Using Offline Marketing As A Strategy For Your Business – What Is It?

what is offline marketing

Welcome to the third video in our newest series, Using Offline Marketing As A Strategy For Your Business.

In today’s video we are going to discuss what, exactly, is offline marketing.

Our previous video discussed the reasons why you would want to choose to use offline marketing strategies. Many people, especially those who have grown up never knowing what it was like before we had technology at our fingertips, might question why you would choose to use off-line strategies. However, as our last video demonstrated, there still are very many valid reasons why using off-line marketing strategies still makes a lot of sense.

As we all know, technology seems to be ruling the marketing world. We are seldom not connected, either by our phones, our tablets, or our computers. In fact, some studies have shown that some people actually suffer a type of withdrawal when they’re unable to be connected via technology. Read more

Using Offline Marketing As A Strategy For Your Business – Why Choose It?

offline marketing strategies

Our previous video introduced this series about using offline marketing strategies for your business.

In this, the second video of the series, we discuss the reasons why you want to use offline marketing.

With the increased reliance on the use of technology for marketing, the focus for many years has been on the implementation of online marketing strategies. And, of course, online marketing is a critical component of the complete marketing plan.

But that doesn’t mean that off-line marketing strategies are passé. Watch our video and see why it makes sense to go a bit old-school and bring offline marketing strategies into your plans. Read more

Using Offline Marketing As A Strategy For Your Business – Introduction

offline marketing

Why offline marketing makes sense.

I’d like to welcome everyone to our newest video series, using offline marketing as a strategy for your business. We’ve been planning this video series for about two months now, but other priorities continued to pop up over the summer, delaying our progress on this series until now.

But this may not be a bad thing. Now that summer is over and the kids are back at school, everyone is focusing back on their business and looking for ways to finish the year off on a positive note. One of the things you should be doing is reviewing your marketing plan, identifying what has worked over the past year, streamlining for the last quarter, and making your adjustments for 2016.

This newest video series focuses on bringing off-line strategies into your marketing plan. Our introductory video will warm you up to the concept and prepare you for the rest of the series. Read more

Know Your Customers!

know your customer kyc

How well do you know your customers?

Our previous post addressed the importance of knowing your competition. Today, we are following up with a presentation about knowing your customers, also known as KYC.

Indeed, knowing your customer is just as important as knowing your competitors. In fact, it might just be even more critical to your success.

This presentation will help you understand why this is so important, how to identify your client, and how to deliver your product and services in a way that ensures their loyalty. KYC is the key!

Watch our video and see how you can enhance your customers’ experiences.  As always, if you prefer, you can watch on our YouTube channel.



Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

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The Importance Of Knowing Your Competition

know your competitors

What’s your competition doing?

Regardless of whether your business is conducted primarily online or if you have a physical location, one of the most important factors to the success or failure of your business is that of knowing your competition.

We all know that others provide products and services that are similar to our own, despite the fact that we like to think that were unique. But by differentiating ourselves from our competitors, we do establish ourselves as being unique in some aspect of the delivery of our products or services.

Without knowing how your competitors present themselves to clients and prospects, it is impossible to create this differentiation.

But what information are you looking for? How do you discover what it is that your competitors are doing?

Watch our video to learn the questions to ask when looking to set yourself and your business apart from the crowd.  If you prefer, you can also watch on YouTube

Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

If you like the information you are receiving, please consider forwarding this post.

Regaining Your Focus

focus

Time to focus!

Well, the unofficial end of summer is upon us. Despite the fact that summer doesn’t officially end until September 23 this year, we all know that the Labor Day weekend heralds the end of summer and a return to “business as usual”. Many people have commented to me that they struggle a bit with regaining their focus at this time of year. I suppose that’s only natural after a couple of months of juggling holidays, barbecues, weekend trips, kids activities, etc. It can take a bit of time to find that balance again, now that life has settled into a more predictable routine.

With this in mind, I decided to use today’s article to address this issue of what happens when you lose your focus and how to get back on track. I’m including a link to a podcast that I recorded with Frank Thomas of the Small Business Tips Show back in mid-July.

Frank found that he was struggling a bit with focus at the beginning of July.  As he’s a friend and business colleague of mine, we naturally had a couple of discussions about trouble he was having. As we worked our way through some of the common obstacles, stumbling blocks and reasons why people lose their focus, we came to the obvious conclusion that many people struggle with the lack of focus from time to time. We decided that by having an open discussion about what happens when you lose focus, and discussing how to get back on track, we would not only help Frank regain his mojo, but could also potentially help many, many other people. The result is this podcast.

During this podcast, we discuss how you lose focus, as well as how to recognize the signs and symptoms of starting to lose your focus. We provide suggestions on how to identify and get beyond this lack of focus, and how to avoid losing focus in the future.

I hope you enjoy this podcast and that you find some of the tips and strategies helpful.

Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

If you like the information you are receiving, please consider forwarding this post.

A Guide To Creating Your Market Share

Market share

How do you create your share of the market?

