Category: Sales & Marketing

Article Contributed by Keith Elton

When I started my first business – I needed to keep costs as low as possible. The reality was, I simply couldn’t afford expensive or wide-reaching professional advertising campaigns. But I still needed to get more customers. With little money coming in, I was stuck thinking of ways to grow my business without breaking the bank. Thankfully some of these tips helped me get off the ground without spending much money at all.

Local networking events

I used to ignore these – but I was making a huge mistake. Not only are they a great place to meet like-minded business people, there a huge marketplace for your startup. Make sure you print up tons of business cards and other promotional material. Hand it out liberally. Tell everyone about your business.

When I started going to local networking events – I started seeing people I’d met come to me with business opportunities. The best thing about most of these events is – they’re totally free. You’re missing a great opportunity to spread the word about your business if you ignore these events.

Social Media

Social media is huge in business marketing. In this day and age – you’d struggle to get by without it. I was reluctant to fully make the most of social media in the beginning – I thought it was just for friends and family. The reality is, NOT having an active social media presence for your business says something negative about what you’ve got to offer.

Staying in touch with both existing and potential customers has never been easier. When people start to like you on social media, they’re telling their friends about it. That’s viral marketing juice which was hard to come by before social media – and you need it to make your business a success.

Contests and competitions

These can be tied in to your social media accounts to give followers something extra – or they can be standalone. You don’t have to give away much – but people love to take part in competitions even if they hadn’t really heard about your business before. When I started running a few small-scale contests – I noticed some of the losers popping into my store more often just because they’d become more aware of what I had to offer.

Charity fundraisers

Charity fundraisers are one of the best ways of becoming an active and valued member of your local community. You get increased publicity and get to help a charity in the process – it’s win-win.

Refer-a-friend schemes

Another way of getting people talking about you and your business is to recruit all your existing customers as casual salespeople. In fact, I noticed this scheme helped me more than some direct sales campaigns. I gave existing customers an incentive (a discount on their next purchase) if they brought me a new customer. This not only got me more customers from word-of-mouth – but I even made a profit on the discounted item I was selling to the existing customer. They actually came back quicker themselves – so it was another win-win situation for my business.

Leafleting

You might think your business is above some simple leafleting – but it can be a great way of getting to people who might not have heard of you before. If you’ve got a decent printer – you can make them yourself to quite a good standard. If you want to go door-to-door, it’s much cheaper than you might think. Another alternative is standing in a busy area and handing them out yourself. It’s a cheap and effective way to grow your business.

About the author

Keith Elton has years of experience helping people with their startup and business related questions. He also knows how important business education is, which is why he writes for a personal tuition blog.

Article Contributed by Maria Estrada

People have predicted that cards would become a staple in mobile, and eventually, web marketing as online content is being broken down into separate components and reassembled in the form of cards.

We are welcoming the era of personalized experiences at the palm of our hands. In the real world, cards are an integral part of our everyday lives. We have health cards, school IDs, credit cards, cheap business cards, etc. And with the internet’s incessant need for customization, it’s quite easy to see why cards are gaining more and more popularity.

What are Cards?

Cards are rectangles and squares with different images and text that serve as a bite-sized information medium.

We see cards all around us. We have grocery coupons, birthday cards, debit cards, cards games, and a whole lot more. From the print business card stock we hold to the online recipe cards we see, they are all of the same purposes: convey quick bursts of info.

Thus, designers conveniently incorporated a piece of our everyday life into our online experience, making it more intuitive.

How Do Cards Work?

Cards aggregate information from your browsing patterns into one immersive user experience. Some of this information include:

• Personal preferences. Take Google Now for example. It takes note of your interests and shows you cards related to them. These might come from your Google searches, emails, and other mobile apps.
• Geographical context. You may receive alerts based on your location. Some of the most common are weather updates and traffic flow.
• Social circles. Your browsing experience can also be affected by your friends’ online behavior and preferences. You can also receive recommendations based on what they like.

The Card UI Advantage

• Bite-sized Content

Cards make it easier for the reader to digest information since you can see the media in distinct sections. You won’t be seeing chunks of text, which are too stuffy and intimidating. You can even integrate gifs and audio files to break up your paragraphs without any issue.

Scannability is another important trait that cards have. According to research, internet users rarely read stuff online. Instead, they skim through articles and look for highlighted words, catchy headlines, and short lines of text.

