Don’t Leave These Things Out Of Your Business Budget!

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People just starting out in the business world will often make mistakes when it comes to creating their budgets. That is a significant problem because it means the entrepreneurs can run out of money before they make a profit. With that in mind, there are some budget essentials listed below that you won’t want to overlook.

Marketing and promotion

Marketing is the single most critical aspect of your operation, and you need to spend a lot of money if you want the best results. These days, it’s possible to lower your promotional spend using digital tools like social media. However, you still need to allocate a substantial amount of funds.

Employment costs

You need to make sure there is always enough money in the bank to pay your employees. At the same time, you also need to think about whether or not you might employ more people in the next twelve months. Be sure you include all those costs in your budget.

Travel and accommodation fees

As the infographic below shows, most business owners have to spend a lot of cash when it comes to travel and accommodation. You never know when you might need to meet a client on the other side of the country, and so it’s vital that you keep enough funds in your accounts.

If you remember to include all those things in your business budget this year; you should find your company on the right track. Still, there is always more to learn, and so you should continue your research after clicking away from this page.


Infographic designed by Jettly

Improve Your Employees’ Production Levels by Changing Up the Food and Beverage Options On-Site

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As the owner of a company, you’re always looking to find ways that improve the production level of your employees. Today’s employers know more about what motivates and drives their employees than ever before, which is helping them to enjoy some fabulous results. While there are all kinds of routes you can take, one that you may not have considered is the fuel you’re offering staff.

Pretty much every company, no matter the size, offers on-site snacks, beverages, and even meals for employees to access. Well, here’s the thing, did you know that the options you provide can actually have an impact on their productivity levels since the food and beverages affect their overall health? Let’s take a closer look.

What Fast Foods and Snacks Do to a Person’s Health

In order to get an idea of just how important the right food and drink choices are, one needs to look closer at what fast foods and snacks do to a person’s overall health. As reported in middaydaily.com, those under the age of 30 who consume fast food at least three times a week suffer higher levels of anxiety and stress. This is believed to be brought on by the high levels of fatty acids that exist in fast food.

As far as the healthiest diet goes, the same study went on to show that the Mediterranean diet is indeed one of, if not the healthiest, choices. This is a diet that is rich in fish, seafood, tubers, legumes, and vegetables.

Experts recommend looking at food the same way you look at fuel for an automobile. Sure, the regular fuel will give you what you need to get the job done, but when you go for premium fuel (the healthy food choices), the performance will be that much better. Food has a huge impact on a person’s cognitive performance, which plays into a person’s decision-making skills. If you want your employees to make sound decisions, then better food options may be the answer.

What Can You Do to Help?

So, what can you do to help your employees make food choices that will impact their productivity in a positive way? Well, you can start by encouraging them to eat small meals and/or snacks more frequently. Forcing your employees to go hours and hours without any fuel is going to greatly affect their performance.

Ideally, your employees should get a break every couple of hours where they can have a quick snack and re-fuel, keeping their mind sharp. Not only that, but it helps employees from feeling sluggish, which can then lead to mistakes and errors in the workplace.

Research has shown that foods such as carrots, blueberries, whole grains, avocado, nuts, and dark chocolate all help with productivity levels. It can be beneficial to add these choices to your snack stations or on-site cafeteria/kitchen. As well, be sure that employees always have a supply of fresh water available to them, instead of just coffee.

Providing your employees with energy and brain-boosting foods won’t just benefit them, but the whole company.

Which Lead Tactics Work Best

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The worst number in business is one. If you have just one source of leads, it is only a question of time when the price per click goes up or the targeting options change or the viewership of the publication changes.

Because of this, you want to have several lead generation mechanisms in place. This way, if something happens to one of them, the other ones will continue working for you and generating new leads. This article will introduce you to five tactics you can use in your business.

1. Media Buying

Media buying is the process of negotiating and purchasing advertising time and space.

The secret to successful media buying lies in knowing your audience. One of the biggest mistakes a marketer can make is to advertise a niche offer to a broad market. The ad campaign will be expensive and the response will be small. This is not how you want to run your campaigns.

You need to know the age of your buyers, their gender, level of education, income, family status and interests. You also want to know what publications they read, how they spend their free time and what websites they visit.

Once you have this data, you can start making intelligent choices about how and where you can advertise to them. One of your goals should be to find media that are not obvious to your competition. This way you will be able to purchase space and time at reasonable rates (because the competition is not yet there) and be the only advertiser in your category in that media.

