Category: marketing

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Outdoor Signage: Types of Commercial Signs 

When evaluating the different outdoor commercial signs to choose for your business, you must consider your corporate image, environment, and budget. Each option has several pros and cons. Not all types of labels are suitable in every case. Incorrect signage can cause overstimulation and even confusion, so it should not be conceived from a fleeting idea or as a part of your business less critical than its interior, staff, or products or services it sells. Here’s a list of the most common types of commercial signs with their advantages and disadvantages.

#1. Letterbox Faceplates

It’s a plate made of aluminium with a design on vinyl. It can be decorated with a white, black or other coloured aluminium profile, usually located either inside an architectural hole, such as moulding or an arch or in the same facade plane.

Pros

  • It is the simplest and most economical type of label.

  • Ideal for when you do not have an electrical installation at the front of your store or do not want to make the necessary investment in electricity to illuminate your space.

  • It allows all kinds of designs and colours.

  • It can be simply illuminated from above with fluorescent or LED lamps.

Cons

  • They give a less sophisticated image than other types of signs.

  • They attract less attention than different kinds of labels.

  • They are usually not as durable as other types of signages.

#2. Banners

Image result for Banners signage

Banners are signs mounted perpendicular to the building’s wall, standing out from the rest of the labels that are mounted flat on the facade. They help pedestrians find the entrance to a business from the sidewalk. Like the rest of the signages, they are manufactured in very diverse materials, from the simplest, such as canvas, very typical of vintage restaurants, to the most sophisticated, such as those with an aluminium box with a canvas methacrylate front with interior lighting. They are usually always double-sided, to ensure visibility in any direction of travel. They can also have varied forms (square, round, cross-shaped for pharmacies, with a specific design for parking lots, bank tellers, tobacco, etc.).

Pros

  • They improve a business’s visibility, especially when combined with another type of flat sign on the façade, guaranteeing visibility from all possible directions.

  • They are cheaper than other types of labels with similar functions.

Cons

  • Their installation tends to have greater regulatory restrictions than other types of signs, having a more significant impact on visibility.

  • Installed alone, without any other type of complementary label, it has limited visibility.

#3. Vinyl on Windows

Image result for vinyl on windows signage

The vinyl in shop windows is an excellent way to give visibility to a business, usually combined with another label type. In some cases, it can be used as the only external brand image. It is an excellent way to temporarily advertise products and services (such as sales, new products, etc.) or permanently protect interiors from the gaze of curiosity (with the option of seeing from the inside) and from UV rays.

Pros

  • They allow great creativity in terms of designs and colours.

  • They enhance the visibility of a business if they are complemented with other types of signs.

  • Its installation is simpler and cheaper than that of other signs. However, professionals’ skills and experience will avoid wrinkles or different kinds of imperfections, especially on surfaces that are not entirely smooth.

  • They are relatively inexpensive, although investment in professional installation is often required for optimal results.

Cons

  • If ordinary, more durable vinyl is used, it can be difficult to remove.

  • If electrostatic pieces of vinyl are used (no adhesive, they run on static electricity), they may not be very durable and require reinstallation.

  • Its durability is not the same as other types of signs, although adhesive vinyl types resist environmental phenomena better than electrostatic ones.

Not Just Any Type of Label Is Suitable

As we said at the beginning, not all types of signs are necessarily suitable for your business. Therefore, if you take your company image seriously, you must know that there are signage options offered online that may not be the most beneficial. That’s the case of websites that sell online signs at a fixed price without considering essential elements like municipal regulations, exterior architectural features, environmental impact, the necessary installation, and so on. These agencies don’t really care if you direct more or less foot traffic to your business or convey a positive image to your customers. For this reason, it is best to contact professionals like Sign Raizor! Established more than 15 years ago, they’ll help you create a lasting impression for your business thanks to their wide assortment of signage services.

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The Various Features of a Killer Food Delivery Platform

While restaurants and cafes used to have to deliver the food themselves, the process has undergone quite a few changes in recent years, with the advent of online food delivery platforms, with UberEats, Deliveroo and GrubHub as newer examples.

If you’re looking to create your own delivery platform, there are several things we can learn from these businesses. Let’s dive into some of the key features that can ensure your own platform will enjoy a fair level of success at the very least.

Must-Have Features to Build an Attractive Food Delivery Platform

If your aim is to drive your business to greater heights and provide an exceptional user-experience at the same time, your online food delivery platform must be equipped with advanced UI features. The list below contains a selection of some of the cutting-edge features you should definitely consider adding to your own platform.

