Successful Blog

5 Smart Ways to Differentiate a Successful Business

by

by
Grant Tilus

cooltext443809602_strategy

Did you know Americans create more than 500,000 new businesses every month? It’s true, but only 50 percent of those businesses will still be operational within five years. While the amount of new businesses every month is encouraging, our rate of failure is unfortunate and must be improved upon.

5 Smart Ways to Differentiate a Successful Business

One way you can increase your business’ chance of celebrating its five year anniversary is to differentiate your business among your industry peers. Stand out from the crowd. Use these five ways to differentiate to build a smart and successful business. Each key point provides real-world examples of what you can do to improve your business.

1. Focus on the Customer

The best and often the most successful entrepreneurs create businesses they are so passionate about they will do anything for their customers. Over time many business owners tend to lose focus and begin straying away from having the needs of their customer be a top priority. However, by maintaining a customer-centric focus you will create a positive customer experience that will allow you to build your brand all while creating a loyal base of repeat and new customers.

Example: Stuffed Giraffe Shows What Customer Service Is All About

2. Be a Social Media Juggernaut

In our digital world social media cannot be ignored by even the smallest of businesses. Focus on creating a unique social community by engaging and educating your customers about your brand in a way that’s both entertaining and helps them feel connected to your business. We all know it’s easier to keep customers rather than finding new ones; social media can help you do both.

Example: Impressive Small Business Facebook Pages You Can Learn From

3. Don’t Focus on the Competition

Every smart business owner has conducted a SWOT analysis for their business venture. Far too often business owners get caught up in the threats of competition, which causes their own business to suffer. However, by focusing on the unique opportunities your business has to offer you will help it stand out among the rest as a clear and distinguished option for your targeted customer base.

Example: Your Competition, Isn’t

4. Make It Personal

Creating personal connections is part of human nature. In the midst of creating a business we subconsciously hide our own personality, and that’s not necessarily the best thing to do. Customers need ways to connect with businesses beyond the advertisements and sales pitches. By being transparent and humanistic your customers can begin to create a relationship with your business and become more than just a customer. Tell your story and learn your customer’s story as you build your business.

Example:


Papa John Telling the Papa John Story

5. Keep Things Fresh

Changes within your target market, technology, and the economy often require your business to make adjustments. In order to stay relevant and continue building a successful business it’s important to assess and refresh your business’ activities. The businesses that are comfortable maintaining the status quo are the ones that are failing to prepare for true longevity. As a business owner you need to be asking, listening and responding to changes in the market and your customer base in order to succeed in the long term.

Example: Living Business Plans Help Businesses Flow with Future

Differentiate your business in 5 smart and social ways to build success. Use social avenues to focus on and connect with customers personally by sharing stories. Then you can let your competition worry about you.

What successes have you had with differentiating your business in smart and social ways?

Author’s Bio:
Grant Tilus is an Inbound Marketing Specialist at Rasmussen College. He creates superior content and blogs about accelerated bachelor’s degree programs, other online business school degree programs or inbound marketing best practices. Feel free to connect with Grant Tilus on Twitter and Google+.

How to Get Blog Traffic Using Social Channels

by

by
Jordan Mendys

cooltext443809602_strategy

Gaining Blog Traffic

When you have a blog, and especially when you are starting one, gaining traffic is the most important thing. You want your work noticed, and the more traffic you get, the more success you will have with your business, services, etc. One of the best ways to get traffic to your blog is to showcase your work and website, and using your social media channels can increase that effort greatly. When you utilize your social networks, you will get more articles shared throughout your network, and if you have good material, people will come to your blog more and more often. So how can you utilize social media to benefit your blog?

How to Get Blog Traffic Using Social Channels

First, your blog should utilize a plugin that allows not just you, but anyone who comes to your site, to share your article on Twitter, Facebook, and more with the click of a button. A really good plugin for this would be WordPress’ Sociable. At the bottom of all of your posts will be a toolbar allowing easy share, and as we all know, that is the easiest way that you can get organic traffic. You should be sharing every post that you write anyway, but now when visitors come to your site, it’s easy for them to share.