If there are certain media that you would like to use for advertisements, but can’t afford, call them or email them and tell them how much you can pay. Often, you’ll be able to get a last-minute offer if one of their advertisers pulls out and they have some free time or space. Many media are very negotiable as to how much they will sell advertising for. This is not something they advertise upfront, but if you negotiate, you will often be able to get a great deal.

2. Affiliates

Affiliate marketing is a great way to market products and services because in affiliate marketing you don’t have to pay for advertising upfront and you don’t have any risks.

Typically, you pay for advertising or lead generation activities first. These activities generate leads. Then, you have to do the work to convert the leads into paying customers. If the work is successful, only then you get your money back and a return on your investment.

This is not how things work in affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketers do all the work for you. In exchange, you pay them a percentage of the sales or a pre-agreed amount per sale for all the sales that they make.

The best way to use affiliates is to scale your sales systems that are already working. Nobody wants to pay money to test something that is not proven. While you may get affiliates to test your offers, if they lose money, they will not work with you again. If, however, you have a system that works and need more leads or need to convert more leads, then working with affiliates is a great way to go. You will make more money and your affiliates will make money, which will make them want to work again with you in the future.

3. Social Media Marketing

Today there are all kinds of social media, from Pinterest to Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn. However, this does not mean that you have to be everywhere. You need to be where your customers are. If you are selling a consumer product, you probably do not need to be on LinkedIn. If you are a high-end executive recruitment boutique, then being on Pinterest may not be a good strategy for you.

Find out where your customers spend their time. Then, get in front of them.

The good news is that social media today offer a variety of tools and ways to reach prospects and existing customers.

Using Facebook Pixel or Google Tag Manager, you can mark everyone who visits your website or certain pages on your website. You can also create audiences based on sequences of pages that people visit, videos they watch, elements of pages that they click on and parts of the pages they scroll to. Then, you can retarget these visitors with custom ads on social media and other websites. The opportunities for marketers today are virtually unlimited.

4. SMS

SMS or text messaging can be a very effective way to target customer but you need to be very careful with how you use it. Today most people use text messaging to communicate with their friends and family. They don’t get a lot of advertising messages via text. For this reason, you want to only text them about something important. Reminders typically fall into the important category and work really well. For example, you can send a reminder about a webinar. You can also send a reminder about a demo or a sales call that you have coming up.

You can also offer your existing customers to notify them via text about special sales and events.

At the same time, sending regular updates and marketing messages via text messaging is probably not a good idea. Most people check their text messages very frequently and if you are sending them messages that they don’t find valuable, they may feel as if you are spamming them and interrupting them with no good reason.

5. Ringless Voicemail

Ringless voicemail is a relatively new technology, which is why it is extremely effective.

Ringless voicemail works only will cellphones. According to studies, over 90% of adult Americans own a cellphone, which means that you can reach virtually any person with ringless voicemail marketing.

Ringless voicemail works by completely bypassing cellular networks. It contacts the cellular provider directly via a business landline call and drops a message on the server of the cellular provider. The provider then moves the message to the server space of the recipient and notifies the recipient about the message. This way there is no call made to the recipient, no charges to the recipient and no interruptions.

When the recipient checks his or her voicemail, he or she can listen to the message. The message can be as long or as short as the sender likes. This means that you can create ringless voicemails that are really effective.

A ringless voicemail can have options that connect the recipient to a sales person or drive the recipient to a website. By using these options you can measure the ROI from your ringless voicemail campaigns and make sure that you are spending your marketing dollars wisely.

Why Video is Such an Important Part of a Media Campaign

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Running a successful and effective media campaign requires some careful forethought and planning, as well as a good understanding of what it is that you want to achieve and what your target audience expects. Different audiences will require different approaches to effectively convey your messages. They will respond to different forms of media in different ways and it is crucial that these distinctions are appreciated if your campaign is to be successful. However, regardless of the specifics of your media campaign, you will almost certainly need to incorporate video elements to effectively sell your message.

For this article, we have put together a list of just some of the reasons why video is an especially powerful and important part of any media campaign, an aspect that you can ill-afford to overlook when planning your campaign, and something that needs to be at the front of your mind throughout the entire process.

