Ready to Grow Your Business? How to Appeal to Niche Audiences

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship ArticleRunning your own business means that you must make major decisions daily, but the one decision that a lot of owners tend to struggle with is when to expand their business. It’s a big leap, and you must prepare well for the transition, but how do you know when it’s time to take the first steps?

Here are 5 signs that you are ready to expand:

1. You have a loyal customer base

Loyalty is the key word here. If you have regular repeat customers, you are on to a winner. It’s a sure sign that the products or services that you are offering are quality and that you are providing customer satisfaction. The more interactions and positive experiences that your customers have with you, the more likely they are to convert from consumer into a brand advocate, and so the message of your brand will spread organically.

2. Your business is stable

You can’t base your desire to expand your business on the fact that you have had a good quarter. It needs to have been making a stable profit for at least a couple of years before you contemplate expanding. This delay may frustrate your plans, but it is essential so that you can gauge seasonal variations and confirm that your boost in profits is not just a temporary position.

3. Your team is A1

If you are planning an expansion, you need to have an efficient and strong team behind you to cope with the demands of growth. They need to be agile and dynamic to respond to the new challenges expansion creates – increased demands on their knowledge, skills and time.

4. Your processes are A1

When your operational and back office processes are aligned you work efficiently and productively. Your streamlined processes mean that you have the capacity to take on more work and the time to devote to growing your business.

5. You identify gaps

If you have steady sales of the products and services that you offer, you may repeatedly be asked for associated items that you can add to your product list. Associated items that will complement the products or services that you offer are a natural way to grow your business.

You may also recognize that you are not servicing niche audiences and that you have gaps in your products’ appeal. By adapting your marketing strategy, you will be able to target new audiences for your products and services.

Let’s look at the niche markets that you can tap into boost your business’s growth and profitability:

Seniors

With life expectancy typically increasing and medical innovations positively impacting people’s health, for the first time since records began there are more seniors than children under 5 years. This means that products or services that appeal to the older generations are tapping into a huge market with an equally impressive potential profit – something to consider for your business and perhaps where to invest your profits.

Shares in companies that supply products for seniors have a very healthy return – the health sector, pharmaceuticals, and even the leisure industry have been boosted by the change in demographics. Do your research into how to invest in a global aging economy to become inspired as to how different markets are making serious profits from seniors.

When marketing for seniors you need to pay great attention to the content that you produce, especially online. Your content should primarily focus on their abilities rather than the things that they can no longer do. You shouldn’t use over the top language; they want to know who, what, where and how – they don’t want over descriptive language that dilutes the message that you are communicating.

Moms

Nearly 60% of mothers who work control the household expenses, and make the key decisions within the household. Moms are keen to make purchases that offer solutions to the challenges they face bringing up their children – whether it’s saving them time, saving them money or offering them products that satisfy their values.

Your marketing strategy should be focused on making your content snappy – this particular audience values efficiency. Avoid trying to appeal to the stereotypes of moms who are on the edge of coping, too perfect or other stereotypes – you risk labeling women in a way that they won’t appreciate. You want your campaign to be inclusive and not something that restricts the idea of diversity.

Bilingual Consumers

In the United States, there are approximately 20% of the population speak a language other than English as their first language – Spanish and Spanish Creole being 12% of that figure. It makes great sense to provide information about your products or services in more than one language.

The rise of the internet means that you are not limited to just serving your local community with products and services. Even small businesses can embrace using different languages in their marketing strategy. The most obvious sector to benefit is the tourism industry, but other sectors can thrive by appealing to non-English speakers – we all have the same needs and requirements. If you market to consumers in their native tongue, you will inspire confidence in your offerings and profit from referral within their communities.

By tapping into niche audiences, you can access a new market in which to promote your products. The senior, mom and bilingual consumers are examples of niche markets that you can target, and by doing so, you have the very real opportunity to become a market leader by exploiting the gaps that others have not yet identified. To do this successfully, you must spend some time to understand who your consumers are and what their needs are. You can then deliver a better solution to their problem that other firms have failed to address.

Recognizing when it’s the right time to grow your business is key to its success. Your timing is critical. You want the decisions you make to support a long-term strategy to achieve your goals, expand your business and accomplish success.

4 Strategies for Dealing with Workplace Stress

StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals ArticleMost people have experienced work-related stress at least once in their lifetime. Even if you love what you do, you can inevitably feel a bit of pressure to either meet a deadline or complete a challenging task. On the one hand, a certain amount of stress can be useful because it can keep you alert and help you complete that job with a higher determination. On the other hand, being exposed to prolonged stress can eventually take a toll on your health.

While it is impossible to avoid stress at all times, one can still figure out a few ways of dealing with stress. Before doing that, you need to learn what the factors that cause stress are. Low salaries, excessive workloads or work that isn’t challenging are just a few of them. If you’re willing to make a change in your work life, here are a few strategies.

Establish Boundaries

Due to the fact that people spend most of their time at work, they somehow feel the need to remain connected to their work-related problems even when they are at home. If stress is taking over your personal life and it is affecting your relationships, you might want to establish some boundaries. For example, not checking your emails in the evening or not answering the phone while you’re with your family can be a good start. Although it might be difficult to leave stress behind, you should somehow separate your personal and professional life in order to diminish the amount of stress that you’re dealing with.

Take Time to Recharge

Taking time to recharge is without a doubt the most efficient way of dealing with workplace stress. No matter what kind of job you have to perform, breaks are essential. If you want to avoid the risk of injury or even a burnout, taking time to recharge is that you need to do. Disconnecting from time to time allows you to allocate time for yourself, time that you can spend focusing on your well-being. However, if you’ve already been injured due to repetitive strain, you could contact The Compensation Experts. Keep in mind that your health is a lot more important than anything else and you should not be afraid to speak up when something bad happens.

