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3 Alternative Marketing Strategies

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article

Your business might have the best product or service in the market, but if you aren’t retaining customers, or no one knows your name, then your sales won’t increase (and may even drop). Companies need to undertake a marketing strategy so that consumers are aware that the firm exists, and more importantly, so that the dollars keep rolling in.

Marketing exists in various forms. While consumers may be more familiar with TV and print strategies, this doesn’t mean that you have to use the same strategy for your company. There is a range of marketing methods that you can use to help your business make its mark, especially in this digital age when mobile marketing and social media are at a full swing. Read on to find out if the following ideas could help you and your company.

Merchandising

Merchandising is one of the oldest, and most effective types of marketing. From mugs to custom lapel pins, t-shirts or sunglasses, your options are endless. Merchandising is a great alternative if you attend a lot of trade shows, or community events. By giving your consumers a take home gift, they will instantly remember your company, while associating it with a positive experience or memory. Even if the item that they take is only used within the home, any visitors may comment or engage with the item if they see that it has your company name or logo. If you are looking to boost awareness, get creative and are restricted by a small budget, then merchandising is the ideal tool for you. For best results, have merchandise that sits on an office desk or can be worn with pride.

Go Digital

The way we do business is changing. In fact, consumers are increasingly influenced by information that they obtain or interact with online. From Facebook to Instagram, and even LinkedIn and Twitter, don’t underestimate the power of using social media as part of your marketing strategy. The beauty of digital marketing is that you can start small too. From only a few posts a day, or scheduled tweets, you can begin to increase coverage and interest in your product or service. So if you thought that social media was only for millennials then think again. If you aren’t using digital marketing to help your business, then you risk getting left behind and becoming invisible.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.  There are plenty of tools and templates for social media marketing available to support your digital marketing efforts.

Go Traditional

Make sure that more traditional marketing methods also remain in your marketing strategy. It’s a good idea to produce brochures and sales materials if you are out and about, and want to provide potential customers with a point of reference, or catalogue for them to refer to. Depending on what your company offers, you may also want to consider TV and radio alternatives too. These methods are essential if you want to make the most of potential sales during key sales periods, including Christmas, Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Using TV or radio doesn’t mean that you have to produce a cheesy or dated commercial either. In fact, airtime is crucial if you want to obtain those all-important sales.

From traditional marketing methods, to merchandising and social media, you will need to review your marketing plan if you want to increase your business potential. Make sure to set aside some of your budget to aid your marketing plan, and feel free to get creative.

What to Look for in Job Applicants

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article
One of the most important of all the responsibilities that managers and business owners must take on is the hiring and firing of employees. There are often a number of applicants for any given position and it isn’t always immediately obvious which candidate should be the preferred choice. Needless to say, you always want to recruit the best person possible for the job. Sometimes, however the right person for the job may not be the most obvious choice.

In this guide we take a look at some of the most often overlooked facets of job applicants and how you can use these to gain a measure of how suitable an interviewee is for a role in your company.

Communication

Communication is a crucial skill in any work environment and there are very few people who can perform their job without having to interact and communicate with other people, both within and outside the organization that they work for. According to one study, conducted by the consultancy firm Millennial Branding, revealed that as many as 98% of all employers view effective communication skills as being ‘essential’ for the job.

Meeting an interviewee face to face is the perfect opportunity to find out about who they are and how well they can communicate. Be sure to keep an eye on how they respond in terms of both their verbal communication and their body language.

References

We all ask for references when we take applications for a newly opened position. In fact, most of us will automatically include our own references when we apply for another job, even if we aren’t prompted to. Despite both employers and employees understanding the importance of references, they too often go overlooked when considering candidates’ applications.

Some people have the, quite incorrect, view that checking references is something to be done when the interviewer doesn’t trust that the candidate is being truthful. In reality, checking references should be thought of more as an opportunity to ask a previous employer any questions that you might have about the candidate, but for whatever reason, didn’t want to ask them directly.

Consider the Whole Character

It is all too easy within the context of a job interview for the interviewer to reduce the candidate to the lines on their resume, a set of grades and statistics. This starts things off very impersonally, and also means that you are running the risk of overlooking characteristics and qualities which, while not relevant to their job, might still be desirable.