• Pleasing Aesthetics

Card-based interfaces are more attractive for consumers due to their clean visuals. And since cards rely heavily on images, it successfully captures the viewer’s attention and draws the audience’s eyes to the design.

According to Kissmetrics, images not only add more life to your website, but they also increase conversion rates. People want to visualize the experience, and you can attribute this fact to the principle of showing, not telling.

• Tweakable Interfaces

Think of digital cards the same way you think of physical cards. They can be folded, turned over for more information, organized, sorted, and spread out. In the same way, we can make use of animations and visual effects to make the user experience more intuitive. Think of it as an affordable business cards alternative.

With visual cues, you can tell the user to ‘flip’ the card over to reveal more information or to swipe the card to continue reading. When done correctly, you can provide a perfect user experience for your customers.

• Scalability

According to Adobe, 38 percent of people will stop interacting with your page if the layout is unresponsive and wonky. This fact highlights the necessity for a crisp and responsive user interface, and the good news is that we now have cards to give us a solution.

Card UI’s are made to be scalable on different platforms. In fact, they are the best choice for responsiveness since they serve as containers that you can easily scale up or down, allowing us to recreate the same visuals across different platforms and devices. 

Takeaway 

The Card Interface craze is giving the online world an architectural evolution. Or should I say, revolution? You can even see card-based UI’s on different apps, like Tinder and even Microsoft!

They are the next big thing in media marketing and the latest playground for the creative minds behind digital content marketing. It is undeniable that cards are skyrocketing the digital marketing game, and there is just no stopping it. 

Author Bio

Maria Estrada is the business executive of PrintMeister AU, a print ads company. She likes to tinker with different photo manipulation software like Adobe Photoshop. In her free time, she blogs about her knowledge in various digital marketing and graphic design strategies.

When it comes to internet marketing, most small business owners are reluctant to start. They can only imagine spiralling costs in a highly competitive market – but with the right strategies, that won’t be the reality. In fact, you can conduct your internet marketing on a shoestring budget and still get your name out there. Here’s a quick guide on how to do it.

Use social media

This is the number one strategy that you will be using, and it should be a constant process. Social media is free, and that means you can do as much of it as you need to get those sales in. First, set up an account in your business name on all social networks – even if you don’t intend to use them all at first, at least you have reserved it for later. Set up a regular posting schedule, using scheduling software if you want to make it easier. Use hashtags and other best practices to ensure that as many people as possible see your updates and start following your brand. 

Encourage customer posts

When you have your social pages up and running, don’t forget to get your customers posting too. Use certain hashtags to promote your brand, and ask customers to tag their purchases when they snap pictures of them. You can include hashtags with a delivery note or product information, so it won’t take up any extra printing budget to get this information out there! Once your customers are posting, reward them by showcasing their best shots on your own page. This gives a new view on your products and also encourages even more people to post about them, thus spreading the word even further.

Work with influencers

It might not be cheap to work with every social influencer out there, but many of them might be happy to feature you in return for a sample or two. You may even find you only have to pay a small fee for those who have a bigger reach. People pay attention to what influencers say and the products that they recommend. This means that you are likely to grow your following and get extra orders right off the back of that promotion, so it’s a great strategy for growing quickly and maybe even going viral.

Use Facebook or Instagram ads

Even though you only have a small budget, you might still be able to reach people by advertising on Facebook or Instagram. The ad campaigns you can run there start from a very low price, and you can use their targeting algorithms to ensure that you only hit the kind of people who will be interested in buying from you. It’s very important to be as precise as possible, as this is how the ads work best. If you leave the options more open, you may end up spending more but getting worse results.

Have a blog

The best way to increase your website’s SEO is to have a blog which you update on a regular basis. You can do this weekly, or even more frequently. It will provide content for you to share on all your social media pages, as well as giving people another reason to stop by your side. Make the blog relevant to your products so that you attract interested buyers, instead of all manner of other people.

Using these strategies will hardly cost you anything, but it could increase your sales hugely and raise your brand profile. That makes them immensely cost-effective, especially when all you need to spend is time!

Michelle Arios works as Marketing Assistant for BizDb.co.nz– New Zealand business database

Article Contributed by Anand Srinivasan

Startup entrepreneurs have a very distorted view of how discount marketing campaigns work. It is commonly believed that the only way to penetrate a saturated market is by offering massive discounts. In other words, discounts are merely seen as a way to generate sales where none exist. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Discounting campaigns go beyond price wars and are instrumental in changing consumer habits and behavior.

