8 Social Media Marketing Tips For Your Small Business

admin    Social Media Marketing     Business, marketing, Media, Small, Social, Tips

8 Social Media Marketing Tips For Your Small Business

There is no dearth of social media sites. Almost all demographics are represented by the top few social media sites – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. A recent study by Pindom indicates that males and females are equally represented in Facebook, average Facebook and Twitter users are in their mid thirties and LinkedIn is popular among the mid forties.  According to Comscore, close to 92% videos viewed by the US online population are from YouTube.

So, you have a wide variety of websites to leverage for your social media marketing. If you cover the top channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn, you will cover most of the ground for your social media marketing efforts. Now the question is how you use these sites to better understand your customers’ needs and competitors’ positions. Here are eight tips you can easily follow.

1. Survey you customers. Use these sites to conduct formal surveys to find out what they think about your products and services. A Facebook fan page is good for setting up a formal survey. Twitter can be use to ask a question directly to your brand followers.

2. Monitor your customers’ sentiments. Find out what your customers are talking about your brand in these sites in the forms of YouTube comments or Twitter tweets. You can use tools like Social Mention and Trackur to find out your customer’s sentiment about your products and services.

3. Find competitors marketing efforts. Use these sites for competitive intelligence.  Find out how your competitors are using keywords, back links, job postings, etc. in these sites. Check out the type of contents they are publishing in these sites and how they are promoting their products.

4. Generate ideas monitoring competitors.  One of the highly effective uses of social media sites are competitive analyses. You can learn a lot of social media marketing techniques just by observing your competitors’ activities in these sites.

You can find out what gap they have in their products and services by monitoring their customers’ sentiment. This will provide you with an opportunity to fill these gaps and position yourself firmly with new products or new features to an existing product.

5. Promote unique offers. Social media sites are good for promoting exclusive offers that are not available on your website directly. Set up some doorway pages with exclusive offers that are only available to your social media followers, like Facebook fans or Twitter followers.

6. Participate in customers’ discussions. It is not enough to just passively observe your customers. You need to participate in their conversation. Inform them what is going on with your products. When your next software release is going to be. What new features you are working on.

7. Inform your customers. Post videos of new product tests, conference presentation, TV interviews, company events, or any other news items. Invite them to comment and take actions based on their comments.

8. Sell products. Though this is the ultimate goal of participating in the social media sites, it should be the last attempt. Once you get your customers engaged with your brand using social media channels, you can use these sites to sell directly. Facebook pages make it a bit easier to set up an online store. For other channels, you need to be creative. You can promote the best selling or clearance items using these channels.

Only way out for small business innovation

admin    8615     Business, Innovation, Only, Small

Only way out for small business innovation

Only way out for small business innovation

“Although Quanta, Inventec and Foxconn’s product line are moved to the mainland, but the notebook industry chain in Shenzhen will not be any problems.” All over the face Acer Aspire 1410 Battery of the struggle for laptop OEM companies, Shenzhen Computer Industry Association , chairman of Great Wall Computer Du Heping told reporters yesterday, “compared with economies of scale have been and will rise in Kunshan, Suzhou, Chongqing, Shenzhen, in the notebook industry’s opportunity lies in innovation.”

Industrial chain advantage

Great Wall Computer Brand Center, Huang Maoqing pointed out that because labor costs are high, production cost in Shenzhen in the notebook does not advantage, but including notebook design, including third-party design company in Shenzhen is the highest among the three, and notebook core components and electronic components, fully furnished, is not inferior to Kunshan.

“Great Wall Computer recently launched cross-border computer Cross PC, will be highly focused on a core hardware keyboard, but also integration of desktop and notebook computers, touchscreen features, and many other IT products, notebook industry chain in Shenzhen is also the best explanation of innovation.” Huang Maoqing also thinks so.