An Aesthetically Designed Homepage and Intuitive User Interface

Aesthetics and intuitive design are the cornerstones to driving deeper user engagement. Your homepage should be pleasing to the eye, and easy to navigate with a clear navigation interface. Some of the key features to consider include:

  • The top banner housing all the main components like log-in/register.
  • A strategically designed banner image showing exquisite culinary food dishes. This is essential in enticing users to order food online.
  • A compelling tagline that makes your service seem more welcoming.
  • As most of these services are location-based, you must incorporate a search bar along with the location tracker on the homepage itself.

A ‘How It Works’ Section

One of the major goals of any new platform catering to a niche market is to make its novice users aware of how the platform works. Therefore, your food ordering and delivery portal ought to have a dedicated section, which guides users to perform various operations on the marketplace. It’s vital to place major emphasis on the design of this page.

Reviews & Ratings

Your food delivery marketplace must enable the customers to give reviews and ratings on your service and food. This will help you evaluate your offerings and make the necessary adjustments.  Also, businesses are beginning to realize the importance of customer reviews to enhance their brand identity as reviews highly influence the decision-making process of new customers on where to order their food from.

Login/Signup

When it comes to the login/signup process on an online food delivery platform, it needs to be as simple, intuitive and should take the least amount of time possible to complete. This is because your aim should be to streamline the food ordering process. Rather than using a dedicated login page, your website can use a popup. Users can either use one-click login via Facebook/Google/Twitter or go for the traditional way of logging in with a username and password.

To expand your reach to a wider audience and deliver a personalized experience to the customers, your online food delivery platform should incorporate multilingual functionality. Enabling customers to search and operate in their language helps you enhance customer engagement.

Account Activation

In order to eliminate spam accounts and build a strong user base, you can also have a pre-activation verification system in place, where you require users to confirm their email to activate their accounts. Alternatively, you can also add an OTP service in place to verify via mobile number.

Customer Dashboard

A comprehensive user dashboard helps customers easily manage their account details and keep track of their activities on your app. The customer dashboard should be designed in a way that the customers can easily access the information and manage their account on the platform. The dashboard can include such features as:

Wallet – allowing customers to add funds to an online wallet will save them needing to enter their credit card details each time they place an order, and also improve online security.

Delivery Address – Users generally tend to order food from their homes as well as offices on a regular basis, making an option where users can add default addresses comes in handy. This makes it easier for users to order food quickly, eliminating the hassle of filling the same addresses again and again.

A “Your Orders” Section – For a better user experience, your online food ordering and delivery platform must have a dedicated section for customers to view their current and past orders.

Another excellent feature that appears to be making waves in the current global climate is:

Geofencing for Seamless User Experience

Features like Geofencing could play a crucial role in providing superior customer experiences and increase your restaurant’s sales. With geofencing, you can set virtual boundaries marking locations where you deliver and notify the customers when they enter that predefined location. This location-based service can ensure safer deliveries during the ongoing pandemic.

Final Thoughts

In recent years, the food ordering market has grown rapidly. Rather than going to an eatery, people prefer to order food online. This has resulted in huge demand for online food delivery and the outcome is the rise of platforms like Grubhub, Deliveroo, and Uber Eats.

If you want accelerated growth for your online food delivering business, your solution should be equipped with exclusive functionalities and impressive features. This would surely help you in capturing the bulk of the market share and driving exponential business growth. If you need an expert team to help you get started, why not get in contact with Linkeo Ltd and enquire about their Deliver by Linkeo project.

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How Delivery Can Impact Your E-Commerce

Did you know that many e-commerces fail because of their delivery options? It might be the cost is too high, the lack of delivery options, or quite simply that customers don’t trust the delivery promise. Therefore, you can drastically improve your online sales by simply focusing some attention on your delivery strategy and acting upon areas that your customers feel need work.

Let’s look at what we mean by delivery strategy.

Your delivery strategy covers everything to do with the delivery of your products and will be dictated by what your customers expect of you. Everything from how you present the delivery information on your e-commerce website and in your marketing, right down to the product that arrives on the doorstep will be shaped by these demands, as well as your ability to meet these requirements in terms of volumes, finances, or manpower.

How Can Your Delivery Strategy Increase Sales?

As previously mentioned, delivery is one of the main reasons why people don’t buy online, so how can you entice people to trust you? Quite simply, you need to offer the kind of delivery options your customers want. Survey your regulars to see whether speed, convenience or cost is the most important for your customers. This is especially important if you’re running a specialist business like a cheese shop or vintner. Once you’ve identified what your clients want, find the couriers that can best serve your needs.