In our last article, we talked about what market share is and provided five simple tips to help you get your piece of the pie.

Identifying, finding, and keeping market share is so critical to the success of your business that we thought it was important to do a follow-up article giving a bit more detail about exactly how to create your share of the market.

So, without further ado, here are the top three ways to create your own share of the market.

1. Be sure to differentiate your business.

One of the most important factors of creating your market share is to be sure to differentiate your business from your competitors. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of companies that provide the same services and products as yours. But what makes your company unique? Why do people want to buy from you rather than one of your competitors? Read more

Market Share – Getting Your Piece Of The Pie!

Goal setting

Get your slice of the pie!

Today I thought we should talk a bit about goal setting and market share. After all, the goal of marketing your business is to obtain clients and preserve your share of the market.

So let’s talk first of all about what exactly market share is. At its most basic definition, market share is the total number of loyal clients that your business has managed to retain over a specific period of time.

I hope you caught the key word in the definition above: loyal clients.

Without loyal clients you really haven’t got market share. While it’s true that having many one-time buyers can positively impact your financial bottom line, without the retention of these clients you have not captured any market share. In other words, the criteria is not about attracting clients, but bringing them in and keeping them. It’s about turning these customers from simply being purchasers of your product or service into advocates, referring others to your business as well.

The process of retaining and increasing your market share is continuous. The business cycle, like the cycle of life, always has someone exiting and someone entering. Even loyal customers will eventually die, move, or no longer require your product. Therefore, you should always be looking for ways to expand your market share.

There are a number of ways to do this, and some are naturally more involved than others. But let’s touch on a few of the more simple tips in today’s article.

1. Be innovative to stay relevant.

One way to improve your market share is to try to spot new trends ahead of your competitors. Watch the news, listen to friends, and check out new technologies on the Internet. Spotting and implementing advances and technical improvements in your niche can help set you apart from your competition.

2. Be responsive to your customers.

There is nothing worse, especially from a customer’s perspective, than having the sense of being ignored. We all like to think that we matter, and the failure to respond quickly to the needs of your clients will send them flocking to your competitors.

3. Ask for feedback and use your customers’ ideas what appropriate.

Ask your customers what they like – and don’t like – about your products and services. Not only will this allow you to be more responsive and make improvements to your products and services, but it makes your clients feel valuable as well. There are lots of ways to obtain this, including online surveys through services such as SurveyMonkey and MailChimp

4. Buy out your competitor.

That’s right, I said buy out your competitor. If you have the financial resources, it may help to purchase a competitors business. This gives you direct access to, and ownership of, their client lists.

5. Be flexible.

Are you available when your clients need you? Is your product or service able to be modified to better fit the needs of your client? These are just a couple of very easy ways to gain customer loyalty and grow your market share.

These five tips are fairly simple to implement. Understanding what defines market share, and applying one or more of these tips should provide you with the fundamentals to start growing your business.

Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

If you like the information you are receiving, please consider forwarding this post.

Target Market vs. Ideal Client – Know The Difference!

target market or ideal client

Do you know the difference between your target market and your ideal client?

I’m sure by now you’re very familiar with the phrase target market. Identifying your target market is one of the fundamentals of marketing, and is a key component of ensuring a successful marketing plan.

By identifying your target market, you’re making sure that the investment you’re making in your marketing program is successful in reaching the proper audience. After all, if your product or service is geared towards women between the ages of 40 and 60, it is simply a waste of time, money and effort to be advertising your product or service to anyone outside of that demographic.

Your ideal client, of course, is something a bit different. Identifying your ideal client and communicating with them is a refinement of your target market, and is something that you must take the time and effort to do.

Another way to put it is that your target market is the big picture. You identify a specific demographic that is most likely to require your product or service.  Of those people who fit this demographic, only a percentage will actually buy from you and become your clients. Some of these clients may only make one purchase from you and be gone. But your ideal client is the client who becomes your advocate; a loyal customer who also provides referrals. Read more

Using Tools To Increase Your Productivity

marketing automation

How can you become more productive?

Are you currently using any of the tools that are available to assist with productivity? There are many options available out there for marketing automation; everything from social media automation, to CRM’s, to voice recognition software.

Running a business, especially a small business, takes a lot of time and effort to be managed properly. In many instances, the business owner takes on the responsibility of most tasks, especially in the early days of growing the business. As a result, it is easy to become bogged down in a lot of administrative functions, leaving little time to focus on product and service creation, marketing and sales.

Thank goodness for automation and productivity tools!

Marketing your brand and building an audience can be very time-consuming. Most people check online before they purchase a product or service, which means that you have to build your own online presence. This can be accomplished by building and maintaining a website that is both interactive and mobile responsive, as well as ensuring that you have a social presence on those social bookmarking sites that your target audience is most likely to participate in.

But regularly updating information on your website and posting to various social media sites takes time and effort. Therefore, it is important to research and implement marketing automation and productivity tools that fit your needs. Read more

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