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Importance Of Marketing To An Organization

Are you a small business owner or looking to get your own enterprise off the ground? If you are, it will occur to you very quickly that the importance of marketing and advertising cannot be overemphasized. Even in the initial phases of starting your business, you are thinking about marketing by deciding on a name and how to promote the value of your product to your customers. By choosing to start a business, you already know that you have a product or service to sell, meaning you are already delved into the brainstorming aspect. As soon as you have decided upon a business idea, you are already formulating ideas for your marketing plan.

 

In the beginning, advertising your company will start with identifiers such as logos or emblems, professionally designed business cards, brochures, pamphlets, an online presence by way of a website, and several additional marketing avenues. At some point you may want to know exactly what the importance of marketing is.  In essence, marketing gets potential customers interested in your products.

 

The first and most important thing which marketing must do is inform your customers who you are and what you offer. If they have one of your business cards, they know where to find you. At this point, they need to be informed of what you can offer them. Long term advertising keeps customers engaged in discounts, coupons, and any new products that you develop. Reaching your target audience can distinguish you from competitors who are marketing to the same segment. Your marketing campaign informs potential customers that you offer a unique product line, and with follow up marketing, your clients will know what makes you different.

 

Marketing is about letting the public know about any activity your business is currently undertaking, what makes your small business special, what your unique selling proposition is and what encourages your customers to buy from you. Whereas advertising is about trying to sell your products and services to new clients. A successful small business owner should be incorporating a marketing strategy as part of their daily business routines. You must have a clear understanding as to what your customers want and how to communicate to them that you provide that quality of service and product.

 

Marketing of any kind helps create a consciousness among your target audience about your business. There is nothing worse than launching a business only to find that you cannot generate any leads or sales. In truth, your company will need some form of advertising in order to succeed. Directing clients toward your products or services will help foster demand. An in-depth advertising campaign will also help you generate ideas for new product offerings. Effective advertising strategies provide in roads toward generating new clients and leads. Marketing increases awareness of your company among your target customer base, which leads to greater sales and profits.

How Automation can Benefit a Small Business

Did you know you could totally automate the marketing portion of your business? You can set things up where all you have to do is to worry about tending to any new prospect or customer that walks into your business. In a business model like this, you can really free up a lot of your time, all while making money in your business.

 

Luckily, there are ways that you can automate your business without feeling “guilty” that you should be doing more work. But hopefully it won’t come to that. The main thing to keep in mind is that success in your business comes from working smarter, not harder. So, if you can find a way to make more money in your business at a faster rate than you’ve ever done before, you’ll find yourself on the right path to success.

 

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of automating your small business today.

 

You’ll gain more free time

 

That’s what you want, right? Isn’t the purpose of starting your own home business is to work less, profit more, and spend more time with your family? If so, then you should definitely consider automating your business now rather than later. With more free time to do whatever you want, I’m sure you would be more comfortable with running your own business, instead of letting it run you.

 

Never think that because you’re not working as hard as much that you feel like you’re “cheating” a bit. There’s nothing wrong with working less and carving out a niche for yourself in the marketplace. This is just a sane way about marketing your products and services.

 

If I were you, I would learn to find the smallest aspects of your business that you can automate. After you’ve automated these aspects, automate more areas that you know don’t normally tend to.

 

So, for example, if you’re currently emailing your customers by hand every day, sign up for a simple autoresponder form AWeber.com to automate the task of sending out your email. This is how you get real efficient in your business. Here’s another benefit of automating your business.

 

You’ll make more money

 

80% of your total profits will come from 20% of what you do. So, making more money in your business will come from simply come from you taking it easier. Figure out what the 20% of what you’re doing is bringing you in the money. The other 80% of what you do should then be put on autopilot, since they currently don’t bring in a lot of revenue for you.

 

Both of these tips for working smarter rather than harder can make you a lot more money than you’ve made ever made before. Don’t dwell on the 80% of the things that you do – following this path will simply make you work harder. I suggest that you figure out what the 20% is in your business, so that you can start seeing financial gains in the future.