Next, you should use your social networks to get guest posts. We all know that guest posting, and getting guest blogs on your site, is one of the best ways to drive up traffic. The more content you have, the better your site will look, and the longer you can keep the audience on your blog. To get guest bloggers, reach out through Twitter to have an open call for guest posts. It is an easier platform for people to contact you. Then you can get a pitch to from them to see if the article is right for your site. This is a good way to drive up the requests to post to your site, but be careful with who is contacting you, because you don’t want to waste your time with spam posts.

When you start getting guests to post, encourage (or make it a requirement for a guest post) for them to share their article, and then people outside of your own network will be drawn to your site. Allowing guest posts will also open up opportunities for you to contribute to others’ blogs in return. That way you will gain all of the benefits that come with guest posting.

These are the best ways to use Facebook, Twitter, and all of your other accounts to drive up traffic and exposure to your blog. Letting people contribute to your work will always garner excitement for your work, and encourage people to share your site with the world. The better content you have to share, the more people will come, and stay, for awhile.

Author’s Bio:
Jordan Mendys is a media professional and blogger based in North Carolina. He helps blog to help people find the best in cable internet bundles () around. Follow him @JPMendys

Thank you for adding to the conversation!

Targeting Customers with Your Online Email Marketing Strategy

by

by
Olga Ionel

cooltext443809602_strategy

Targeting Customers with Your Online Email Marketing Strategy

If you are like most that have a business online, or at least a site for your business, you know just how important online marketing is going to be. Marketing on the web might have some similarities to traditional marketing, but there are enough differences that it takes a new approach. In addition to marketing through content, advertisements, and word of mouth, one of the best options for a business owner today is going to be email marketing.

Using email for online marketing has been around since the advent of email, and it can still be quite effective. However, you have to be careful if you are going to use it, and you have to make sure that do the marketing the right way. Otherwise, you risk alienating and angering the very audience that you are trying to reach.

Why is Email Marketing a Good Idea?

When a customer visits a website, there is no guarantee that he or she is going to buy anything or come back to read more content. Rather than having only one shot with a customer, you should offer an email newsletter signup that is going to let you keep in contact with those customers. This will provide you with the email address that you can keep in your database, and you will be able to provide the subscribers with more content that they can use.

You do not have to offer a newsletter, but it can be a great online marketing tool. People want to feel as though they are getting something when they provide their email address, and this is a good option.

Getting Visitors to Provide Email Addresses

Visitors do not often part with their email addresses. They know all the tricks in the online marketing book by now. They fear that you will sell their email address or that you will send them spam. You have to be very upfront about what you are going to do with the email and what you are going to be emailing to those who provide their email address.

Having a trustworthy site is the first step. You have to have a site with a good reputation, and that has content that the reader finds useful or interesting on the first visit. This is going to make them more likely to provide you with an email address. If you do offer a newsletter, you need to make sure that it is just as valuable as your site. Those who sell products might want to get provide some coupons or discounts in the newsletter, thus adding even more value to it. Perhaps offer an extra 5% off for getting others to sign up for the newsletter.

You can have an opt-in form on your site. It should be easy to integrate a form for email signups with many of the premium wordpress themes available today. If you can’t find a plugin or feature that can accomplish this with the theme, you can always have someone build the form for you. Make sure that you have the form on more than just one location on your site too. While you don’t want to inundate them with the form, you should have it on your homepage, about us page and other key locations on your site. If you sell products, have a form on the checkout page as well.

Using email addresses certainly isn’t the only type of online marketing that you are going to do, but it can be quite helpful. When it comes to online marketing strategies, you want to do everything possible to give your business the best advantages.

What success have you had with using customer email addresses to connect with them?

Author’s Bio:
Olga Ionel is a creative writer at ThemeFuse.com. She is passionate by WordPress, SEO and Blogging. Don’t forget to check out stunning Premium themes for wordpress. (warning: no boring stuff)

Thank you, Olga. Too many of us are overlooking the opportunity that email marketing offers our online business.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Show your Authenticity; Monkey with your Business

by

by
Rosemary O’Neill

“True authenticity is a lack of perfection,” said architect Gil Schafer in the June 2012 issue of Architectural Digest. He was referring to a beautifully designed home, but the same principle applies to the beautifully run business.

The architect mentions, in the same interview, that he loves to include accents that are off-kilter, or “monkeyed with.”
Yes! I say. Exactly.

Show Your Authenticity. Humans Aren’t Perfect

Should a small business owner try to emulate the stilted language of a Fortune 500 on their website? Should an entrepreneur build a carefully crafted facade of social media perfection? No. Humans aren’t wired that way, and we have a hard time relating to businesses that are wired that way.

