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Top 5 Business Marketing Strategies

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Top 5 Business Marketing StrategiesGrowing a business isn’t simple. To begin with, you want a workable idea. From that point, you have to find a lucrative market, specify a target market and also have something worth selling them. And without the Ideal marketing approaches to fuel your development, screaming a profit and remaining afloat is virtually impossible.

You need the correct marketing approaches to survive and conquer the market. So, here are some of them.

Here are B2C, C2C, C2B, and B2B marketing strategies that you can adapt in your business.

1. Niche-Driven Strategy

Many kinds of research have shown that the fastest-growing firms are generally experts at a closely targeted market. This ought to be an area of the business that you know completely, a distance in which you may become an unmatched specialist and pioneer.

Niche makes all your advertising and marketing efforts simpler since it tends to specify just what you do and instantly distinguish you from the competition.

2. Get Feedback

Getting feedback from the target market is not a choice, it is a necessity. This B2B marketing strategy has to be driven by information over anything else and never actually know your consumers, your marketing plan is as great as guessing. Among the most effective ways to begin getting feedback would be to employ a questionnaire procedure in your promotion procedures. This can divert incredibly useful information in regards to events, conferences and trade shows.

3. Utilize social media

That is where all of the so-called magical is occurring. Some companies are built only on the backs of social networking. Sure. However, as you build momentum, then you will find posting on interpersonal websites easier and easier as time passes.

Obviously, you might also employ a social networking manager when you’ve got cash to burn. But if you do not, simply be yourself. Be authentic. Post whatever you find useful and relevant that will assist your viewers to learn about you and your small business.

4. Utilize influencers

Want to get the word on the market and improve your visibility on societal websites without requiring years to construct the audience? Then you should surely leverage influencers. However, the crucial thing is to discover the ideal influencer. You do not need to go with influencers with countless followers. You can select for smaller influencers with a few thousand followers.

5. Create Targets and Milestones

It’s possible to think of targets as the last destination, whereas milestones are the actions necessary to achieve that destination – your own map. You may begin by assessing your marketing objectives and ways to do them. Doing this will make the whole marketing process simpler to comprehend to your team and there won’t be any confusion about how to reach a marketing goal.

Conclusion

The main objective should not be to survive but to be the best and conquer the market. You must access your marketing strategies and find efficient ways to improve them.

The marketing world is evolving and thus you also need to keep that pace and update your strategies regularly.

Nine Lies About Work – Is it more engaging to be a full-time worker, a part-time worker, a virtual worker, or a gig worker?

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | Nine Lies About Work - Is it more engaging to be a full-time worker, a part-time worker, a virtual worker, or a gig worker?Is it more engaging to be a full-time worker, a part-time worker, a virtual worker, or a gig worker?

According to the study, the most engaging work status is to have one full-time job and one part-time job.

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Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Excerpted from Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall. Copyright 2019 One Thing Productions, Inc. and Ashley Goodall. All rights reserved.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Marcus BuckinghamMarcus Buckingham is a bestselling author and global researcher focusing on all aspects of people and performance at work.  During his years at the Gallup Organization, he worked with Dr. Donald O. Clifton to develop the StrengthsFinder program, and coauthored the seminal business books First, Break All The Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths.  He designed the StandOut strengths assessment completed by over one million people to date, and authored the accompanying book, Standout: Find Your Edge, Win at Work.  He currently heads all people and performance research at the ADP Research Institute.  Nine Lies About Work is his ninth book.

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Ashley GoodallAshley Goodall is the Senior Vice President of Leadership and Team Intelligence at Cisco Systems.  In this role, he built a new organization focused entirely on serving teams and team leaders – an organization combining learning and talent management, people planning, organizational design, executive talent and succession planning, coaching, assessment, team development, research and analytics, and performance technology.  Prior to joining Cisco, he spent fourteen years at Deloitte, where he was responsible for Leader Development and Performance Management

How To Be A Leader During A Crisis

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StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article | How To Be A Leader During A Crisis

“The true test of leadership is how well you function in a crisis” (Brian Tracy). Now, more than ever, the world is looking to its leaders. The leaders of countries, communities, and businesses. What we need now are smart, focussed and compassionate leaders who can flourish in a crisis.