 

Get ahead your competitors using Video for content marketing

More and more case studies are being published on how online video content marketing is driving action to improve conversion across all points of the sales cycle – from getting found on search engines to providing information on what distances your company from the competition and closing the sale.

 

If you are selling into enterprise level clients you know that there is more of a diverse set of busy decision makers out there than ever before. With decision makers having access to a ton of information and the ability make their own assessment in the buying process keeping all the decision makers engaged enough so you can navigate and overcome any objections is the key to winning more deals.

 

Here are a few areas for your organization to get started using online video marketing in your sales process, which will give you a head start.

 

  1. Find out the content that is mostly used. Look at your company’s brochures, product specs, case studies and white papers. These are widely used in the sales process and can have a greater impact using web video content marketing. Keep them engaged and win the deal!

 

 

  1. What is easy to show but difficult to explain? You have product/service information on your website… you talk about your products and services with video production just like you do everyday! You are the expert, show your stuff. Get them to understand and win the deal!

 

  1. Who makes your company the best? Enterprise buyers know sales people only represent the team that will be executing your solution. Arm your sales team with video marketing content that allows these buyers to connect with your team. From your tech, project management, support to operation. Get them to connect with your team and win more deals!

 

  1. Post presentation objection handling – Record answers to the top three objections your customers have about post-presentation. Tell your clients that you know what their problems are and which products or services you have created and why you have created them. This will build trust and credibility without directly selling to win more deals.

 

  1. Thank you videos – Send a thank you video after every meeting. This will tell your customers how important they are to you and your business.

 

Just like 10 years ago when you needed a website, you will soon need professional video marketing content to drive your messaging. This can get you ahead of your competitors within the shortest possible time. Keep in mind that corporate online video marketing, with a quality online video production company to create your online video can serve greater benefits to larger businesses, that work hard to shape public perception. Simply put, online marketing with video can become a useful everyday tool in the life of a long sales and marketing processes.

 

In addition to providing your sales team with innovative sales-tools that distances your product’ and services business value, you will be adding excitement to the buying experience to your customers.

 

The Importance Of Animated Video To Promote Your Brand

Being able to grow your business effectively in the 21st century requires going the extra mile. The methods used by business owners to sell their products and services keeps evolving every single day. As a marketing expert, you get the best results when you explore every option that is available to you. Although social media has also changed how marketing and advertising is done, there is still a need to do more. This has to do with things such as coming up with the right content to post on your website or social media platforms.

The allegiance of the fan base is with the basic idea behind the product and its services. This idea about a product/service has to be presented in a compelling manner. The problem is that people have a short attention span. They pass over information that is not compelling. What cannot engage them has to go. Hence, even if your product or service is the best in the market, you are unlikely to engage potential customers if you cannot tell them what you have to offer. So how do custom animated videos make your brand popular?

Animated Videos Grab Your Audience’s Attention

A sudden move, a startling or an unusual animated scene, or a sequence of computer generated special effects, are things that easily grab attention of the audience. Such engagement is the prerequisite to communicating your brand to the target audience. Popular brands offer their target audience a great user experience from everything they have to offer. This begins with the content that they have to offer. A custom video offers business the opportunity to deliver their business idea, product, or service in a compelling and engaging manner within few minutes.

Videos Go Viral

A brand has to become popular before it can maintain its stride. Custom animated videos can offer both a direct route to popularity and an indirect one. A direct method would be of placing the video so that it goes viral and rake in a lot of traffic to the product which the business will maintain afterwards. Secondly, a custom animated video can be made part of the marketing strategy to support other content.

They Give Your Audience a Quick Visual Summary of Your Product/Service

A custom animated video is a visual equivalent of a “sound bite”. It gets the message across to the target audience within minutes. Several long blog posts can easily be summarized in under 2 charged minutes. It is very dynamic, capable of demonstrating an idea from different angles without taxing the imagination of the audience. Hence, it can communicate complex details that cannot easily be visualized by the audience while reading lengthy posts.

Brands become popular when their audience is well aware of what they have to offer. A well-educated audience itself can become a medium of advertising your products by sharing your content. An engaging custom animated video is something that everyone is confident of sharing with someone they know.