In fact, after nearly 30 years of development, Shenzhen has become a global consumer electronics manufacturing center, R & D center and logistics center. Required for the notebook LCD screen, motherboards and hard drives, have a corresponding production line in Shenzhen.

By the end of 2004, Hitachi Global Storage invest 500 million U.S. dollars in Shenzhen, the establishment of a “super hard drive production center” and now has hundreds of 10 000 hard drive monthly. By the end of 2008, total investment amounted to 1.859 billion U.S. dollars in the deep ultra-optical fifth-generation LCD panel production line officially put into operation the first Asus EEE PC Battery phase, the liquid crystal display production capacity reached 7.95 million. Ultra-Optical Deep inside sources, the company the production of notebook LCD screen, and will start Phase II and Phase III this year, cut into the next generation manufacturing process. As for the laptop motherboard, the Foxconn Group is second only to gold as the electronic and HannStar Bode suppliers.

“Short term, Chongqing hardly like Shenzhen, Kunshan, supporting such a complete industrial chain.” Huang Maoqing said.

Global Sources “Electronic Engineering Times” Total analyst Zhang Yubo told this newspaper that, regardless of material, design and components supply chain in Shenzhen notebook supporting ability is the strongest compared to Kunshan, Shenzhen and a laptop on the relatively weak effect of scale number.

Regardless of the need for more high-end business notebook R & D, or low-cost laptop need fast delivery, Shenzhen can satisfy. “Like Apple’s notebook production to Foxconn, the Internet boom was also the wave of Shenzhen, is based on this.” Zhangyu Bo said.

VIA Technologies, Asia Pacific vice president of mobile PC platform business at home, said Huang Yi, VIA Technologies, notebook industry chain is that the characteristics of Shenzhen, Shenzhen was chosen as the VIA processor, a breakthrough.

Size Mishap

There is no doubt that, compared to the output of notebook computers in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Kunshan, and the upcoming rise of Chongqing, the existence or size limitations.

As Compal, Quanta, Wistron, Asustek and Inventec, and other global notebook Dell Inspiron 9400 Battery output of the top five foundries, accounting for more than 80% of global notebook output, these foundries gathered in Songjiang, Shanghai, Kunshan Development Zone, Suzhou New District three. Now, Quanta and Inventec is prepared to invest in Chongqing.

Compal and Quanta’s latest performance report, Compal notebook last year, production reached 37.9 million units, Quanta notebook output last year reached 35.9 million units, both total output reached 73.8 million units.

Shenzhen Foxconn notebook industry giant of the scale of last year’s notebook OEM only about 4 million units this year, new clients such as HP and Dell notebook computer shipments increased to 6.5 million units, but also, and very much difference Quanta and Compal far.

“North China, East China and the Pearl River Delta cities, a second-tier notebook holdings have been high, there is a great market in central and western regions.” CCID Consulting analyst Liang Xiao pointed out that Quanta and Inventec has set up investment team, actively recruit international supplier of notebook computers to Chongqing to invest to enhance Chongqing notebook industry chain supply.

“Shenzhen and Suzhou, Kunshan, notebook industry chain in China can be assembled as the export base and export base.” Liang Xiao believes that Matthew Chongqing notebook industry chain will soon be fermented.

Innovation is the way out

Shenzhen, a high-level notebook design company that will soon rise for Chongqing, Shenzhen, in fact nothing to fear. Notebook as a large-scale industry has been through in recent years, validation, has never been the way the mainland manufacturers. In terms of assets, capital and scale in terms of mainland China manufacturers are not in the field with Taiwan’s notebook manufacturers to direct competition.

These do not, and Taiwan notebook makers than the size of the mainland enterprises will invariably produce on Shenzhen. Shenzhen has a configuration more flexible market, also has a “cottage” concept in the spirit of innovation.

Tsinghua Tongfang, Haier, Great Wall, the Shenzhou notebook manufacturers such as the production base or on the Shenzhen and Dongguan have 5 Haier notebook product line, BYD has also established a notebook production line in Shenzhen.