That doesn’t mean you can ignore the importance of copywriting, or that you can abandon business niceties altogether, and it certainly doesn’t mean you can show up at a presentation in your PJs.

But as a small business owner, you have a golden opportunity to show your human side, to be authentically you, as you conduct business. There’s no 50 page guidance document holding you back. If you screw something up royally, just apologize.

Embrace your lack of perfection. Celebrate it!

How to Be Off-Kilter On Purpose

Some inspirational ideas:

  1. I recently ordered some iPhone lenses that came with a tiny plastic dinosaur in the box, for no apparent reason. Photojojo.com made me smile.
  2. The AppSumo site has a funny, sometimes bizarre sense of humor, and a readily distinguishable “voice.”
  3. A local Seattle promo design shop (the fun folks at B-Bam!) caught my undivided attention last month by sending me a Christopher Walken t-shirt out of the blue.

Are you striving for B-school perfection? Stop it, and release the monkeys! Your customers will thank you for it.

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

A 5 Point Plan to Differentiate Your New Business

by

by
Jacob E. Dawson

cooltext443809602_strategy

Building a new business is challenging, frustrating, exhilarating and rewarding. If you’re embarking on the journey of entrepreneurship, it will be the hardest yet most satisfying adventure you can imagine. You will have a million things to take care of on a daily basis, and a seemingly endless check-list of tasks you need to undertake in order to reach the success you’re striving for. In addition to discovering your customer’s pain-points and creating a great product to satisfy their needs, you’ll also need to take care of the books, understand the legal requirements and make sure you can keep your head above water as you approach profitability.

A 5 Point Plan to Differentiate Your New Business

If that seems overwhelming, you can take a deep breath and relax. There are plenty of valuable guides for new business owners. in order to give you a helping hand, which is why we’ve put together a 5-point plan to help you differentiate yourself from competitors once you’ve entered the market with a new product.

  1. Embrace Your SmallnessEveryone has dreams of building a giant business that experiences hockey-stick growth and explodes onto the market. That’s fine, but one of the best ways to turn a weakness into a strength is to embrace it. Acknowledge the small size of your business in the early days and use it to your advantage. People love to root for the underdog, and will often support you and your business more eagerly than they would a larger, more established company.
  2. Pour Your Personality into the BrandIn addition to embracing your small size, you can also help to build a strong customer relationship by pouring a lot of your own personality into the business. Large corporations are renowned for feeling faceless in their customer communications, and this is a huge point of differentiation that you can use to your advantage. You can cleverly insert quirks and idiosyncrasies into your brand character, helping your business to feel unique, friendly and approachable.
  3. Encourage One-On-One ConversationsWhen you are establishing your new business in the marketplace, marketing and promotion are some of the most difficult parts to get right, especially when you have a very limited budget to work with. There are, however, a few ways to maximise what you have by utilizing the power of word-of-mouth, by finding your most passionate customers and lavishing them with attention. When you invite them into your world, share your business’s journey and give them access to unique insights & offers, you can turn a customer into an evangelist – someone who will passionately share your business with the world – maximizing your valuable marketing dollars in the process.
  4. Show Yourself as a ‘Hands-On’ ExpertIf you can’t compete with larger businesses pound-for-pound, you have to find other ways to outdo them. One of the best ways to do this is to establish yourself as an expert in your field. Write informative blog posts and ‘how-tos’, start finding forums and seminars that you can speak at, seek out public-relations opportunities where you can show your expertise through the media. Before long your customers will see you as an expert in your field, strengthening your business reputation, and enabling you to compete with larger, less hands-on competitors.
  5. Tell Your Personal StoryYou know that starting a business is one of the hardest journey’s that you can embark on, so why don’t you share the challenges you encounter with your customers? When they know much effort you put into offering them the best products and services possible they will become more attached to your brand and feel much more invested in your future success. Let them see the ups-and-downs and your willingness to share will be repaid with stronger customer relationships and, eventually, a successful business.