GDPR is here, but it doesn’t mean your business is done prepping

It’s been just a few weeks since the General Data Protection Regulation came into effect, and aside from some high level lawsuits from activist lawyers looking to prove a point, it’s been pretty much business as usual.

The media portrayed GDPR as the next and possibly more disruptive Y2K, like at midnight on May 25, 2018, the data breach police would be knocking down doors and shuttering businesses. This long drawn out regulation could actually take a few months to uncover non-compliant companies.

GDPR is all about putting personal data back in the hands of the citizen, the individual, the consumer and so on. It’s an attempt by the EU to drive transparency for data use and governance over what ultimately belongs to the individual.

Today, monolithic organizations are taking data and turning a profit. Inherently, this isn’t a bad thing, but there’s little oversight or transparency into how the data is being used.

In addition, consumers are signing off on onerous terms and conditions written in dense legalese, not meant for the common person. Data is currency. Our data makes money for other companies via ads, our data should belong to us and we should have control.

You’re a company and you’ve updated your Privacy Policy, so now what?

In preparation of GDPR, many organizations have updated and redistribute their privacy policy. You may have been responsible for this action in your company. But now what? What follow up steps need to be taken to stay compliant?

Well, I’ll tell you.

Manage your data — Continuously audit and assess your data control. Compliance is all about controls that are continuously reviewed.

Make the right hire — If your business is predominantly EU-based or focused, it would make sense to have this as a full time role versus part of someone’s job. If something goes wrong your business could be in deep trouble. Invest in people, tools won’t get you there.

Don’t be a datahoarder — Review your data retention controls that allow you to manage how long your user and event data is held on your servers. Under GDPR, user and event data must be retained according to more strict settings; when set properly, your systems will automatically delete user and event data that is older than the retention period you select.

Having  retention control is a key way to avoiding data hoarding and it provides an easy way to demonstrate compliance to auditors. So make sure to:

  • Understand what data you’re gathering and also classify it. Understand what personal data is and what it isn’t.
  • Make sure you understand where it’s held, how it is kept and how & when to delete it.
  • Back it up, anonymize it and encrypt it.
  • Do whatever you must, just don’t avoid managing it.
  • Be open about your processes and don’t treat it as a secret. Your influencers, customers and other stakeholders will trust you as long as you prove to be trustworthy.

Deadline has passed, can we breathe easy?

GDPR is a huge shift in how business’ approach customer data. While the deadline has come and gone, the real work is actually in the months and years ahead.

The past few months may have felt like a mad dash towards compliance, but in reality, work towards shifting the culture around data is just beginning. GDPR isn’t just the responsibility of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Yes, while compliance may live in that organization, data collection and usage doesn’t (not solely anyway).

Since data is the basis for making business decisions, companies need to holistically consider GDPR. Just like the new corporate mantra “security is everyone’s responsibility,” the same expectation should be set for GDPR.

So let’s dive into what different roles need to do in the wake of GDPR.

What it means for CEOs

Data privacy and proper usage is no joke. Just look at the Facebook/Cambridge Analytical debacle. Brands face real consequences by not adhering to GDPR. While we haven’t seen it yet, (as of this posting) CEO’s will carry the public brunt of the responsibility for non-compliance.

What GDPR mean for marketing and communications

PR and marketing activities depend on the ability to build and maintain meaningful and valuable relationships, and being perceived as trustworthy. The personal contact or biographic data of a journalist or social media influencer doesn’t belong to you as the PR professional, it belongs to the journalist and he/she has rights.

Remember to be proactive about it as the responsibility (and possible fines) rests with you. It doesn’t matter if you work with an external media database provider or an internal media research team.

What does it mean for sales?

Assuming all the data processed for direct marketing and sales purposes is done so lawfully, sales teams still need to address how privacy regulations impact their ability to send emails and place phone calls to prospects in Europe.

There is a sizable gray area when it comes to prospecting in Europe. With that in mind, here are a few best practices we know are tenants of European privacy law.

Pay attention to “Do Not Call” lists — Each member state may maintain its own “Do Not Call” list so it will be prudent to verify that your prospects are not on these lists prior to reaching out. Here are some helpful links to the lists for several member states: FranceNetherlands, and Belgium.