The delivery space is one of the fastest-growing aspects of e-commerce at the present time, and the options for smaller businesses are constantly improving. This makes it well worth scouting the marketplace periodically to make sure you have the best delivery service for your business.

Once you have the right services in place, make sure you are presenting them clearly on your website. You need to get it right in all these places:

  • On every page: a header with the headline offering, and then a link to the delivery options. Avoid hiding the prices.
  • Clear information on every product page. Is it in stock? When will it dispatch? Relevant postage prices.
  • Clearly explain it on the checkout and basket pages too.

Offers on delivery are one of the most powerful promotional tools you have at your disposal. Any promotion is your opportunity to get the customer to do what you want them to do as cheaply as possible – in other words, with minimal impact on your margins. If you are already offering free P&P on everything then use “Free upgrade to [better delivery service]” as the big promotion. A permanent free P&P offer of some sort can also be very powerful. For example, if your average order value is $50, then give anyone who spends more than $50 free P&P.

How A Good Delivery Strategy Can Encourage Repeat Purchases

E-commerces are all looking to turn buyers into repeat customers, and your delivery strategy can play a vital role in making this happen. You need to approach the first order someone places with you as a test. The customer wants to see if they can trust you, so you need to make sure you do an excellent job on the order.

This means delivering on your promises – the right goods must be delivered on time, in one piece and as promised. And that’s just the bare minimum. You also need to have a robust plan to fall back on if things go wrong. Rather than looking at it as a problem to be solved, look at every issue as an opportunity to build more trust in your brand.

If you really want to get that second order, you need to be proactive. Put a clear call to action into that package to ask for the next order and wow the customer as well. For instance, you could add

  • a copy of your catalogue (if you have one);
  • a leaflet featuring your bestselling products;
  • an offer such as free P&P on your next order, or a code for a discount on the next order.

Even if you can’t add anything to the package, you might want to consider putting a promotional message on the dispatch paperwork.

If you’re looking to wow your customers, here are a few suggestions:

  • Brand your packaging – This could be as simple as a sticker or a stamp (some find this helps recruit new customers when their parcels arrive in offices).
  • Include a surprise gift: This doesn’t need not be big or complicated. A coaster, pen, sticker or bookmark can have a big impact.
  • Wrap the products nicely in tissue paper or anything else you can do to make opening that parcel feel special.
  • Add a “packed by” card from the person who actually packed it – creating a human connection always helps.

We hope this article has helped you realize the power of delivery for an e-commerce. If you would like to learn more, or have your own online platform created by a professional team, contact Linkeo Ltd today and enquire about the Deliver By Linkeo line of products.

Booming and Low-Investment Small Business Ideas (Part 1)

A few years ago, most people’s life plan consisted of a relatively common and uniform project: Study until you get a degree, start a family, and keep a good job until retirement age. Simple, safe, quite comfortable and predictable. And most of us would often ask ourselves: what should I study? In which company do I apply? What additional incentives can I apply for? The space for uncertainties or innovative thinking was minimal, if not nil, and was limited to making proposals (and crossing your fingers) with one or two improvements to the work environment or the company’s products and services for which you worked.

Fortunately, times and people have changed synergistically and based on that; the tendency to undertake has taken hold. It’s no longer rare to get someone to look favourably upon exploiting your own small business ideas. In other words, now it has become very rare to find someone who wants to stick to the traditional plan and leave the idea of ​​starting their own business to others. Even those who combine both visions to obtain an intermediate version with the best of both life plans. For these people, the predominant questions are others: What do I invest in? What business ideas pay off the most in the shortest time? How much money do I need to invest? Let’s check it out!

Personal trainer

Is life fitness your thing? Are you happy sweating and moving your body? Then becoming a personal trainer is ideal for you. This idea to start your small business is perfect for you if your willingness to help others and your voice of command is combined with a certification. A growing trend is quite popular in all sports disciplines that are also marketed very well on Social Networks and can lead to other related businesses, such as healthy meals and healthy eating and life coaching.

Local Delivery Services

Yes, the big courier and package delivery companies are still there, and they are not going anywhere. However, nothing better than a private motorcycle, car or bicycle to deliver packages locally, quickly and efficiently, and at a lower price. Every day more people add their personal means of transport to help avoid the bureaucracy and slightly more expensive rates that use a more recognized courier and delivery services.

So, the image of a person in shorts uniforms delivering packages no longer dominates the market. And it makes sense. The field of work has expanded thanks to many others’ entrepreneurship, and thus, other small entrepreneurs do not have their own home delivery service. The individual needs lunch or a pair of shoes to be brought to him because they’re stranded somewhere. There you fit perfectly. If you also add the services an application, then your business opportunity goes to the fixed. Make yourself known and start pedalling.