I hope that this 5 Point Plan to Differentiate Your Business has given you some ideas and inspiration to help you to sharpen your new business and begin your journey towards success! What are your thoughts about these techniques, and which ones do you think that I’ve missed? Do you have any personal experience that you can share with us? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Author’s Bio:
Jacob E. Dawson writes for Delivery Hero, the best way to find local home delivery . Jacob E. Dawson is an entrepreneur, marketing and SEO / SEM expert with a passion for making the most of every day! You can follow him on Twitter as @jacobeddawson

 

Thank you for adding to the conversation!

Free But Far Reaching – Social Media Giants That All Businesses Must Consider for Brand Management

by

by

Arba Hana

Twitter boasts around 500 million active users sending 340 million tweets daily. More than 900 million people sign in to Facebook every day, spending an average of 15 hours per month on the site.  YouTube has 490 million unique visitors per month, and they watch 2.9 billion hours of video every month.

Social media has worked itself into the fabric of our everyday life, and the potential for customers new and old to see your brand via these social media channels (and a few others) are very high. Each one is free. If you’re not representing your brand on social media, you’re missing out.

Learn more about some of the best, free but far reaching social media giants on internet that all business must consider for brand management.

 

Facebook:

Arguably the largest and most heavily used social media platform is Facebook. Virtually every industry targeting any age group or gender can find their target market on Facebook, where grandmothers “like” photos of their teenage grand kids and bosses comment on their employees’ photos. Using Facebook Pages, which were introduced for businesses in November 2007, you can personalize your Facebook presence and target the segment of Facebook’s widespread demographic user that applies to your business.

Facebook Pages let you integrate your brand seamlessly into the platform. Big, bold cover images allow you to show off your brand “personality”, and status updates, photo albums and polls can let you develop your brand voice and interact and engage your customers. Facebook allows you to customize  “apps”, or tabs you’re your Page to highlight products, run contests, add disclaimers or show off a variety of other content. Facebook Offers for fan pages, which is a free service for Facebook page admins, is one of the newest features available to build your brand. The Facebook Offers feature is as easy as posting a status update, and is a great way to promote a new product or service.  Fans redeem Facebook Offers via their smartphone or from an email that’s mailed to them after they get the offer.

Twitter:

The second largest social media heavy hitter is Twitter, a micro-blogging platform in which users send 140 characters into their “stream”. Anyone can read the messages, called “tweets”, but registered Twitter users can follow others, respond to tweets and forward their friends tweets to their own stream (a practice known as “retweeting”.)  Twitter’s demographic is a bit more limited than Facebook – 35% live in urban areas, the median age is 31 and users tend to have a lower income than Facebook users. The lingo might sound funny – and the platform might sound confusing – but Twitter is one of the most powerful ways to monitor what people are saying about your brand in real time and address issues before they turn into a major PR problem.

To use Twitter to build your brand, search for and follow users who are your target market and location. Make sure you monitor your mentions and search for keywords applying to your business.  Create lists (another great Twitter feature) with other businesses in your industry, other local businesses or national industry news outlets or brands, and retweet interesting articles; this can help you build your industry expertise. There are many Twitter management platforms available, such as TweetDeck and HootSuite, to make the hefty job of  monitoring Twitter easier by letting you display columns of streams (such as mentions, specific lists or retweeted messages) on one screen.

YouTube

If a picture says a 1000 words, how many words can a video deliver? YouTube has silently answered that question by growing leaps and bounds since its start in February 2005. Companies are finding this video sharing site, on which users can upload, view, and subscribe to, comment on and rate videos of all types – from professional shot and editing pieces to music videos to amateur smart phone videos.

Build your brand on YouTube by thinking outside the realm of traditional head shot interview pieces or scripted marketing videos. Video blogging, or vlogging, is a great way to establish your company’s voice and show the personality behind the brand. Product demos can give your customers the “try it before you buy it” look at your products that could tip the scales in the favor of a sale. How-to videos can show your customers you’re an expert in your field, and as an added bonus, are the type of videos social media fans love to share with their friends. The majority of videos out there aren’t professionally made, so don’t let the technology of video editing keep you away from using YouTube to build your brand – all you need is a webcam and an outline!

An added bonus of using YouTube is increased search engine rankings. After Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion in November 2006, YouTube videos started showing up quite often in searches, and have become increasingly weighted. YouTube videos not only let your customers get to know your brand, but they can also bring new customers to you through search engine traffic.

__

Arba writes on topics related to branding and marketing. If you are looking for brand management services, you can try this brand consultancy service provided by some of the best in business.