7 Fantastic Tips for Building Great Brand for Small Business

January 13, 2014

7 tips for creating great brand for small business
Building a brand for your business can create long-term competitive advantage and add thousands of dollars of additional business. Branding your business is all about giving the audience something to remember you by. All the greats (names like Apple, Samsung, Coca Cola and Nike) know that you have to become a part of consumer culture if you want to be a household name. It is equal parts knowing your audience, as in the case of Old Spice, where the target audience was receptive to over the top masculinity, and knowing your product. In today’s landscape, you have to be proactive if you want to develop a brand that will resonate with consumers. We describe below 7 fantastic tips you can use to build and sustain great brand for your business.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: , ,

Flash Marketing – The Power of One Day Events

December 20, 2013

Flash marketing
Few marketing events provide as much return on investment as flash event where you select a theme and arrange entertaining and engaging program to match the theme housed within an elegant venue. You can find examples of this type of events during new product launches or major corporate announcements. The surprise factor resulting from the event theme can generate lot of buzz and media coverage. The more out of ordinary and intriguing the event the better media coverage and higher return on your investment you will receive.

The key to success for this type of events is to plan in advance and create a theme that highlights the message you are trying to deliver. In addition, you need to have a surprise for the participants and media so that when they finally come across it their mouths are wide open and can’t stop posting the pictures on social media and they keep telling their friends about it long after the event is over. So, how can you plan and execute such an event? Read on to find the tips.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: ,

How can Direct Marketing Help you Improve Sales

November 25, 2013

How can Direct Marketing Help you Improve Sales
In this internet age when all customer interactions are moving online and businesses can always stay in contact with customers some wonder if there is any value left in direct marketing. Direct marketing was popular before the arrival of internet when customers used to get number of mailings every day in the form of postcards, catalogs, and personal letters. However, the volume of such mailings has recently gone down. Even postal service is feeling the impact of this reduction posting huge losses for several years. While there is no denying that internet has made it easier to interact with customers using Smartphone and other electronic devices direct marketing can still provide value to business owners if it is done right. Customers still love to see their name on emails and printed postcards. Before we go into the benefits of direct marketing let’s answer the question –what is direct marketing?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: ,

Small Business Branding for Beginners

August 28, 2013

Small business branding for beginners
Small business owners may not have the resources to compete with big brand names such as Nike or Coca Cola, but that doesn’t mean that branding is not important to your business. Building a brand is a vital part of marketing your services. Building commercial awareness of your company is essential to growth.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: ,

How Professional Signage can Benefit Small Businesses

June 7, 2013

How can professional signs benefit small business
These days you are bound to encounter signs advertising products or business no matter where you go. They have taken over the shops, roads, clothing and even toilets. Some people even had crazy idea of putting tattoos on their body advertising a product and getting paid for it. While the last one may be extreme there is no argument that your business sign is one of the most important marketing elements that needs careful attention and planning.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: ,

Can Better Packaging Improve Sales for Small Business?

June 3, 2013

Can better packaging improve sales for small business
Next time you go to the mall pay close attention to the bags people are carrying. You will find many sizes and styles. You will find some bags that are just so good that you don’t care what’s inside you will want to go to the store just to get the bag. Do you form an opinion about the content of the package or the business providing the bag based on its appearance?

Such is the power of packaging. Some businesses, especially luxury retailers, pay as much attention to the packing as they do to the products they sell. After all, customers form opinion about the business based on their first impression of the package.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Marketing, Sales Tagged With: ,

Smart Marketing Solutions For Small Business

May 13, 2013

When it comes to promoting your small business, every cent used for marketing really counts. You’ll need to create a presence for yourself in your community as well as cyberspace. That’s where a great digital printing company comes in. Without their help, you might as well hang up your hat.

With thousands of businesses being created daily, it’s hard to set yours apart from the crowd. Without the right tools, no one will know who you are. You’re going to need to create materials that get the word out about your business and the products and services that you offer.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With:

Top 10 Blog Articles from 2012

January 5, 2013


As we herald into 2013 I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit the stories we produced in 2012 and the response we received from the readers. Here are the top 10 articles, in no particular order that got the most attention, discussion, controversy and response.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Employees, Finance, Management, Marketing, Operations, Sales, Strategy, Technology, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

5 Reasons Your Sales are not Growing

September 14, 2012


Many small business owners focus on wrong actions to grow their sales. They have been led to believe by the marketing folks that you have to spend money (on advertising) to make money. What else would you expect to hear from marketing? After all, it is in the best interest of those marketing people to say that. While I don’t dispute the impact of marketing and advertising on sales, I do believe that it has been overhyped. In my opinion, you need to focus on the fundamentals and other low-cost actions before you spend money on marketing.
For any business sales is a function of three business drivers – target customer market, products and customer service. Pick the right target market, develop products they would die for and deliver them with excellent customer service. Viola!! You are guaranteed to see results in terms of higher sales and profits. I know this is easier said than done, but you can take baby steps towards that goal by first understanding what you are not doing right and making incremental corrections. Here are my observations in terms of 5 actions small business owners are taking that leads to sub-optimal sales.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Customers, Sales Tagged With: ,

Small Business Owners – Beware of These Social Media Marketing Traps

August 15, 2012


Many small business owners think of social media as panacea for all marketing and sales ills. They believe, often wrongly, that by jumping on the bandwagon of social media they will be able to improve their sales by 25% overnight. They are fooled by misconceptions promoted by the so called social media experts. I regularly get 4-5 emails every week from these experts offering me to help promote my blog and land it on the first page of Google Search for a charge!
While there is truth to the fact that every small business needs to have Internet and social media marketing strategy you have to first understand what it can and cannot do for your business and set the right expectations before jumping in. We do believe that there are selected social media tools that small businesses must use. It’s how you use it that really makes a difference. That is why I talked about social media best practices for small business owners in earlier post. In this post let’s turn the table and discuss the traps you need to watch out for when using social media for marketing purpose.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Customers, Marketing, Technology Tagged With: ,