Creating incentives for new customers 

Products and services cost money. This creates a barrier for prospective new customers to try them out on a whim. This is especially true for customers who are not already paying for an alternative. A good example of this is Uber. Unlike on-demand cab services, traditional taxi systems do not require passengers to share their credit card information. This creates a hurdle for companies like Uber that want customers to try their service. One way to bring down the barrier is by offering free rides for new registrants. The prospect of riding the service for cheap creates an incentive for users to provide their credit card information. This way, services like Uber and Lyft successfully bring new customers to their system.

Changing consumer habits 

If you are entering an industry where your competition is already well-established, then a discount on new registration would only help with customer acquisition and nothing more. Retaining these customers and training them to habitually move away from your competitor’s product to yours takes a lot more effort and resources. This requires a sustained strategy where discounts are recurring in order to nudge the customer towards developing a habit over time. For instance, online food delivery startups send promo codes to customers everyday during lunch and dinner hours to building this habit in consumers. The actual return on this investment is only gained after these consumers become regular users who order food even in the absence of discounts.

Last minute deals 

If you are in a business that deals with branded products (smartphones, computers, etc.), then no matter how loyal your customer is to your store, they are likely to shop for cheaper deals before making a purchase. It may however not make sense to advertise promo codes right on your website. In doing so, you could be losing out revenue from customers who may have purchased from you even without a discount. What companies like Walmart do instead is to promote discounts as direct mail coupons. This way, customers shopping for coupon codes get access to these during the purchasing process while other loyal customers who are not seeking discounts may transact at the market prices.

A discount on the selling price is a notional loss for your business. You should therefore discount marketing very judiciously. It is important to identify specific challenges and metrics where you want the needle to move and launch discounts that target these metrics specifically. Launching a marketing campaign that offers an umbrella discount on all products and to all kinds of customers is a money sink and should be strictly avoided at all costs. This is especially true if you are a bootstrapped startup that does not enjoy the luxury of big spending like VC-funded startups.

Trade shows are a fantastic opportunity for businesses of all sizes to publicize their products and make new leads. But a bit of prior planning can make all the difference to an average trade show, helping to make it into a success for your business.

If you are planning your next trade show, here are some tips to help you plan for the event so that you can take full advantage of it.

Hand Out Useful Freebies

First of all, you need to take some freebies with you. Do yourself a favor and provide freebies that are actually useful, even if they seem unoriginal. Things like pens and magnets are always going to attract people.

Even better, people will continue to use these items for months or years to come, which is great for long-term branding.

Make Good Use of Social Media

Smart use of social media can help to turn your next trade show into a bigger success. Publicize your presence well in advance to your social followers so they know that you will be there and where to find you. Appoint someone to update your social networks during the event using the appropriate hashtags.

Go one step further by making creative use of social media. Take a photo of attendees in front of your display and then tag them on Facebook, and this will then be seen by their friends and could reach many thousands of people.

Or set up a photo booth based on your brand and allow people to take their own photos and upload them to social media.

Market Your Presence in Advance

Social media can also be used to inform your followers that you will be attending the trade show. Talk about it in posts leading up to the event and encourage people to visit your stand by dropping hints about your freebies or anything special you will be doing on the day.

You can also take this further by advertising online using AdWords. Target people who are looking for information about the event and your ad will show up in the search engines, which could help to attract more people.

Be Different

It can be hard to stand out at a trade show but do your best by doing something different from the other businesses. For example, you could create unique banners, launch a game that people can play, and make it entertaining.

If you’re going to an outdoor event, check the weather beforehand. Use an app that forecasts the weather for Android devices so you know exactly what the weather will do. If it’s going to be hot, set up some umbrellas for shade. If it’s going to be wet, provide cover from the rain.

Check out this resource for some great ways to make your exhibit unique.

Hold a Prize Draw

One of the best ways to generate interest is to hold a prize draw. Make sure it’s a prize worth winning, and then publicize it widely. Get as many people to sign up as possible, and it also gives them a reason to come back to your stall later in the day.

Get Even More from Your Next Trade Show

These tips will help you when it comes to planning your next trade show so you can take full advantage of it and get more from the effort you put into the event. Take a look at your previous trade shows and have a think about where you can make improvements, then plan to make your next event the best one yet.