“Zhuo Nisi Internet this year has exceeded 100 million units shipped, shipments this year may reach 4 million units.” Recently, General Manager of Shenzhen Zhuo Nisi Anyka education of any long red disclosed e-Summit, which Let the participants surprised. Last year the Internet bubble in the market, so manufacturers in Shenzhen cottage almost total crop failure.

“Blue Ocean market segments.” Any long red always emphasize this point, price was 900 yuan in Zhuoni Si TV shopping online this is to find the special needs of this population segment.

Shenzhen notebook manufacturing concept, it is by many companies such as Zhuo Nisi.

“And cell phones, notebook industry of Shenzhen lies in innovation.” The notebook HP Pavilion DV4000 Battery design company executives noted that with the triple play in the process, notebook products, extension has already begun to extend mobile phone, notebook industry chain in Shenzhen, MID, Tablet PC, and other new in the field will be faster development, a large number of cottage manufacturers in Shenzhen which will certainly find their markets.

Blackberry Pearl 8100 – the Small, Compact, Smartphone

admin    8615     8100, Blackberry, Compact, Pearl, Small, Smartphone

Blackberry Pearl 8100 – the Small, Compact, Smartphone

Blackberry Pearl 8100

A great looking smart phone with a small and compact frame that is the Blackberry Pearl for you. The stunning design complements brilliantly the innovative features that come with it. Designed after three years of intensive research and testing, the Blackberry Pearl 8100 is taking care of quite a lot of user expectations.

One of the most popular features of the Blackberry Pearl 8100 is its ease of use. The handset comes with an intuitive user interface, featuring a pearl like navigation system.

The display of the Blackberry Pearl 8100 is breath taking, to say the least. The vivid display with more than 65,000 colors makes for great images. The incorporation of light sensing technology ensures that there is automatic adjustment of the brightness of screen and keypad. One could use the Pearl 8100 from Blackberry for browsing through the web. As a matter of fact, the handset is specially designed to be of great use on high speed EDGE networks.

One could listen to pulsating audio and video tracks in different popular formats. It is possible to use the 1.3 megapixel digital camera with 5x digital zoom and in-built flash to create fond memories. The images and other content can then be sent to compatible handsets through MMS, email or blackberry messenger. Owners could download wallpapers, games and applications and make this mobile phone a reflection of their persona.

Moreover, storing the images and other content is not a problem the large integrated memory expandable by MicroSD cards ensures that there is enough room for everything.

So, what are you waiting for? Avail of attractive offers; acquire the Blackberry Pearl 8100 mobile phone at industry leading costs and use it to do some of the things that you had always wanted to do.

Have a look at Blackberry Pearl 8100 .

Strategic Internet Marketing Online Advertising Is Apparently the Solution for Small Businesses

admin    Web Marketing     Advertising, Apparently, Businesses, Internet, marketing, Online, Small, Solution, strategic

Strategic Internet Marketing Online Advertising Is Apparently the Solution for Small Businesses

You know, it’s very common these days to see the average small business owner have to close his or her doors.

Regrettably, many factors come into play but one in particular seems to be the source of the problem.

Permit me to share a story with you.

Once upon a time….. (Just kidding!)

In life, we all encounter problems we must face in order to keep on moving forward. But in the life of one individual business owner, which I will refer to as John, life just seemed as if it had something out for him.

You see, John owned a small brick and mortar business that focused in helping homeowners in financial crisis. He had the best intentions (to assistance as much as possible those losing their homes) and was very knowledgeable in his field.

But there was one particular issue he always encountered, not having enough business to keep him afloat. Then again, here lies the dilemma.

Having a high level of skill and running his business with honesty and integrity did John no justice because no one really knew who this person and his business was.

You see, John focused his business fully among the concept that by what he has to present to the community, his business would flourish.

