer anything from discount codes and reward schemes to mystery item bundles and freebies. Not only does this strategy increase customer satisfaction rates, but it also encourages a sense of loyalty and makes customers feel obliged to ramp up their transaction spend.

Talk to Customers

In a world ruled by the internet, bad reviews spread quickly. So, even if you sell fantastic quality products at low prices with free shipping, customers are still going to be deterred if your service is lacking. Make sure to invest in your customer service, ensuring that you listen and talk to your customers.

Have active social media accounts where customers can reach you and interact with each other, offer online chat features enabling instant responses from your customer service representatives, and ask customers what they want and offer them the opportunity to provide feedback. If you utilise any of these options, make sure to show the personality of your brand and do not be afraid to relate to your customers on a personal level – there is nothing worse than robotic, automated responses.

In order to attract and retain customers, businesses need to listen to consider what their customers want. Offer better delivery, customer services and rewards to boost your company’s sales.

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How to Turn Your Blog into a Business

wordpress blog

If you’ve been blogging for a while, you’ll know what a great hobby it is. Blogging is a wonderful way to make new friends and contacts, share information, and learn new skills. However, you may have also noticed that many people are now turning their blogs into a profitable business. Some of them are doing incredibly well. If you want to join them, here are some things you need to do.

Grow Your Social Media Profiles

Social media is a quick and easy way to grow your blog and create a recognizable brand. To do this, you first need to make sure you are using the same logo and color scheme across all platforms. The best way to grow social media profiles such as Twitter and Instagram is to be an active user. Comment on and share others posts. They will do the same for you. On Pinterest, be sure to pin unique content, not just your own, and not just re-pinning.

Make Sure You Have Consistent Growth

A great month isn’t going to be enough if you are aiming to work with brands, writing sponsored posts or reviews. Your growth needs to be consistent. Speak to the wider blogging community, and see if you can write guest posts that contain links back to your site. Give them the same opportunity on your blog. This is a great way to build links, network, and introduce your blog to a wider audience.

Increase Your Subscribers

You might have plenty of visitors, but not many subscribers. Which isn’t all that uncommon. How many blogs do you subscribe to? Probably not as many as you read. Make subscribing as easy as possible. Have an option near your comments, as well as in your side bar and possibly even a pop up. Try not to be annoying, however, too much will put people off coming back.

Check Your SEO

Remember to check old posts. You probably didn’t know as much when you started as you do now, but these posts are still part of your site. Make sure everything looks good, uses keywords and meta descriptions, and that your pictures have titles and alt text. Also, use your site from a smartphone and tablet to make sure it offers the same user experience across platforms.

Make a Media Kit

A media kit is what you will show prospective clients, brands and people you want to work with. It needs to showcase the best of your blog. Make sure to include your branding, and some great photographs from your blog. You’ll also want to include your blogs stats, your social media followers, a bio of your blog, a short list of topics you cover, some examples of your work, and testimonials from those you have worked with. Lastly, don’t forget to include your contact details and website address.

Consider an MBA

Having strong business skills will help you massively. Studying an online MBA will equip you with all the knowledge you need to grow your business, including marketing and business planning. Look at online MBA options, and research online MBA questions people ask before deciding if this is the right path for you.

Blogging should always be fun; whatever you do, don’t let turning it into a business kill the fun. If it does, something needs to change. Remind yourself of why you started.

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Get the Growth | How to grow your business online

money

I’ll cut to the chase. I have created this short piece on growing your business online because I want to help you to find the same sort of success in business that I have been lucky enough to experience. I own two businesses and have been around long enough to remember a time when marketing didn’t equate to online, and to when you didn’t have a device in your pocket capable of calling someone by video on the other side of the world.