Food Trucks

In Latin America, the big business of preparing and shipping fast food from a truck has been part of the picture forever. However, new trends and market demands add differentiating elements that you can use to introduce your own successful business idea and make it extremely profitable. Do you prefer sweets rather than fast food? A waffle and cupcake food truck is perfect for running too! In any case, investing in a food truck does require a little more investment, study, preparation and compliance with laws and regulations. Among them, you must specify the point where you will put your truck, the demand for similar businesses at that point, and the permits related to the handling and sale of food.

Manager 

Many people who keep office hours or are dedicated to their own ventures lack the time necessary to do personal errands such as going to the bank, taking clothes to taking clothes from the dry cleaner, buying food for the week, etc. In some Latin American countries, taking care of these tasks is called an agency and whoever executes it is called a Manager. It is usually an occupation that leaves good money since the services can include everything from going to Notaries to picking up movie tickets and the like. Having an agency that places a manager at third parties’ services is an idea for a small business that promises to emerge in the coming years.

Personal Shopper

This is the most stylish and elegant name for Personal Shopper. A personal shopper is generally in charge of choosing, purchasing and delivering clothing and footwear for special events. However, some hire services to take care of the entire wardrobe, without obeying a special occasion. More than an investment, what you really need to become an excellent personal shopper and make your business successful is to have a good eye and sensitivity to choose the best clothes and shoes for your clients, and take care of details related to finances who entrust you with their wardrobe. Start with your friends, and get them to spread the word. Then you can open your own blog or website and share tips related to your niche. If you are persistent and dedicated, you will soon be hiring and training others to make your small business idea a trustworthy personal brand.

On the other hand, the Internet has given way to a whole new range of jobs that began to exist only a couple of decades ago and have emerged a lot in recent years. What is unique about this line of employment is that they do not require the employee and even the employer to satisfy the demand for services, and most importantly: Each one in itself represents a successful small business idea to manage from the comfort of your home.

Now that you have decided which industry you want to start a business in, you can begin the journey of becoming an entrepreneur! Check out the second part of this article here!

Booming and Low-Investment Small Business Ideas (Part 2)

Does the idea of ​​starting your own business appeal to you, or are you thinking of expanding the one you already have? Do you need ideas to start your own business? In other words, what are the most profitable small businesses today? Which ones can you start with a small budget?

It is important to emphasize that starting a business is not the end of the road and that you’ll still need to work hard to make sure it grows and remains healthy. And this is achieved with recurring investments! A business without investments tends to be stranded and does not advance.

All small businesses follow a simple law: “You need to invest money to make money.” So once you start your business, don’t forget to plan investments that will strengthen it, and you must consider getting external funds to do so. If you’re looking for a personal loan to kick start your small business in Toronto, talk to the experts at DLC Estate Mortgages INC.! Whether you’re looking to apply for a short-term or long-term loan, they provide one of the best loan solutions and reliable advice. 

If you’re looking for small business ideas, here is a rather impressive list of the latest trends in small business ideas. Hopefully, they inspire you and help you take the necessary actions to transform them into your new reality. This list of ideas for small businesses does not follow a particular order, although it is organized by two main types of entrepreneurship: Traditional and Online. Check it out and be surprised by businesses’ trends requiring little investment and always have room for another value proposition.

Local Tourism

Tourism has also evolved in terms of tastes and demands. Thus, from the so-called extreme tourism or adventure tourism to cultural tourism or experiential immersion, the strong point is to get accommodation at various hotel sites. How do you become a tourist guide then, and how do you make it a very profitable small business idea? Simple: Design several packages and offer close and real experiences for people interested in getting in touch with your immediate environment’s unique opportunities. You can even provide one of the rooms in your own home to accommodate your clients and include typical breakfasts to offer a full immersion experience. With the potential for word of mouth and recommendation, your business can flourish! 

Likewise, you can use an online marketplace application and make contacts and alliances with interpreters, restaurants, inns, iconic places according to their interests (you can collect that information from a form). You can make a name for yourself with everything long-term business potential. Get creative! Design immersion tour packages for seniors with religious interests, adventurers with a thirst for extreme experiences, animal lovers, etc. And speaking of animal lovers…

Canine Hotels (and Other Related Services)

Many people shy away from going on a trip, even for short periods, because they don’t have someone to take care of their pets while they are away. This small business idea itself lacks innovation. However, it has picked up in recent times because traditional hotels or kennels are often expensive. You can start by housing one or two animals in your house for a few weekends and then include other services such as hairdressing, morning walks, and even accompanying pets for international trips. They are ideal for small businesses settled in the same pet services niche that yield good money, and whose investment is relatively low and whose ROI is usually practically immediate. 