Regrettably, as with many other businesses, this is not the case. You can have THE BEST product or service on earth, but if no one knows about it, how will you become profitable?

At this juncture lies the issue of suitable marketing, more than ever internet marketing with online advertising.

As with the case of many other business owners that are closing their doors, their main business obstacle is the fact that their business is not viewed enough by the public eye.

The Clear Marketing Solution For Small Businesses

No matter the size of a individual small business, achieving a high level of exposure in a marketing campaign is clearly the goal that they must complete.

At present, many small businesses are making the right choice, the choice of creating an internet marketing campaign for their online advertising.

And there’s no disbelief that those in “Generation Y” are a lot more savvy with the internet and are becoming the majority as far as a buyer base.

So wouldn’t you assume that the evident choice would be for the small business to focus more on an online campaign than on offline (flyers, yellow-pages, etc.) in order to generate more sales?

The reply is YES! They must create an internet marketing campaign for the online advertising of their particular business model, exceptionally if the business focuses on more of a localized target audience.

Keep in mind, the lesser the area that a particular business functions, the less online competition they will have. This will allow a Search Engine Optimized website to generate for them traffic with very minute marketing expenses.

How Can A Small Business Set up Such A Online Advertising Campaign?

This can appear frustrating to some but the solution is not that strenuous.

A small business owner will have two choices:

1. Outsource – A business owner can outsource their marketing campaign creation to a professional marketing consultant for a fee. This marketing campaign, if done accurately, should focus on building a SEO structured website, social media profiles, PPC, content creation for the objective of creating backlinks to their site for increased SEO rankings, articles, videos, press releases, and even website graphics that give their potential customer a first-hand feel of the product and/or service being rendered.
2. Discover How To Advertise Online For Themselves – This choice can still become a very profitable option but it involves a bit more time and work in order to build a proper internet marketing campaign with a high ROI (Return On Investment). The benefit to this option is that the skills that are acquired can be used for several other campaigns and even for creating a new business online entirely.

As a reference, we offer both of these options to small businesses and are available to create multiple internet marketing campaigns for any small business.

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Five Effective Online Advertising Strategies For Your Small Business

admin    Web Marketing     Advertising, Business, Effective, Five, Online, Small, Strategies

Five Effective Online Advertising Strategies For Your Small Business

Did you know that 83% of consumers conduct research online before making a purchase locally? Are your potential customers finding you, or are they finding your competitor? Here are five effective online advertising strategies you can use to increase your visibility and your profits.

1. Search Engine Optimization – Assuming your business has it’s own website, search engine optimization (SEO) can help your site rank higher in search results, which is essential if you want to be found online. If your site doesn’t show up on the first page of the results, chances are your customers are not finding you.

SEO is not complicated, but it can be confusing for those who don’t have the time to study the methods various search engines use to rank web sites. It is possible to spend a small fortune with very poor results. Before embarking on any SEO journey, enlist the help of a qualified professional. Be sure to check references and ask for proof of results before agreeing to work with any SEO firm.

2. Pay Per Click – Pay per click advertising works by driving potential customers to your business’s website through ads placed on other sites and in search engine results pages. Each time a potential customer clicks your ad, you pay a fee to the PPC network. The amount of the fee varies and will depend on the popularity of the keywords you target, and the competition among advertisers for that keyword.

It is worth noting that pay per click can be a risky business, since the advertiser pays regardless of whether or not a sale is actually made. It would be wise to consult an expert before beginning any pay per click advertising program.

3. Affiliate Programs – Whether you sell a physical product (think car parts or power tools) or provide a service, offering an affiliate program can be a good way to improve your sales. Affiliate programs essentially provide a business with a stable of sales people who all work on straight commission. When your customer makes a purchase through an affiliate link, the affiliate earns a small percentage of the total sale.