That’s not to say that I long for a different time – far from it! I am so excited about the digital age that we live in and love seeing all of the innovation that has come from the internet. One of the key ways in which being online has impacted on my business has been the ability for my company to grow and to ‘go global.’ For the longest time, I was constrained by the fact that I had to have all of my staff working in the office with me, and was limited by the fact that I had to have everyone in the same city as well…

Well let me tell you something. As soon as I discovered remote working waaaaay back in the early days of the internet, I jumped on it like a fox on a trampoline. Now, I am based in Hong Kong, and I simply hire one of Servcorp’s virtual offices for when I need to have client meetings. The rest of the time I enjoy the freedom, flexibility and variation of being able to work from Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia. My team have the same freedom. It’s exciting, to say the least.

I want to share my success with fellow entrepreneurs in the hopes that it helps you to grow a successful business. In order to get the results you want, you have to get the people excited online. If you’re just throwing content out there and aren’t actively engaging with your audience you won’t get an idea of what they respond to.

So let’s take a look at how to grow your business online.

Engagement

Reach out to people who are influencers in your field of work and see if you can’t get them to feature your company or brand. Along with engaging with people by asking questions, your users are going to be asking questions which you can respond to with helpful answers. This works in a couple of ways – chief among them being that you build your personality and tone of voice when you respond to people. Showing your company’s personality with thoughtful answers will go a long way towards getting people’s approval and respect. Make sure you respond to any engagement pretty promptly. If your audience can see that you’re on to things they’ll dig it.

Hold a contest

Contests are awesome for lots of reasons. They get people excited about your brand because people love free stuff, basically. Give back to your audience and get them excited about your brand and it builds their excitement about your product or brand. Be clear about what you’re communicating in your competition or product giveaway so that your intention is clear. Are you after more followers on your social media? Be clear about it. Are you after more exposure? Make it obvious. Your followers will appreciate the honesty. If you’re conducting a survey, be frank about what you want to know. People want to know that their opinion matters, and a great way to reward people is to make their voices heard. Retweet, regram and generally share the awesome stuff worth sharing.

Get them with some emotional content

It’s ok to publish the occasional bit of emotionally driven content. This is a really easy way to demonstrate the personality of your brand while sharing something that you truly care about. Don’t just hitch your wagon to a trend – make sure if you do post something emotional it needs to be genuine. Being real is the most important thing.

So behind all of this, you need to make sure that you are being consistent with your messaging and your tone of voice. That’s the way to your audience and your key to growing your business online.

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4 Tips for Designing the Perfect Brochure

Brochure design

Have you been given the task of creating a company brochure, or the brochure to launch a product or promotion? You may be wondering exactly where to start on this task – how do you create a brochure that really stands out, which is noticed for all the right reasons? What’s the difference between a good brochure and a great brochure? Read our tips for creating a professional brochure that works to meet your needs and helps you build your company and meet your marketing goals.

1. Know Your Purpose

Before you go about approaching printing companies, understand what exactly you want to achieve from your brochure project. Why do you need a brochure? What aim will it meet, and what will it achieve? What do you want to say? It is helpful to condense your message into a form which will be easy to portray in a brochure, which is a limited amount of space. You need to be concise, which is why it is helpful to have a clear idea of how you want this brochure to work for you.

2. Know Your Fonts

When it comes to brochure printing, you are not going to need more than a few fonts, for the heading, the body copy, and the subheadings. You do not want to make things too complicated with an overuse of different fonts. Also, consider keeping the brochure in line with the rest of your corporate identity and use the fonts that are already used in your business so that your brochure matches the rest of your marketing collateral.

3. Create Your Copy

Good brochure design is not all about setting images in line with the perfect fonts. Your copy needs to be smart and compelling. You need brochure copy that truly sells your product so it is a good idea to think about what you want to say before you start thinking about layout or paper. Your words often will dictate the design of the brochure. Create your headlines and your copy first so that you can work around these.