Universal Power

There are a number of reasons why video is such an effective and universally powerful way of conveying a message. Because it is a medium with such a broad reach, and almost endless potential, video has been used to convey all kinds of messages and has been very successful in instigating both large-scale changes, and changes in individual’s behavior. For proof of just how effective video is in conveying messages to entire demographics with great effect, consider public information campaigns.

Public information campaigns are used to inform large groups, sometimes entire nations, of changes that affect everyone. They have proven to be a highly effective way of doing so. To learn more about how media campaigns have been so effective in changing behaviors on a large scale, check out this article on behavior change myths.

Videos Boost Conversions

Videos have the potential to make you some serious cash and they are by far the most effective medium through which to advertise. Some studies suggest that they can boost conversions by as much as 80%. The effectiveness of video over other mediums is not as surprising when you consider that our most dominant sense is our vision. The majority of the information that our brain processes is visual, and it is visual information that we are most adept at interpreting.

They Offer an Excellent ROI

When questioned for a survey, over 80% of businesses said that the videos in their media campaigns lead to what they considered to be a good return on their investments. Producing a high quality, professional looking video isn’t cheap or quick, but it is incredibly effective and whatever money you spend you can expect to make back, and then some. Videos don’t have to be perfect in order to be effective. They only have to convey your message effectively and in a way that your audience responds well to.

Videos are an important part of any media campaign. When used well, they all but guarantee a boost in sales, as well as providing the best medium through which to convey your message. They are a worthwhile investment and one of the safest that you can make in the course of putting together your campaign.

First Impressions Matter Now More than Ever

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The idea that first impressions matter is a cliche, but it’s a cliche for a reason. While it may seem outdated to judge a person solely on their appearance and the initial meeting, business persons have long memories, and any biases after the first contact may well linger for a long time.

And now, in a world where anybody can start their own business and entrepreneurs can come from all walks of life, it is more important than ever that you can make an excellent first impression when it comes to meeting potential clients, customers, or investors.

The first impression can relate to anything from your appearance, your office culture, or even the way you conduct yourself around new and possibly more senior members of your company. By ensuring that you avoid the mistakes of the many when it comes to first impressions, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about, right?

THE YOU

When meeting someone for the first time, you want to look professional and serious. This is true for every situation in life and not just business. But, when first meeting someone who could very well have a massive influence on the success of your company it is much, much more than a life and death scenario.

Dressing professionally is Business 101. There is no point in wasting time discussing the proper attire for CEOs when first meeting investors or clients. However, while we all know about what to wear, some people often don’t know how to act. Firm handshakes, eye contact, a clear focus on what you want and a sense of humour will all go along way in convincing anyone who comes into your office will be the real deal.

THE OFFICE

Entering your office could very well be the first instance of someone experiencing what your company is all about directly. The first thing they will probably see is the reception desk, which will give them an immediate impression of what sort of office culture you are running.

Furthermore, the placement of such desks will demonstrate the sort of inclusiveness of the office. Is it within the office alongside salesmen and women? Or secluded in an independent room before getting into the main office? While it may not seem significant, these things matter to those who will matter to your company, should they choose to.

Once the initial meeting is out of the way, it is time to consider how the rest of the office will look to outsiders. While your company may have its unique way of doing things that make sense to you and your employees, to outsiders, it can sometimes come off the wrong way.

To ensure that this does not become an issue, it is wise to know exactly what might be questioned and have an acceptable and responsible answer to whatever might be thrown at you. If you can justify your office culture in a way that demonstrates you are working for the benefit of the business, many supposedly strange office quirks will be overlooked and sometimes even encouraged.

THE WEBSITE

With everything being conducted online in the modern age, having a fully functioning website is paramount to attracting the right people. Web design can be a hard and arduous process, and so employing the right people to do it for you can save a lot of time and effort.

For many, the website will be the first interaction with your business, and so it is essential to ensure that everything works. This is much more than merely clicking a few links, instead, going through each page with a fine-toothed comb will help avoid any embarrassing questions when trying to convince people to invest in your business.

While it may seem that it would take the world’s most nitpicky and pedantic investor or client to think of all of these factors when first interacting with your business, it is because of this nitpicking that they are in the position to make such judgements. Every day, more and more people are coming round to the idea that the 21st century business world is so unlike the past that it is almost recognisable, but ensuring that you make the best first impression possible is the key to your success.

It can be tough to recover from someone’s negative opinion of you, so don’t give them the opportunity and go along with what is expected. Once you have the support, you can shoot as high as you want, and eventually make other companies worry about their first impression when they meet you.