Affiliate programs are typically managed by an affilate manager who is in charge of providing promotional materials to affiliates, and who is available to answer any questions and handle any commission disputes that might arise. You can choose to host your own affiliate management software to track clicks and sales, or you can join an affiliate network like Commission Junction or Share A Sale to avoid any technical hassles and to take advantage of their existing network of affiliates.

4. Banner Ads – Banner ads refer to any ad space you buy (or rent) on a website. Ads can vary in size from very small to nearly full screen. Some ads pop up or under an open web page, some have moving graphics, some are interactive and change depending on the movements of the mouse pointer.  

Banner ads can be purchased on individual web sites for a set period of time, but unless you can easily target the sites your potential customers are reading, this can be tricky. Banner advertising can also be sold through advertising networks. Similar to affiliate networks, advertising networks manage the technical details for you in exchange for a fee. Some popular advertising networks are Value Click Media and BlogHer.

5. Internet Yellow Pages – Internet Yellow Page Directories are increasing in popularity as more and more consumers turn to the Internet first in their search for local businesses. One recent study commissioned by comScore showed that Internet Yellow Pages gained in popularity in 2009, with 21% of respondants citing Internet Yellow Pages as their primary source of local business searches online.

Hp Announces New Devices For Small And Midsize Businesses

admin    8615     Announces, Businesses, Devices, Midsize, Small

Hp Announces New Devices For Small And Midsize Businesses

HP has announced new notebooks aimed at small and midsize businesses. These additions to their existing EliteBook and ProBook lines are expected to be out next month. The new devices, which include a multi-touch enabled tablet computer, are powered by the new Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors, and were launched officially at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), in January this year. New EliteBooks

HP Elitebooks are notebook PCs designed for powerful computing. The new EliteBooks announced are the 2740p, a multi-touch enabled tablet and the 2540p, the lightest in the EliteBook series.

The HP EliteBook 2740p, which starts at ,599, has a 12.1 inch diagonal LED touch-screen display. The tablet supports multi-touch gestures, finger taps and swipes across the screen. It has a battery life of up to 5 hours, which can be extended to 11 hours with an optional HP ultra-slim battery. Another accessory available for this is the Ultra-Slim expansion base that allows users to dock their PCs.

The HP EliteBook 2540p, the lightest in the EliteBook series of Laptops, weighs around 1.5 kg. It has a 12.1 inch diagonal LED lit display with an optional 2 megapixel camera and fingerprint sensor. The 2540p starts at ,099. See the entire EliteBook range. New ProBooks

HP ProBook notebooks are affordable notebooks with features like HD displays. They are targeted at engineers, design companies and gamers who require enhanced graphics at a lower price. They also come loaded with TotalMedia Suite – media software that allows users to play, edit and create video and audio files. The new ProBooks announced are the 4320s, 4420s, 4520s and the 4720s.

The HP Laptop ProBook 4320s starts at 9 and has a screen that is 13.3 inches wide diagonally. For those who need a larger screen, for ,059, the 4720s comes with a screen that is 17.3 inch diagonally. The 4420s and the 4520s have 14 inch and 15.5 inch wide screens and start at 9 and 9 respectively.

See the entire ProBook range. The new notebooks feature HP DayStarter – which lets users view their calendar before Windows finishes booting. The configuration offered will also be highly configurable.

For more details on Dell Inspiron 1525 Laptop log on to http://www.consumermate.com/

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How Small Business Online Advertising Can Boost Sales and Brand Recognition

admin    Web Marketing     Advertising, Boost, Brand, Business, Online, Recognition, Sales., Small

How Small Business Online Advertising Can Boost Sales and Brand Recognition

Small businesses are the heart of America.  Whether you purchased your car from the same car dealer as your parents or shop at the same neighborhood store every week, Americans love to deal with small businesses as often as they can.  After all, the majority of the jobs in our economy come from these courageous business owners.  Many of these businesses fail within their first year of operation but the owners do not worry about it.  The Internet has added to the many responsibilities that these owners take on.  In addition to traditional marketing methods, small business online advertising has come onto the scene and caused quite a disturbance.