Online Tutor

Education has always held a place of honour in all societies. Children will always need someone to clarify their doubts, and they will surely feel more comfortable from home, in a controlled and safe environment where they can use other tools. If you have the ability and skill to teach online, this small business idea is for you. Topics and topics can range from simple to complex, and creating an interactive platform with exciting programs can be quite an adventure that also pays good dividends.

Translator 

Although Google and other similar companies offer instant online translations, the truth is that translators have the sensibility and knowledge of the world that automated translation tools lack. Creating an online business that brings together translators willing to provide humane solutions to translation problems is an excellent idea for a small business that promises high demand.

Small Business Ideas That Create Big Profits

Entrepreneurship ceased to be a taboo word and concept widely related to risks and uncertainty, misfortune and bankruptcy. However, to ensure that your investment has the best results, the search for small businesses’ ideas must initially resonate with your essence, potential and talents. That simple action will leave you big profits and better experiences. If you have other small business ideas that have a real chance of turning into significant gains, share them here. You can always learn and start with suggestions. If you’re looking for more small business ideas, make sure you check the first part of this article!

Everything to Know About Accounting Software

Currently, there are many tools that technology offers to simplify the work of both accountants and companies, but few are as useful and have as many functions as accounting software. It is indisputable that accounting is essential to keep a business afloat if it is organised and provides the necessary information at a certain time. Still, sometimes it can seem tedious and be synonymous with a lot of paperwork.

Fortunately, some mechanisms allow you to digitise and maintain all the information collected in a single system, avoiding the clutter of papers and minimising human error. These new systems help the accountant organise everything related to their clients’ accounting and allow companies to obtain important information without having to have 24 hours of the accounting profession, as long as every detail, transaction and operation carried out by the entity is entered. If you want to discover more about accounting software and how they will change the course of your company for the better, do not stop reading this article!

 

What’s Accounting Software?

It is a computerised program that enables the compilation of all the financial information of a company in an integrated system that, generally, handles the basic accounting principles to operate under a valid source and within the legal frameworks.

The accounting software stores organise and simplify each historical transaction carried out by an entity, which can include important information such as sales, purchases, inventory, accounts receivable, among others. Likewise, it is capable of issuing reports, balance sheets, financial statements, statistics and any other accounting data that is useful for the company.

In summary, it can be said that the main objectives of this software are:

  • Monitoring of the daily operations of the company;
  • Process improvement, time reduction and maintenance of centralised information management;
  • Timely data in real-time;
  • Simplification of financial information.

It is also necessary to highlight that in Chile, specific laws regulate the obligation to issue documents electronically, such as billing and dispatch guides, gradually including other elements. By this, entering the world of these programs will be indispensable in a few more years.

 

Importance of An Accounting Software

Automation is increasingly important in the business world, not only because of technological modernity but also because of the significant time savings generated by this advance. Previously, keeping accounts for a company or person was exhausting, mainly due to the amount of paperwork and time involved in the operation. How many times have you missed an invoice or an expense report? How many times have you been faced with cluttered piles of information? This scenario has happened to all accountants at some point, and it’s not pretty. Fortunately, systematisation has greatly diminished this problem.

The possibility of entering data periodically in the same database means a gigantic advance in the world of accounting. Likewise, along with saving time, this advance means reducing the margins of error, since an accounting system increases the precision of results, the fulfilment of objectives and the analysis of accounting information for any decision making that may be crucial for the growth of the company.

Having everything organised and grouped in a single system increases your ability to react to certain situations that could determine the future of the business, allowing you to know in time about a problem or complication that represents the line between its development or its involution.

In this way, accounting software makes it possible to improve the management of any operation, department or process that at first glance seems to be going well, but which is not the case. These solutions are even capable of tracing a whole set of actions to determine the cost of a product or service, including the invoices related to its production or purchase, the agents involved and any other calculation required to know the result.

Another of the great advantages of these platforms is that there is no limit to the number of companies you enter regardless of whether there are 10, 20 or how many customers you want. All the information is segmented into accounts for each of them. Additionally, thanks to its multi-user function, you can assign roles to third parties to enter without accessing your private information. Making your work lighter and more efficient is as simple as relying on an online accounting system. If you already do, we invite you to tell us your experience so that many other accountants know first-hand how good it is to have a specialised platform.