So what can you do if you’re responsible for a company or team during a crisis such as the one we’re currently experiencing with COVID-19?

Be Human

Great leaders aren’t emotionless robots. You need to have empathy for the way people are feeling right now. Many are worried about their jobs, the health of loved ones and dealing with their own mental health issues. Older employees may be especially worried due to the lack of clarity around the government stimulus package and will senior citizen get a stimulus check? You may share some or all of these worries and you need to express that.

Yes, there will be difficult choices ahead, but empathy is a major asset to any leader.

Stay Up To Date On The Situation

It is increasingly difficult to get an unbiased picture of what is happening at present. You owe it to your company to stay educated on the developing situation.

Don’t rely on social media of partisan news outlets for your information. Look for factual ones. The World Health Organisation (WHO) produces a Daily Situation Report which is helpful.

Don’t Get Defensive

You won’t have all the answers and you won’t always make the right decisions. Own it, admit it, apologize for it and do better.

If you don’t know something, admit it and go and find out what you need to know.

Becoming defensive can start a cascade of negative feelings from your employees that lead to mistrust and disengagement that will continue long after the crisis is over.

Communicate Regularly

Frequent communication is vital for all stakeholders. This includes employees, investors, clients, and board members.

Sit down for a moment and think about what each stakeholder would need to know right now and get them that information.

Regular communication, whether or not you have something new to say, is the key, even if you only confirm that nothing has changed.

Be Yourself

You are likely spending your days encouraging your employees to stay physically and mentally healthy while they deal with everything that’s going on around them.

Take your own advice, you are not immune to everything that is happening, you have the same worries and fears as everybody else.

If you’re a good leader, your employees already like you as a person for your skills, charisma, sense of humor and professionalism. Try and remember that and do your best to maintain these qualities when times are trying.

It isn’t easy to lead during a crisis. Even world leaders, with all of their advisers and resources, are displaying varying levels of competence at present.

How to Tell an Amateur Retail Salesperson From a Professional

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Retail Salesperson|How to Tell an Amateur Retail Salesperson From a ProfessionalPerhaps, upon entering a retail establishment, you have heard one or more of these commonly used sentences:

“Hi, can I help you?”
“Is there anything I could show you?”
“Do you need anything?”
“Did you want to see anything?”

These are hallmarks of retail sales amateurs. Notice that all of these questions are invitations to give a familiar, too-often-heard, two-word answer: “No, thanks.” Variations include: “No, thanks; just looking,” and “All set.” No real questioning mastery here. Bottom line: No conversation. Which, to be fair, is an outcome the amateur is used to producing.

That’s how it is with questions that are built around words such as can, is, do, does, will, could, and should. Technically they’re called “closed-ended” questions. There may be a time and opportunity to use these types of questions however true professionals in retail sales do not use them to open a conversation.

You may have found yourself giving the same “No, thanks” response to any salesperson who asks you a closed-ended question. Notice what happens when you do. The protective defense walls go up immediately between the retail salesperson and the buyer. You are locked down. No one can get to you. Now, from this locked position of defensiveness, you will stay in say-almost-nothing mode. You may even make a misleading statement or two. Who knows?

Although you may assume you already know the reasons behind this defense, it makes sense to look closely at the motivations in play here. I believe customers raise this defensive posture to protect themselves from presumed manipulative behavior from the salesperson. They have a good reason for doing so: they don’t want to be sold to. This ties into a classic selling rule from David Sandler: “Buyers love to buy yet hate to be sold.” Food for thought.

Another example of amateur retail selling can be seen whenever you observe a pushy, highly assertive, and all-too-aggressive salesperson who sees one and only one potential outcome to a conversation with a prospect: Dollar signs. They say all the right things in an attempt to convince the customer to buy their stuff. This type of salesperson is everywhere. Take a moment to think more closely about what’s happening in such exchanges.