Oftentimes small businesses do not have the type of marketing budget to launch a large scale online advertising campaign.  Some businesses may not have a marketing budget at all!  However, online advertising is wonderful because even for a few dollars per month traffic can still be driven to a website or e-commerce store promoting the business.  While the business may only make one sale per month from this platform, that sale could be worth more to the business than the entire brick and mortar sales for the month.  

While that might not be making the most sense at the moment, it is true!  Some of the largest companies in the world go online to try and find businesses that meet needs for their gifts.  Take a small candy business run in a very small city.  They may be struggling to meet their costs of doing business but a major corporation places an order for thousands upon thousands of dollars.  However, without having an online presence there would have been no way that this corporation would have known about this company!

Some of the easiest online advertising platforms for small businesses to get started on are Google AdWords and Facebook.  These platforms have a large amount of the traffic that is flowing through the Internet and are able to provide users who are interested in just about any topic.  AdWords charges per click and can be extremely affordable depending upon which terms are being targeted by the business.  Search keywords that are in high demand have a higher price to pay per click while those which are not heavy in demand do not require as high of a price.  Facebook has a unique twist on the online advertising scene.  While they do provide the cost per click model that AdWords has, they also offer the CPM or cost per million model.  This is where an image is shown and a price is charged per 1000 times the image is shown on a website.  There is no guarantee that a user will click on the image, but if they click a large amount of times and the price for CPM is cheaper the cost per click is much lower.  Do your research before starting any advertising campaign online so that you can be as successful as possible.

Small Businesses and Social Media – the door is wide open!

admin    Social Media Marketing     Businesses, Door', Media, Open, Small, Social, Wide

Small Businesses and Social Media – the door is wide open!

A recent study by Citibank shows that a whopping 86 percent of US small businesses said they have not used social networking sites for information or business advice. Ten percent said they have sought business advice and information on expert blogs. Three-quarters of small businesses said they have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn helpful for generating business leads or expanding business in the past year. Not sure about the UK numbers but I reckon they are even higher.

SMBs often think that social media is more for big corporations and premium brands. However social media is useful for almost every type of business. Pubs, retail stores, and even professional services can leverage their online reputation and increase credibility. Here is why:

Small Businesses are personal – they often rely on personal business relationships, a small business that invests its time wisely can improve customer (or client) loyalty and traditional word of mouth marketing efforts. Small businesses are local – the use of local social networks can make a real impact. Sites like Yelp allows businesses to create listings with all the necessary information for a consumer to find you, while other customers can review and comment on your business. Needless to say consumers prefer to listen to their like-minded peers (in form of reviews) any day of the week when it come to order the local plumber. They can also experiment with hyper-local advertising on facebook. It’s possible to target customers based on the language they speak and where they live/work. This means that a bakery can now advertise specifically to people who live within a certain mile radius of the bakery. It is also important to remember the impact that social media content has on the search rankings of a small business and their ability to manage an effective ranking in search engines (SEO) – I think lots of local businesses are searched for in Google. Small Businesses adapt and experiment – they don’t need to change 10 different business processes to introduce a new marketing strategy. It’s easy, create the social media accounts and start. However there’s a danger in jumping into social media networks, without a strong “hub” foundation of a blog or content portal. It’s difficult to convert someone from the awareness that might be gained through Facebook to the trust needed to make a sale. Hence the existence of a social hub in form of a company website or a blog is inevitable. Small business focus on cash-flow and less on long term branding strategies – the good news is its free and the barrier to entry is low! I would consider social media as a high return opportunity marketing/branding opportunity for small businesses to build up their micro brand. Companies that know how to use social media correctly can reach millions of customers and potential customers directly without shelling out thousands of dollars to run TV, radio, or print ads. Using tools like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn which cost nothing can potentially free up advertising dollars to be used elsewhere in the company. A good example of a company called naked pizza(!) using Twitter to build up a local brand can be found here. Small businesses need to focus – Of course, small businesses have only a handful of employees, the amount of time taken up by even one of them to engage in social  media interaction could represent a great loss of productivity in other areas. Also, if you fail to plan properly with targeted messaging and focus, you could be producing content that does not accurately reflect your business… and once it’s out there, there is no way to take it back. Yes, there has to be some sort of strategy and also one has to set some meaningful goals. I will talk about strategy and and goals/metrics/ROI in a later post. Still the reach of millions, the opportunities you gain (remember social media can used amongst others for watching competitors, customer relations (e.g. create a custom wiki!), crisis management, event activation, issue advocacy, product promotion and sales) and the ROI outweigh this loss in SMB productivity, again, any day of the week.