Finally, if you want to know more about how accounting software works and which one is ideal for your job, either as an independent accountant when running a small business, keeping a tight grip on your finances is critical to success. Contact SJB Bookkeeping in Hampton Park to get started!

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Why Use Email Marketing? 5 Ways How This Strategy Can Help Your Company

If you think that e-mail marketing is dead or that it’s a thing of the past and the future is the new communication channels that appear every day, you’re wrong!

What Is E-Mail Marketing?

E-mail marketing is a kind of strategy in which e-mail is used as a direct channel of communication between companies and customers. It includes creating lasting relationships in a progressive way, which is done through a set of tactics and good practices. E-mail marketing is by far the most effective way to contact a potential customer and realize sales. Over 50% of people worldwide use e-mail, and there are over 3.9 billion e-mail users worldwide.

Still not convinced of the importance of e-mail marketing? Then take a look at this list of the importance of e-mail marketing, and we bet you’ll think differently in the end!

1) E-Mail Marketing Strategy Is Economical and Profitable

E-mail marketing is one of the most effective and efficient strategies for companies that want to reach and communicate with their target audience. Although there are other traditional marketing tactics, such as TV commercials or brochures, that also enable most consumers to be reached, e-mail marketing has a lower cost than the rest.

2) Segmentation

In the same way that you can have a broad reach by building your own e-mail base, you can segment your leads based on various information such as your interest, location, used product or service, average ticket and any other information you store and which is linked to a specific e-mail. And the more segmented your database is, the better your communication will be.

You can create campaigns for those who have consumed the product by offering something complimentary. You can also carry out specific actions with your audience in a particular place or even convey the type of content previously used by these Leads.

This is undoubtedly an important reason to use E-mail Marketing! After all, there is no point in sending an e-mail from a soccer seller to a contact who bought a basketball team jersey in case of e-commerce of sports goods.

3) E-Mail Marketing Helps to Build Relationships and Credibility

People buy from companies and people they know, like and trust. E-mail marketing helps to build this image with a potential customer and allows us to stay in touch. If you want to create a solid customer relationship, it is essential to have a reliable tool to communicate with people who are important to your company. And e-mail marketing allows you to maintain a direct communication channel. Customer contact is not only the number on your customer list. It also includes how people get involved in your company’s activities, so they feel they belong to it, which can be achieved through e-mail marketing.

4) The Process Can Be Automated

E-mail marketing is one of the few digital marketing strategies that can be automated. It allows you to be more effective and efficient in sending e-mails because it can determine when and to whom they should be sent. In this way, not only will you save time but money as well!

5) Delivery Guaranteed

You may have a significant audience on social media, but there is no guarantee that your publications will be delivered to all your followers. If you compare e-mail with social networking sites, these losses are much smaller. For instance, there are cases where the e-mail can get in the middle of the road or end up in your spam box, but there isn’t anything worse than this.

If you want to see your business grow and serve more people who need you the most through e-mail marketing and other strategies, Anna is a group coach expert and social media assistant that can help you effectively!

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8 Tips for a Good Social Media Strategy

Creating an efficient Social Media strategy for your company may be a frightening task. But with a selected plan and resources, it is accomplished. Therefore, before launching into the deep trenches, I’d prefer to offer the following do-it-yourself tips to help you organize your thoughts and develop and execute your plan:

1. Know your ultimate goal. What’s it that you’re seeking to accomplish? Are you trying to realize new customers for your product or service? Are you trying to expand brand awareness or provide customer support? Or is it a mix of all of those things? If it’s, that’s fine. But you want to know your ultimate goal to realize any of the above. Developing your end game strategy will facilitate your remaining task and target executing your social media game plan. This way, you will not waste it slow or money.

2. Pick One Social Media Network to Master. The ugly truth is that you can’t master every Social Media networking site. My advice is to choose the one that you love the foremost and master it. Then use the others as filters to disseminate your content. Today there are such apps/programs, like TweetDeck and Hootsuite, that you can use to automate this process. It only is smart not to waste some time trying to master all of them.

3. Create a Content and Marketing Strategy that Supports Your Ultimate Goal. With Social Media, remember that content is king. It rules the day. Content is everything from your daily posts or tweets, to your blog posts, to your engagement pieces/contests to your videos, audios, books, e-books, e-courses, etc. an excellent example of a content strategy would be if you’re an author who wants to sell more books, you’ll break the text into more bite-size pieces and re-purpose the content to draw in more book sales. The thought here is to administer the people touch and that they will desire a lot.