Learn How to Relax

At times, it can be difficult to take a whole day off and focus on your well-being. That is why you need to learn some equally effective practices that don’t take long to complete, but that have great results. Meditation, mindfulness or deep breathing exercises are very useful for everyone who is dealing with work-related stress. Being able to concentrate on a single task without distraction will change your life.

Talk to Your Supervisor

Your supervisor should know exactly what to do when an employee is complaining about work-related stress. They should know that healthy employees are more likely to be a lot more productive, so their main focus should be on their worker’s health. Write a list of your stressors and have an open conversation with your supervisor. This will help you create an effective plan for managing your stress, which will improve your performance.

Workplace stress is a serious problem that should not be treated as a regular occurrence. Check out these tips for some guidance, and if they are not helpful, you might want to consider a career change.

How GDPR Could Affect Your Business Strategy: A Guide

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales ArticleYou may have heard recently about the introduction of the GDPR, but perhaps you are wondering how it affects you and your business.

GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation, and it is a change in the data protection laws that affect the countries in Europe. All businesses and websites that collect the personal data of outside parties must comply. Otherwise, they could face hefty fines. If you are wondering how GDPR could affect your business strategy, read on to learn more about the information you need.

Marketing

The biggest effect that GDPR will have on any business is the way it conducts its marketing strategy. In order to have someone’s details recorded and kept for marketing purposes, the person has to state that they agree that the company does so explicitly. Just having a box to tick if they want to opt out is no longer adequate. You must now also state how you intend to use the data that you collect from individuals. The other part of the new GDPR rules is that information can be removed from a database if the person requests it. The possible implications should a business not comply with GDPR rules can be heavy, with fines of around 4% of annual turnover.

One way to ensure your business complies with GDPR is to create a new opt-in form for your website that has a box to tick to confirm that a person is happy for you to collect their information, and a statement as to how you will be using their data. You should also go through your mailing list and remove any irrelevant addresses because if you don’t, your reasons for keeping them is unclear.

Collecting Fresh Consent

One aspect of GDPR that is confusing marketers is whether fresh consent needs to be obtained from people who you already have the details for. As you can imagine, for a website with thousands of subscribers that has taken time to build, it can seem a daunting process to ask them all if they still want to subscribe, especially if they don’t check or answer the email. A business could face losing a large proportion of its email list. The good news is that consent does not have to be re-obtained, provided that it was collected in a transparent way.

GDPR Services

For businesses, it is not always straightforward to implement procedures to comply with GDPR. That is when an expert GDPR IT service can take the hassle out of doing so. Torix, for example, is one such IT service company that can help, ensuring your company is GDPR ready and actioning any changes which need to be made.

GDPR will make the collection of personal details safer for the individuals who opt-in, as they will know exactly what a company is using their data for. For businesses, it will also help create a good relationship with those individuals, as the reasons for collecting that data are transparent and freely given. GDPR rules are in effect now, so if you haven’t done so, you need to take action to get your business strategies in place to reflect the new laws. There are various ways you can do this. One of the most popular ways, which could be the easiest option for your business, is approaching a company that provides GDPR training to companies that deal heavily with regulation. This will ensure that your business will be better prepared to create an effective strategy that will keep up with the law should it change in the future. GDPR doesn’t have to be a daunting process, just a few simple changes to how you collect information should be enough to see most types of business comply.

Leadership Inspirations – Advertising

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Quote“When business is good it pays to advertise, when it is bad you have got to advertise.”

Red Auerbach (1917 – 2006)
Hall of Fame Basketball Coach of the Washington Capitols, Tri-Cities Blackhawks and Boston Celtics

How to Encourage Teens to Get Jobs and Save Their Own Money

StrategyDriven Professional Development ArticleInstead of allowing your kiddo to laze around the house this summer, encourage your teen to get a job and save their own money instead. How so? Here are a few methods for talking your teen into taking on responsibilities and making their own cash this summer.

Encourage Your Kids to Search for Local Part-Time Jobs

Older teens, around 15 and older, can apply for part-time jobs. Check bulletin boards, encourage them to look at reputable online resources for hiring positions, and take them to fill out applications at local grocery stores, fast food restaurants, or retail shops. There are plenty of places that would be happy to hire a teen for the duration of the summer, on a part-time basis.

Or, for Younger Teens, Set Up a Chores and Rewards System Around the House

If your teen can’t apply for a job outside of the home yet, set up a list of daily chores and offer a rewards system for around-the-house help. Sure, they have the average chores that they should be doing anyways, such as cleaning their room, making their own breakfast, and doing their laundry.

Make it a Rule to Set Back 30-Percent of Each Paycheck

When your kiddo gets a job, even if it’s doing chores at home, you should implement a 30/70 rule. They should put 30-percent of their paycheck into savings, like a lock box or bank account, and then they can keep 70-percent for whatever they need, want, etc.

Help Older Teens with Resume, Job Prospects, and Goals

Older teens need to get a little more serious about job prospects and cash management in general, so help them make a resume for their part-time applications. Then, help them pinpoint both short-term and long-term job goals. For example, where would they like to work as a starter job? But where would they like to end up, career-wise, in the long run? You could even suggest recruitment agencies Boston for start-up opportunities in a plethora of niche markets.

Yes, your teen probably works hard in school, but a part-time summertime job will ensure their summer is productive. AND they still get some summertime downtime when they get home.