4. Think About Your Market

One of the most important things to consider when you are designing a brochure is your market. Who are you writing to? Who do you want to talk to, to inform? Think about what they want and need and make sure that your brochure design and content reflects this and helps answer their needs. Design for the person and not for your boss, or for yourself. When you create marketing material that really does make a difference to a person’s life, you know that you have created the right thing.

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Personal Qualities Of A Business Partner

partnership

While most people consider being independent and self-sufficient to be important personal qualities that a small business entrepreneur should have, in today’s volatile economic environment, it is not possible for an entrepreneur to a lone warrior and expect to succeed.  This is a common misconception that most entrepreneurs of small and medium business enterprises make while conducting the affairs of their businesses. In today’s global economy, it is not possible for a single entrepreneur to cater to all the needs of his target audience in the market and still stand apart from his/her competitors. It is imperative for entrepreneurs of small and medium scale businesses to enter into strategic partnership agreements or strategic alliances to enhance their competitive edge in the market.

Anura Perera, a renowned expert on strategic business partnerships and the secrets to their success explains most individual entrepreneurs and corporate enterprise refuse to talk to their competitors let alone enter into strategic partnerships with them. Many of these entrepreneurs and corporate enterprises even refuse to associate themselves with same social networking and business class groups as their competitors. This is an indication of weakness and fear that these entrepreneurs and corporate enterprises are not secure with their own proposition. For a competent entrepreneur or corporate enterprise, running into his/ her or its own competitors should not cause such an entrepreneur or corporate enterprise to become anxious. An entrepreneur of a small business enterprise operating and catering to the meets of a local market will have to face stiff competition from larger corporate players and may even find it difficult to stay afloat. The Anura Perera Anglo Leasing office regularly advises clients on the above.

It is imperative such entrepreneurs to look at the bigger picture and enter into strategic partnership agreements with such corporate players. Such entrepreneurs need consider them as allies rather than enemies to gain the competitive edge in the today’s market environment. In the long-run such an entrepreneur can gain by leveraging with such corporate competitors. However, it is important for such entrepreneurs to do some research on their prospecting corporate partner before entering into any legal binding agreements. The strategic business partnership needs to be mutually beneficial for both parties to be effective. Moreover, such a strategic business partnership needs to have the approval of all the stakeholders whose interests the partnership agreement is likely to effect to avoid any possible future conflicts. Even the entrepreneur should not ignore the interests and power of the community his/her business enterprise caters to while entering into a strategic business partnership with a corporate enterprise.

Anura Perera emphasizes that corporate enterprises that create the fastest growth are aware that strategic business partnerships with promising and ambitious small business entrepreneurs is best way to get ahead of the competition in the market. Moreover, for entrepreneurs of small and medium business enterprises need confronting their fears and taking the initiative for enter into strategic business partnerships with such corporate enterprises in order to survive and strive in today’s market economy. Such strategic business partnerships can have mutual benefits for the corporate enterprises, small business entrepreneurs and their stakeholders to the arrangement. Visit the Anura Perera Anglo Leasing office to know more!

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Benefits of Local SEO

search

A CHANGING MARKETPLACE

The advertising landscape has entirely flipped with the rise of the internet and personalized marketing, and many businesses are focusing their marketing dollars on digital advertising. This system of digital advertising is often based on Search Engine Optimization. This process of doing seo work is intended to increase the online presence of a business, leading to increased sales and revenue. However, on a world-wide scale, it is nearly impossible to compete in this landscape. Large firms with international presence and bigger budgets are able to throw piles of money into their seo campaigns. In light of this, many firms are moving into local search engine advertising, in order to increased their competitive advantage. Instead of competing with thousands of firms worldwide, a firm might only compete with dozens of local competitors.

THE ADVANTAGES OF SEO ADVERTISING FOR LOCAL BUSINESSES

While things are looking a bit fierce in the international sphere, there are still local spaces where seo optimization can generate real returns. This guide to local SEO outlines some key points to consider in your online advertising efforts. There are several advantages to using a local SEO campaign to help boost your business. Keywords can increase your local search ranking. For instance “Volkswagon repair Sydney” is a better keyword choice than “car repair” as it will generate traffic that is more targeted to your region and target market.