4. Post Links to Your Social Media Network Sites from Your Main Website. Your website or blog should have social media icons that link to all of the social media networking sites you belong to. This makes it easy for those individuals that visit your website to attach with you via social media, and it also allows you to expand your viral reach by tapping circles or tribes.

5. Add Social Media Share Buttons to any or all of Your Blog Posts and Newsletters. Whenever you create blog posts or transfer a newsletter, you ought to include social media share buttons. This helps expand your viral reach as your friends, fans, and followers begin to share your content with their social media networking base.

6. Visually Link Your Networking Sites. What I mean by this is often to use the identical graphics/logos on your social media sites that you use on your website. That way, when someone goes to your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter, they shouldn’t see something drastically different from your homepage.

7. Stay in Present and Relevant. Don’t found your social media networking profiles and pages only to disappear for months at a time. You wish to stay people returning for more and more. Give your fans something to expect regularly.

8. Track and Analysis of your Efforts. You may know what’s working for you in your social media strategy after you begin to trace your results. This tracking can are available many forms, but at the very least, you’ll be able to use source codes to spot where your traffic is coming from, and you’ll use web analytics to determine what varieties of piques you had during a truck with specific posts. But don’t just limit yourself with numbers.

Understand that it doesn’t matter what percentage FB Fans or Twitter Followers; you build none of them belong to you. Facebook can stop working or shut you down, and then can Twitter. Therefore, your ultimate goal is usually to maneuver your friends, fans, and followers out of social media, to your website, on to your list, and into your pocketbook. If you follow this straightforward formula, you may fail.

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How to Tell You Need A Digital Content Management Solution

Being a sales representative is becoming increasingly challenging. As buyers become more sophisticated, the pressure to deliver in both sales and marketing is intensifying and forcing sales and marketing professionals to rapidly adapt. Sales force expansions, as well as the increased responsibilities of the average rep, have created new professional obstacles and added to ones that have always existed.

A digital content management solution could be the answer you’re looking for. If you haven’t already, here are five reasons why you should invest in one now.

1. YOU LACK FEEDBACK ON DOCUMENTS DURING CUSTOMER PRESENTATIONS.

Many sales professionals believe that the lack of feedback on their presentations means that they are totally persuasive pitches. Unfortunately, it really means that these are likely ineffective presentations that were given on outdated platforms. A lack of feedback on documents during customer presentations can also prevent sales and marketing professionals from identifying which communications or channels generate the most sales. And really, getting feedback, and, hence, engagement, from your prospect is the best sales presentation technique of all.

2. YOU DON’T HAVE A SINGLE MEANS TO ACCESS APPROVED MARKETING CONTENT.

It’s important to give sales staff widespread access to marketing-approved materials. With a digital content management solution, marketing teams can approve the right materials for the right users and create personalized content. The ability to customize content for each user allows sales reps to perfect collateral without having to ask the marketing team for something specific for each sales conversation.

A digital content management system can offer both your sales and marketing departments the ability to create, upload, edit, share, translate and distribute content globally, and all from one platform.

3. YOU DON’T STAND APART FROM THE CROWD.

In today’s crowded marketplace, it’s necessary to communicate your message quickly and distinguish your company from the rest. There are a couple ways a sales representative can let prospects know that he or she isn’t just any other salesman or sample-dropper. The way to differentiate yourself is to know more. Because if you know more and are able to have an intelligent conversation with prospects, you’re able to show that you provide value to them.

With a digital content management system, you can be better prepared for sales conversations, gain access to selling tools to engage more effectively and learn more about your audiences through analytics and ultimately close more deals.

4. YOU FIND IT DIFFICULT TO INTERPRET MARKETING DATA AND REPORTS.

The marketing world is continually bombarded with more and more data, which can make it difficult for a marketing manager to accurately interpret reports. Staying up-to-date on linguistics will help managers get by, but it won’t make them proficient in assembling and processing data.

A digital content management system helps teams work more efficiently and generate reports automatically. Marketing professionals can better interpret data with analytical tools to configure insightful reports. The Pitcher solution, for example, goes beyond traditional reporting by collecting sentiment analysis and true data points, as well as collecting and analyzing field data. It offers full-featured business intelligence to create custom reports and dashboards. Following interactions, all call-related data is synced with just a few clicks to the existing CRM system, no other action required.

5. YOUR MARKETING TEAM CAN’T “CLOSE THE LOOP” WITH THE SALES TEAM.

When your marketing strategies are producing quality leads and generating significant amounts of great traffic but it still seems that the company is not getting any new clients or customers, you might want to take a look at how well your company is closing the sales loop.