Include opt-out and privacy notice links in emails to EU residents — For emails to both inbound and outbound sales, it will be critical to include notice of your company’s privacy practices as well as the opportunity for the recipient to object to receiving future communications. This will increase your transparency and reduce the intrusiveness of the message.

Use discretion with the amount/frequency of communications — Although this is somewhat ambiguous, it is advisable to use discretion with the frequency and number of touchpoints to ensure that you do not intrude on the “rights and freedoms” of the individual as mentioned above.

Use social media — Social media is a solid alternative channel to cold email that will allow reps to diversify their method of prospecting, while also remaining compliant with relevant privacy regulations.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it should provide a helpful starting point for your sales reps. As always, review new processes with your legal and/or security teams to ensure alignment with the overall approach for GDPR.

What does GDPR mean for customer service?

As most teams use chat tools, or ticketing systems such as Zendesk, those dealing with customer data need to be especially careful about the information they see or interact with in these tools. Most particularly around sharing of information to solve problems — i.e. data portability of sensitive materials specific to a users account.

Examples could include logs or error traces that may contain sensitive privacy information. While passing this information is not necessarily a problem, it could be if the party you are “chatting” with is not the actual user. Hence it is recommend that support teams use two-factors of authentication before engaging with users who are not able to be verified over channels such as email or phone. The benefit of chat is that it is usually strongly tied to an authenticated user session.

GDPR aftermath

Now the that dust is beginning to settle, at least until the first major breach, it’s a good time to reflect on what changes GDPR will really bring. Perhaps this transparency will drive deeper and better relationships between organizations and their customers and user base. If so, we could see more win/win situations.

While those side effects maybe be muddied by whatever GDPR fine hits first, the ultimate goal for corporations should be to build trust and be the kind of company where their customers or users offer up insights and data freely.

The impact of GDPR for Creative and Marketing Agencies

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is another arrangement of norms intended to fortify the control people have over their own data. From May 2018 it will be a lawful necessity for all organizations to hold fast to the regulations set up or confront an overwhelming fine up to €20 million or 4% of an organization’s worldwide yearly pay (whichever is the bigger sum). To put it plainly, you would prefer not to do business without using it.

Data is everything in advertising and marketing. It gives an understanding into the customer; their identity, what they like, and what they need from an organization. Be that as it may, in reality as we know it where ‘data is the new oil’, here are a couple of focuses for advertisers to hold up under at the top of the priority list and how GDPR impacts marketing agencies.

  1. The nuts and bolts

Under European Parliament, GDPR will ensure individual data for all people inside the European Union (EU). This incorporates the fare of individual data outside of the EU. Individual data can be anything identifying with a person inside their private, individual, or open life. This incorporates names, photographs, posts via web-based networking media destinations, or a PC’s IP address.

  1. A brisk outline

The data subject (singular buyer) should expressly pick in to enable individual data to be prepared – pre-ticked boxes, or a presumption that assent is given naturally, won’t be adequate. Associations should be particular about what will occur with the data. A data subject has the privilege to withhold assent for their data to be handled, and the association ought not prevent them from utilizing an administration on the off chance that they do as such.

The following of assent is required. The data controller (association that gathers the data) must know when assent was given. Data subjects have the privilege to get to data gathered about them and a “right to clarification”, in which they can inquire as to why an algorithmic choice was made about them. Associations must delegate a data protection officer, who has the duty of guaranteeing the association agreeable with GDPR.

  1. The likelihood of ‘backing off’

A few decades ago, data in promoting and publicizing alluded to basic things like socioeconomics and reaction rates. Quick forward to today, we live in an interconnected existence where data is all over. Coordinating and catching this data empowers organizations to fabricate brands, and drive advancement and deals. An ongoing report by DataMeer found that client investigation made up 48% of huge data use in deals and showcasing.

  1. Adjust to survive

There’s no doubt that GDPR will shake up the advanced advertising scene. So, it is vital for organizations to guarantee they are prepared to actualize the progressions important to consent by May. With the likelihood of a back off in the movement of promoting guarantee your business is prepared to adjust and move keeping in mind the end goal to handle this. Don’t simply acknowledge it, do what you can so as to drive business improvement and deals.