At last there’s a one positive thing about the little adoption of social media for SMBs and why the door is wide open: it’s the time now to jump on the bandwagon! Get a head-start to your competitors, join twitter and get followers. Create a facebook page and advertise locally. Do it before your competitors do it…

If you were to take on, say, one social networking site per month, by the mid of ‘10 you would be ahead of 90% or more of your peers (and your competitors). If you do, I’m convinced you’d have at least one new customer, product idea, or other business-building asset to show for it within weeks. Give it a try. Pick a site, log in, and get started.

Five Reasons Marketing a Small Business is Like Playing Football

admin    Web Marketing     Business, Five, Football, Like, marketing, Playing, Reasons, Small

Five Reasons Marketing a Small Business is Like Playing Football

Marketing a small business is one of the most difficult activities any entrepreneur will face. It’s full of challenges and obstacles that demand preparation, dedication and determination to win the game. It’s just like playing football – success will ultimately be determined by your commitment to win and your desire to compete.

Running a business is a lot like playing an intense game of football. Essentially, both are organized chaos with competitors who aim to prevent you from gain ground and scoring points. In business, you win the game by scoring mores sales than your competitors rather making touchdowns or field goals. The one who become the champion of your industry is the company with the best marketing which attracts the most clients or customers.

There are five key similarities between marketing and football that every business must implement if they want to become champions:

1. Preparation and Planning

Any successful football coach will tell you that preparation and planning is the key to winning. It’s not the will to win, but the willingness to prepare to win that is important. Countless hours go into scouting opponents, developing plays and practicing for specific situations before the game is ever played.

As a business owner, you must also invest the time to research and planning. The only way for you to create competitive advantage is to understand your market, know your competitors, and create a plan that will score consistent sales. This begins with committing to working on your marketing every day. By dedicating an hour each day to marketing your business you’ll create momentum that your competitors can’t stop.

2. Aggressiveness

It’s simple – you can’t compete if you don’t play. Marketing your business demands that you get in the game and take on your toughest competitors. To achieve victory you must be aggressive and execute marketing plays which positions your company as the best choice, lowest risk option to fill a need or solve their problem.

Being aggressive is a positive, go-for-it attitude. It’s not about being out of control and acting recklessly with your marketing dollars. Instead, it’s about being focused and taking action before your competitors have a chance to beat you.

I tell my football players, “Be the hammer, not the nail.” This means you deliver the hit and not take it. During a football game the more aggressive team wins, just like in business.

3. Positioning

Football is a game of exploiting gaps in the defense to advance the ball down the field and across the goal line to score. Marketing your business is the same – you must find a gap in the market that is not being filled with a product or service that people are looking for. When you have an offer which none of your competitors can match you position company as the obvious choice.

You’ll score more sales and become a champion quicker by finding a gap in the market that is currently unfilled and not crowded with competitors. Creating plays which have an easy path to a score is the goal of every football coach. Your goal as an entrepreneur is to score a sale every time you execute a marketing play. Understanding the value and strategy of positioning is the best way to achieve it.