The salesperson manipulates. They cajole. They bombard. No matter what the customer’s reasons to buy, their approach is to say and do everything they can to convince the customer that their solution, product, or service has the best value, is the fastest, is the coolest, is the prettiest, is the most amazing.

This is not so much a conversation as a situation in which customers find themselves standing in front of an open firehose. These are amateur salespeople. But it’s worth noting that they can be very creative in their approach, using all kinds of information about what they are selling and even asking plenty of rapid-fire questions to accomplish the all-important goal of closing the deal.

Don’t let the presence of questions fool you — no nurturing is taking place. Although this may be a memorable experience for the customer or prospect, it might not be the ideal memory you want the person to share with friends and family.

But isn’t this what salespeople are supposed to do? Sell? The answer is yes — but the process of selling has to be mutually engaging and mutually beneficial for both sides. The firehose approach fails that test. Even though it may sometimes produce a close, you have to ask if it will produce a glowing positive recommendation to family and friends.

Remember: A customer who has had an unpleasant buying experience, due to a pushy, inattentive, or otherwise nurturing-impaired salesperson, will tell far more people about that experience than someone who enjoyed a positive buying experience! As we in the retail sector ponder the best ways forward from the current crisis, we should consider the possibility that an untrained, amateur retail salesperson may end up doing considerably more harm than good.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor |Rob FishmanRob Fishman is the author of RETAIL SUCCESS IN AN ONLINE WORLD: How To Compete – And Win – In the Amazon Era. He is an experienced Sandler trainer who plays an important role in Sandler’s worldwide organization. He currently heads a Sandler Training Center on Long Island, New York. For more information, please visit www.Sandler.com.

How To Make Sure You Stay In Your Customers’ Good Books Indefinitely

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article |Customer Relationship|How To Make Sure You Stay In Your Customers’ Good Books IndefinitelyHaving a great product that satisfies people’s annoyances, or creating a wonderful service that solves problems is obviously great. If you can do the job that’s required of you and do things swiftly, then you’re going to have more good days than bad. In business, however, it’s not just about doing the job on the day and bringing in the cash – you need to be able to keep the work flowing; you need to be able to make people want you again and again and again. You want to maintain your business for a while, and then build on what you have, after all.

If you can’t keep your relationships with your customers/clients healthy, then you may end up falling a little or going stale. You’ll survive if you manage to monopolize your market, but that’s not really how most verticals stay. Competitors will come along and take people away from you in an instant if you’re not careful. You need to stay perpetually in your customers’/clients’ good books. Want to know a few ways you can do this? Well, here are some for you now:

Work Hard For Them

If people see that someone is working hard at their craft, then immediate affection is thrown at them. We all appreciate a trier, after all. If you actually get off your backside and bother, then you’re going to be seen as a group that will do whatever is necessary to get the job done. Sitting idle and shrugging your shoulders when things get tough will not exactly boost customer satisfaction, will it? You need to show that you mean business at all times.

Don’t Make Constant, Quick, Dramatic Changes

People gravitate towards your business because they feel as though they can relate to it in some way or another. If they don’t and they still find you magnetic, then it’s because you’re doing something that they feel is correct. You should stick to the fundamentals of what you’re doing – that foundation is what got you to where you are now. Sure, change a few things, but don’t make massive alterations. It’ll more than likely upset the applecart and cause people to question where you’re going with things. They’ll wonder what else you’re going to shake up.

Focus Your Energy On Customer Experience

From the initial meeting onwards, you’re going to want to ensure you treat customers with the love and respect they deserve. Customer experience is absolutely massive in keeping relationships flowing. If you’re unfamiliar with the whole idea, then you can always read something like this guide to customer experience here. Basically, if you nail your interaction with your customer base at every single point, then you’re going to be in a much better position in the long-term.

Build On What You Have

This may sound like a contradiction regarding the idea of not changing too dramatically, but it’s not. You don’t need to move things around when you’re looking to grow. If you show that you’re ambitious and are looking to add more to your repertoire, people are going to be even more attracted to you. Wanting the best, and wanting to be the best is a very emotive idea for most.