It’s vital to have an effective feedback system in place between your marketing and sales teams. There should also be clear communication between sales and marketing about whether or not the leads that are coming through are quality. After all, this is about teamwork, so it’s important to share data and collaborate to improve processes.

Using a communication platform and digital content management solution will facilitate alignment between the field and office teams. Such a solution will help to streamline customer interactions with the ability to capture and report on sentiment reactions to marketing collateral, thus effectively closing the marketing feedback loop.

TAKE THE NEXT STEP

Organizing and keeping all of your sales support content up-to-date can be a challenge. Ensuring your content warehouse, so to speak, is easily accessible and searchable can be even more challenging. Marketers can reduce the dispersion of off-brand content and help their sales reps maximize selling time by housing their content in an effective and comprehensive content warehouse, such as a digital content management solution.

With Synepsis Consulting‘s digital content management solution, content, as well as any other customer-facing interactions, such as actionable data, daily tasks and team collaborations, are findable, presentable and trackable—instantly and intuitively, all from one place.

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Tips to Build Your Online Presence

Your Google CV is vitally important to your online brand and as a result you will need to strive to occupy as many of the listings on page one of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) as possible. There are a variety of ways to achieve this, but for now let us have…

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A Quick Look at Blogging

Derived from the word weblog, a blog is essentially a website that sports continuously updated information in the form of posts that are displayed in reverse chronological order. Typically, a blog will sport the following features: content area, title, comment area, an archive of older posts and a feed which user can use to subscribe to it.

A blog allows individuals the opportunity to foster an online identity, engage with a community and establish themselves as experts in a given arena. Blogs enable you to participate in conversations taking place in your industry or area of specialization as well as allow you to build your own voice – all the while heightening your web presence.

To promote yourself online via blogging you will need to implement a solid blog strategy. Think about the goals you want your blog to achieve and ensure that each post is geared at achieving them. But remember, a blog cannot be a purely promotional tool – if readers wanted information on you or your offering exclusively, they would visit your website.

Better Blogging Tips

There are millions of blogs in existence with new blogs being launched every second. But not all blogs are created equally, in fact more than half of the blogs launched do not make it past the first three months. If you are serious about utilizing blogging to establish an online presence, you will need to make a commitment to do just that. Blogging does take work, but the rewards are worth it.

In order to make sure that your blog is attracting readers and that its profile (and by association yours) is being raised daily, you will need to pay special attention to the flowing tips for better blogging.

Promote your blog – With millions of blogs in existence, you will need to promote your blog in order to attract readers. There are many ways in which you can promote your blog. Listing your blog in blog directories like Blog Hub, Technorati and Blog listing is a good start.

Using your preferred social networking or business networking site is another excellent way of alerting your friends, colleagues, and clients to the existence of your blog and where they can find it. Your blog will be tied in to your professional self – the “you” that you want potential clients, invertors, or employers to meet. If you are in the online marketing game, a link to your blog which details your daily TV viewing habits should be scrapped in favor of a blog which offers insight into your industry.

Participate – Conversation is key to blogging. You need to not only participate with your audience, but with other bloggers operating in your sphere too. By leaving insightful comments on other blogs the authors, or their readers, may follow the link back to your blog and if they like what they see chances are that they will come back.

Frequency – Posting too often may overwhelm readers and posting too infrequently may mean that your readers will come back, find nothing new and as a result not come back again. A post a day is ideal, but very few individuals have that kind of time on their hands. Try for at least three new posts each week.

Good content – How many times have you heard that content is king – well, it is true as long as it is good content. If your readers are gaining value by visiting your blog and if you are giving them what they are looking for they will come back. Use the feedback you receive via the comments in order to tailor posts to your audience. You can also introduce features, like our weekly online promotion tips. It is important to try things out and re-evaluate your blog strategy as you go.

SEO – Search engine optimization is an eMarketing tactic which sees bloggers and website owners optimizing their sites for certain search phrases in order to get their sites listed as high up on the SERPs as possible. You may want to conduct some key phrase research and ensure that your posts target those pages. The higher up you are on the SERPs the more likely searchers are to find your blog. Keep an eye out on our blog for future posts that will guide you through the process of utilizing SEO to build your online presence.

Monitor – The sheer amount of consumer generated media has made online reputation monitoring essential. Ensure that you are tracking what is being said about you online so that you can be aware and respond accordingly.

Good luck and happy blogging!

By allowing you to create or improve your online presence, Anna Dajero can help you to take control of your Google CV and start branding yourself online. Visit the site for more tips on how to build your Google CV and increase your online visibility.

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