4. Play Calling

In football, calling the right offensive play in the right situation against the right defense becomes the highlight which is shown on SportsCenter over and over again. When marketing your business the offer that attracts a huge response and generates massive sales is very similar in stature.

A marketing play is any advertisement, promotion or communication you execute to get a prospect to take action. Calling the right marketing play that meshes with your audience is essential to your success. However, this takes time, testing and persistence. Most marketers give up after their first marketing play fails. Entrepreneurs become champions in their industry because they persistently try new marketing plays until they find the ones that perform and score consistently.

Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi said, “Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.” Marketing champions are the ones who never stop chasing perfection no matter how big the challenge.

5. Consistent Scoring

An old football coach once told me, “It’s hard to win if you don’t score!”

In business in scoring a sale is not only important but the required to survive. Without people buying what you offer, you will soon be out of business. All of your business activities should be in support of creating sales. Accounting, production, engineering, distribution and any other area of your business must help to create the conditions to make more sales.

Unfortunately, most business cut marketing when business slows down. This is a big mistake! No other activity in your business can increase your sales except for marketing. This requires commitment to the marketing process and understanding how to play the game. Like football, reaching a sale is usually a sequence of steps that gets you closer to the goal line and the score – not a one shot “Hail Mary” pass. By focusing all aspects of your business as part of marketing you will no doubt become the champion in your industry.

These five keys are a few of the essential building blocks of creating winning marketing. However, the biggest point of leverage any business owner can have their marketing attitude. Are you marketing offensively or defensively? Are you the aggressor or accepting what the competition dictates? How you approach your marketing is the single biggest determining factor of your success.

Related Marketing Process Articles

Web Design Tips for Start-ups and Small Businesses

admin    Web Design     Businesses, design, Small, StartUps, Tips

Web Design Tips for Start-ups and Small Businesses

If this is your first time creating your business website, then there are several things you need to know to make your website successful. The tips that I am going to share with you here can be used whenever you build a new site for your new business.

Professional Layout:

Make sure that you create a custom web design. Do not copy anyone’s design and use it as your own after making some minor modifications. Your custom website must have a professional look without attractive colors. Try different background colors before finalizing a specific color.

Color Choice:

Using proper colors for your website is important. Avoid using several colors for your background. Also, make sure that the background color doesn’t make the text vague or unreadable. This is why you must try out different colors and see which one fits perfectly.

Avoid Dark or Black Color:

As the background of your website is an important part of the overall layout, I think it’s important to mention that you shouldn’t make your background black or dark. The reason is that if your site contains a lot of text, then it will be difficult for the readers to read everything, because the dark color will eventually begin to negatively affect their eye sight.

Same Look Everywhere:

Make sure you use the same design and navigation on all pages. This will help your visitors get familiar with your website easily and they will also know that they are still on the same website and haven’t been transferred to a different domain.

Avoid a Lot of Flash:

Flash is not bad, but using it a lot on your website is not a good practice. A lot of people still don’t have the plug-in installed so they can’t view it. Don’t put your website introduction in Flash on your home page. Just avoid this practice. Use it in internal pages, but when really necessary.

Check Compatibility with Different Browsers:

This is very important for your business success. Your website may look perfect in Chrome, but it may look completely messy in Firefox. So, what you should do is, you should check how your site looks in all different, famous browsers. If the alignment doesn’t look fine, then you may correct the layout accordingly.

Avoid Pop-ups:

Don’t add pop-ups to attract your website visitors. This is a bad practice and it will annoy them instead of grabbing their attention. People want to get the work done fast and pop-ups can only become a hurdle. So, your visitors will instantly close your website, because of pop-ups.

User-friendly Navigation:

It is very important to have user-friendly navigation on your website. Make all the important pages like Home Page, About Us, Services / Products and Contact Us page visible and easily accessible. Ensure that you provide the same layout, in terms of navigation, on all the pages.

Conclusion:

When you create a new website design, always remember these powerful web design tips to make your start-up or small business a huge success.