You should therefore consider anything that the interviewee reveals. For example, if the interviewee studied under a college soccer scholarship, then you can assume that they are already reasonably well versed in how to operate as part of a team. Soccer may have nothing to do with the job they are applying for, but it still reveals something about their character which is worth knowing.

Interviewing for a job opening isn’t easy, for the employer or the applicant. For too many managers and business owners, interviews are little more than a formality. However, they should instead be embraced as opportunities to get to know a potential colleague.

What to Do if Your Business is Involved in an Accusation

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Article
As with all things in life, a business can sometimes become involved in things that can lead to serious actions. As a business owner, you will be doing all you can to ensure that your company is working on the law and following all the codes of conduct. However, sometimes incidents can happen that lead to direct or indirect accusations against your company. If your business or someone working for you has been accused of a criminal offense, then here are a few things you can do to try and resolve the situation.

Where Does the Accusation Originate?

If you do receive information about an accusation, you need to know where the accusation originates. If it is coming from the police, then you need to make sure your company is open to them conducting an investigation. If it has come from an anonymous source or it is something someone has overheard, you need to keep detailed records of all the information. It may mean that you need to keep the source of the information if you have it and try to identify what the accusation relates to in the company.

How Does the Accusation Involve the Company?

The police will tell you if they know how the accusation involves your company. It will determine how you proceed and what actions you need to take. If the accusation involves a worker in your company, then they will likely be spoken to by the police. It might be the best procedure to suspend the employee pending the investigation to protect your company and other employees. If the accusation is against the company for safety for example, then you will need to make all safety records available to those investigating. It is also a good time to speak to your lawyer such as Powers McCartan, who can help to advise and deal with any legal issues on your behalf.

How It Could Affect Your Production

Determining the type of accusation is vital to know how it will impact on your company. If it involves one worker, then it could be that the incident wasn’t related to the company itself. If, however, it involves a process or a product that your company has produced, you will need to think about whether you need to stop production or remove a product from your stock.

Be Open About the Accusation

There can be more harm than good to try and deny the accusation, especially to your staff. It is important that you are open and honest about what is happening to stop rumors and uncertainty. If a certain individual is involved, then the police might ask that specifics are not disclosed. However, by being as open an honest as you can about any accusation, you are helping to preserve the reputation of your company and prevent false information from being circulated.

These types of problems are never easy to deal with, but if you can remain open and honest about what has happened, then you can quickly seek to resolve the issues.

DISCLAIMER: The author is not a lawyer and this article should not be considered legal advice. You should seek appropriate counsel for your own situation.

What Is Inbound Marketing, and Why Is Everyone Doing It?

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales ArticleFinding new customers is one of the primary challenges facing businesses. While many businesses rely on traditional outbound marketing strategies to find new leads, this can be costly and even ineffective. For most businesses, paid advertising and cold calling alone are no longer enough to attract customers. Consumer expectations have changed with the advent of the Internet, and many will need a better reason than a catchy jingle or a slick logo to become your customer.

Inbound marketing has emerged as an attractive complement to traditional advertising strategies. Whereas outbound marketing requires your business to cast a wide net to catch a few good leads, with an inbound strategy, you can lure potential customers who are already actively searching for the services you offer. This can increase the quality of your leads, lowering the customer acquisition cost and increasing the ROI of your marketing efforts.

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is a strategy in which a business creates high-quality content to attract potential customers and to build its brand. It is a holistic online marketing strategy that nurtures leads at every stage of the “buyer’s journey,” which models the decisions process a buyer persona goes through before making a purchase.

During the Awareness stage, the prospect tries to find out information about a problem they are experiencing. Next comes the Consideration stage, when they begin thinking about possible solutions. By the time the prospect has reached the Decision stage, they are interested in buying a specific product or service, and want to learn more about it.

With an inbound strategy, you can position your website as an attractive destination with useful information that can help potential customers make a purchase decision. The self-selection process this strategy implies means that potential leads are likely to be of relatively high-quality and receptive to your efforts to nurture them into customers. With an effective inbound marketing strategy, you can expand your market and turn new customers into dedicated promoters of your brand.

1. Defining Your Target Audience

Your marketing efforts should be tailored to your business’s buyer persona. This is a research-based model of your typical customer, which may include their information about their socioeconomic status, psychology, and consumption patterns.