The Importance of Market Research for New Business Ideas

I know from the title you might be thinking this is a common-sense topic that you already know a ton about, but time and time again people throw all their chips in on their business without checking if there’s even a market for their product. They get a good idea, their friends agree it’s a good idea, and before you know it they’ve quit their job and gone in debt up to their eyeballs trying to get their little idea off the ground only to discover it wasn’t that original to begin with.

 

There’s nothing new under the sun! If there’s one thing you take away from this post, please let it be that! I don’t care how innovative you think your idea is, there is a 99.9% likelihood that someone has thought of it before and tried to do something about it. The iPhone wasn’t the first smartphone and Facebook wasn’t the first social media site to ever exist.

 

The aforementioned examples weren’t successful because they were the first. They were successful because they popularized their respective concepts. They made it shiny and attractive to the masses, and that’s what your goal behind market research should be.

 

Market research should be conducted before you start your business! I don’t care what anyone else says, you need to have some sort of a business plan before you actually start your own business. Don’t be ashamed of working at McDonald’s while you pursue your business idea. It may slow you down, but it’s always smarter to have another job lined up before you quit the one you have.

 

How to Conduct Market Research for new business ideas

 

Researching your idea’s marketability isn’t just using Google to see if your specific idea exists already or posting your idea to a forum and seeing how many people flock to it. You can’t just spend half a day researching the topic and expect to truly understand how well your idea will sell.

 

You have to research anything that’s even remotely similar to your idea and use your findings to realistically extrapolate the demand your product can expect to receive once it’s on the open market. While doing this, you need to delve deep into the reasons similar ideas succeeded or failed and critically look at your product in the same light.

 

Don’t be afraid or too cheap to hire some outside help. There are a ton of market research companies out there that are professionals at what they do. They’ll be able to look at your idea in a more objective and critical light than anyone else will.

 

All in all, if you really have faith in your idea then you shouldn’t be afraid to put the time and money into making sure you do things right. This can be achieved by doing the right kind of business research for new ideas.

What percentage of Revenue Do Publicly Traded Companies Spend on Marketing and Sales?

Sales and marketing are very essential when it comes growing your business. Simply getting your products or services to the marketplace isn’t good enough; you need to have an effective plan and budget for how you will get more customers and how to maintain your existing customers. There are several options that are available to business owners out there. You can either make use of you in house marketing and sales team or employ the services of a third-party company to help you with sales and marketing in your business. Publicly traded companies just like most business types out there, need the services of the right kind of marketing and sales company.

In order for anyone to fully understand the right amount of money spent on marketing and sales, it is first important to note the amount of money that comes into the business as revenue. This depends on the type of business and the industry in consideration. It is an obvious fact that the amount of money you wish to spend on your marketing and sales will drastically increase with how much you make. This simply means your first focus should be in creating more valuable products and services, which are useful to the marketplace, as this will guaranty more revenue for your company.

Spending the right amount of money on marketing and sales can put you ahead of your competition. If we take a closer look at publicly traded companies, we realize that there is no standard definition for such companies, this basically means it depends on what products and services you provide for your customers,

The need for having a strong sales and marketing team for publicly traded companies

Being able to create a strong sales and marketing team is important in any business. This can help your business grow within the shortest possible time. It is worthy of mention that you need to invest a reasonable amount of money to in sales and marketing, if you wish to succeed in a competitive marketplace. This has to do with creating the ideal sales infrastructure for your business.

The Ten Percent Rule

When it comes to the percentage of revenue spent on marketing and sales by publicly traded companies, then it would be important to consider the widely used 10 % rule. Keep in mind that this doesn’t have anything to do with the amount of money you make as revenue. Another important point to consider when looking at these numbers is how long the business has been in operations. If your publicly traded company is just in it’s infant stage, then it is safe to say you are going to need to spend more than 10 % of your revenue on marketing and sales. This figure is not fixed, as you might need to spend more money as a startup. Well-established businesses such as Google, Apple, and Facebook wouldn’t worry too much about spend money on sales and marketing, as many know their brands. A small business however needs to increase this percentage to succeed

Why Traditional Marketing is Still Effective

Let’s not forget the traditional marketing methods are highlighted for those who are not aware of the older tried and true strategies. Recently, there has been a massive increase in advertisements on television for dot com businesses and various other companies promoting their websites to much larger audiences. Let us take a look at some of the popular traditional marketing platforms and why they are still effective.