KEY WORDS AND EXPERIMENTATION

There are many variations of keywords that a firm might want to test. In order to do this, a firm will need to select a variety of different options, and track which words and content are the most effective at increasing web traffic. Search terms that are region-specific or related to your target customer will improve your odds of be highly ranked in search engine results. Banner advertisements and other forms of targeted marketing will also improve by use of experimentation and testing. Facebook ads can be purchased relatively cheaply, allowing an entrepreneur to field test different images, ad copy, and incentives and be able to improve their ads using this data.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND ADVERTISING

Modern firms will do better in the online marketplace if they can attract web traffic through quality content and social media outreach. Customers are interested in the “wisdom of the crowd” and websites like Yelp demonstrate our interest in collective ratings. If a firm is able to get customers to share or tweet about their product, this can be an incredibly effective marketing strategy. Consumers are weary of standard advertising copy, and are much more likely to take a recommendation from a “friend” rather than an ad. Social media contests and give-aways are other strategies of increasing brand awareness and buzz. Newsletters may seem old-fashioned in the age of facebook and snapchat; however, they remain an excellent option of connecting with devoted fans of a brand. Fashion retailers could try sending a lookbook or editorial, for example.In turn, this builds desire for their products, helping them achieve higher sales.

STAYING AHEAD OF THE CURVE

The marketplace has seen incredible change in the past twenty years, with the advent of internet marketing, perhaps at the expense of traditional advertising outlets. With that in mind, firms must readily accept these changes and any that might come to the market in the near future. Mobile browsing and purchasing is at an all-time high, and is exceedingly popular in the developing world. Social media trends are no longer separate from corporate performance, and brands must embrace their presence in the digital space. Search engine optimization efforts will help brands stay afloat, and the use of experimentation will ensure that these advertising efforts remain effective.

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Get A Lower Energy Bill With These Money-Saving Tips And Tricks

energy bills

At some point, many homeowners look at their monthly energy bill and find that it has soared through the roof. When this time comes for you, it’s important to modify your behavior so that you’re not wasting energy and paying high bills unnecessarily. To get started in the process of bringing your energy bill down, utilize some or all of these money-saving tips and tricks:

1. Have an automatic thermostat installed so that your AC can be shut off once the temperature reaches a certain point.

2. Open your windows during the summer to get air that will keep you cool. This strategy will enable you to use your AC less frequently.

3. Get in the habit of turning the AC off when you’re not using it. This includes during your day to day trips out of the house as well as vacations or business trips.

4. Use your ceiling fans as much as possible. They cost much less than ACs.

5. Use overhangs and awnings to ensure that the sun is kept out of your windows during the summer months. You can then remove the awnings to let in the sunlight during the winter.

6. Upgrade the windows on your property. Select windows with insulated spaces and argon gas fills.

7. Allow your staff members to wear comfortable clothing during the summer months. Business suits keep people too warm and can increase your need to use the AC in the business setting.

8. Seal leaks located around your electrical outlets, windows, and doors. This step is important because your home’s heat can escape through some or all of these cracks. When you seal the leaks correctly, you can bring your heating bill down by up to 20%.

9. During the fall, get your vent systems checked and have your chimney cleaned. Also ensure that your pipes indicate no signs of damage or rust. Make sure that they are properly connected, too.

10. Find a company that offers reasonable energy rates. Compare Texas Energy Providers can help you realize this objective by providing you with information regarding the different rates charged by several energy companies in your area.

Summing It All Up

When it’s time for you to start saving money as a homeowner, one of the first things you should consider is whether you’re wasting any energy. By utilizing the energy-saving tips you see here, you can bring your energy bill down and start using your money in more productive ways.