To identify your buyer personas, try to find trends in your customer’s careers, buying habits, or the way they found your business. Interview a wide range of customers, including those who were satisfied and dissatisfied with your product. You gain further insight about your company by interviewing current leads, referrals they may have, and people who don’t know about your company.

2. Attracting New Visitors

Once you have your buyer personas, you’ll be able to create content which addresses their pain points and educates them about relevant subject matter. Blogging is one of the best ways to accomplish this, and the more high-quality content you create, the more authority you can have with potential customers.

Use search-engine optimization techniques to make it easy for prospects to find your content. You can promote your blog posts on social media, which can bring in more prospects as they are shared. The more you blog, the more important you can be to your buyer personas, and the more likely they will be to buy your products or services in the future.

3. Converting Visitors to Leads

Once your content starts bringing in visitors, it’s important to collect their contact information to convert them to leads.

An effective way to do this is through relevant content offers and opt-ins. Visitors can gain access to these once they fill out a form that includes their e-mail, phone number, social media account, or any other way you might want to contact them. Once you’re in touch, you can maintain their interest with further content offers and even start a dialogue.

4. Automated Nurturing

Email marketing is important for staying top of mind with your prospects. Once you have their contact information, you can provide them with content and communications that nurture them along the buyer’s journey. This makes it easy for you to communicate with them, and to make offers which appeal to them, such as a webinar or a teleconference.

By keeping track of what other offers they sign up for, you’ll know which content to offer in order to convert them from a lead into a customer.

5. Delighting Customers

Inbound marketing allows you to turn your customers into brand evangelists. You can keep their interest after they have made their purchase by providing them with a steady stream of useful content which addresses their current needs and builds off your previous work. Ultimately, by keeping former customers engaged with your business, you can increase the ROI of your marketing efforts and make it more likely that they will return as a customer. They may even refer others to your business.

Inbound marketing allows you to build your company while advertising it. The content and relationships you create can provide a steady stream of revenue. There’s no better way to use today’s technology to build a strong brand and a loyal customer base.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article

ShaDrena Simon in an inbound marketing expert and digital strategist at Yokel Local, an inbound marketing agency that helps businesses grow with confidence.

Top Marketing Strategies that Really Work

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
Paying per click to Google isn’t how you make money. It isn’t how you make new, organic hits, and it isn’t how you make sales. Instead, it’s how you pay for a click. There is no guarantee how long that person stays there, whether it was a bot, or even a real person. When you market, especially as a small business, you need to be smart. You need to ensure that you are getting the right message out to the right people. You need to use these five marketing strategies that really work, instead of paying for ones that make every sale an uphill battle:

1. Improve Your SEO

The whole point of pay-per-click advertising is that it takes your listing to the top of the SERPs. This means you can cut out all the hard work and be the first result that someone sees when they search for a keyword you have chosen. The other way to get to the top spot is to improve your on-site and off-site SEO. There are many different methods and strategies for improving your SEO, and they continuously change as Google rolls out new and improved programs to fight against spam and to improve the quality of their links. Focus on improving your SEO, and you will be ranked more highly on relevant searches, without paying for everyone who clicks on your site.

Once you reach the coveted #1 spot, you’ll have organic hits coming in for years.

2. Social Media Marketing, With Emphasis on Social

Using bots and buying followers is a thing of the past. Not only is it pointless regarding your sales, but it can also make you look like spam. Instead, work on building up real relationships and real connections. Post great content that is shared and interacted with. Communicate not only with those who comment and message you, but to also engage with the community at large. The more genuine and real you seem, the better. Having a few repeat customers is better than battling it out for every new sale, and the same is true for your social communities. Real relationships will lead to sales; fake ones will make you look like spam, so work on improving your social media marketing strategy.

3. Daily Marketing with a One-Time Cost

The more people see a name and a brand, the more they learn to trust it. When you work in a neighborhood or small-town marketing by wrapping your vehicle will pay off greatly. Neighbors will see their neighbors use your service, and will call you up themselves. Similarly, just seeing your name over and over again will help them remember you, and trust you.

Start today by picking up some great used cars for sale, create the branding and the car wrap, and benefit from marketing yourself while you work. Create a few yard signs as well so that after you are done with a project, you can market your services on your client’s lawn (with their permission, of course).

Marketing is all about making connections. It is about creating relationships with your customers, even if they never see you in person. Use these proven marketing strategies, and benefit from the increased sales and repeat customers.