 

Effective traditional marketing methods:

 

Television

This is an old, but reliable marketing medium. Television is providing a huge audience with mass exposure to a mass message. Most people really don’t know that television is one of the most affordable (note that I did not say the cheapest) advertising methods. The main advantage of television would be the fact that it covers audience, audio and visual.

 

Newspaper classifieds

For a long time, this medium has been very popular and it’s an excellent way to target clients for an affordable cost. As an example, in case you would like to promote a business opportunity, you could put it where you find job listings. But word it carefully so you do not attract job seekers. What you want are entrepreneurs.

 

Radio

This medium is ideal for many things, and it can be a good fit for website promotions. The trick is that you have to have a very simple URL and you need to repeat it many times over to drill it home to your audience. If you are brave enough, try to attach it to a catchy tune so that people will remember it more easily.

 

 

Yellow Pages

The yellow pages have grown to be the popular medium that most people use to find certain business. You can get more benefits from being in multiple sections and remember that the yellow page directories can be promoted in other cities. When you consult a salesperson, you can get help to target your offerings to the best advertising places.

 

Brochures

This is another great way for you to advertise your business using a traditional medium. When you print them, you can use them for multiple purposes such as using them as a double for mail-out postcards. If you are operating a business in the tourism or travel industry, you definitely have to take advantage of brochures.

 

Sending postcards

You can send out postcards to your existing customers. Even though it will not cost you much, this will be a very personal and nice way to let existing and new clients find out about your site. For it to be more effective, you could try promoting products or services for special price to help drive consumers to your website. Freebies or contests also work exceptionally well with this type of marketing.

 

As you can see, there are many traditional marketing methods that you can take advantage of when you want to promote a business, product or service in the 21st century. Using this method for marketing is also cost-effective.

Marketing and advertising trends in 2018

It is a well-known fact that building a successful business in the 21st century requires a lot of sacrifices. Coming up with the right business idea is usually not enough, you need to be able to do a projection of how your products and services will reach your target market. Doing a feasibility study usually helps with this regard, which should give you an idea of how your business will grow. Marketing and advertising are basically important when it comes to growing any type of business, new or existing business.

After designing or acquiring a product or service, you need to be able to market it properly to reach the right audience within the shortest possible time. Times have changed and the innovations brought by Information and Communications Technology is gradually changing the way we do things, from our business to personal life. The use of traditional marketing tools such as TV, radio and billboards are gradually decreasing, as most people are turning to IT marketing tools for solutions. Let us consider some important marketing and advertising trends in 2018.

Live video to the rescue

One of the marketing and advertising trends making waves in 2018 and beyond, is the use of live video. This is even more so because more people are beginning to appreciate the power of video content now more than ever before. Using platforms such as YouTube and IGTV, which is the newly introduced video sharing platform by Instagram, business owners can reach a larger audience. It is ideal to say that live video is a wonderful way of putting useful content out there. More business owners are already joining the trend.

Social media integration

The use of social media is also gaining a lot of attention, and business owners are not left out of this trend in 2018. Social media marketing has seen a tremendous growth over the years, with popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram gaining more users every single day. Using the right kind of social media marketing and advertisement tools, you can grow your business within the shortest possible time. With technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, social media marketing and advertisement keeps growing. Using Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, customers and business owners can get the best experience. This has made it possible to create marketing and advertisement products, which are tailored to the specific needs of customers.

Virtual reality and Augmented Reality

Virtual reality and Augmented Reality are two emerging technologies that are used for marketing and advertisement in today’s business world. Virtual Reality or VR, which creates a virtual environment using images of objects or animals can be used for marketing or advertising. There are several VR-enabled applications today on various App Stores for smartphone users. This has made it an ideal avenue for creating products and services around this technology. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are ideal for marketing and events such as product launches.