Successful Blog

The Proper Business of Text Messaging

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young business people group have meeting and working in modern bYou’ve got all of the right social media tools to help your small business out, a Facebook page, Instagram feed, Pinterest boards and a Twitter handle. Now what?

What else is your marketing calling out for? Are you working on text messaging to your client base?

If not, this is something you should consider as it’s a huge market to reach clients and increase their loyalty and longevity.

Mobility is Key

Because so many people have mobile devices these days, and keep these devices with them at virtually all times, mobile marketing has become a great platform to reach customers.

You won’t want to miss out on this market, and with a text messaging service, it’s all the easier. It’s just a matter of choosing the right one to fit your needs.

As the article, “How to choose the right text messaging service for your business” looks at, keep these ideas in mind:

  • Do some research – Find out the different services that providers offer, and decide what options you are looking for. Do you want it all, or will you be happy with a basic text messaging service? Check out how fees are calculated while you are doing this, because your budget is something to consider when choosing options.
  • Look at client support – You don’t want to get stuck with text messages going out willy-nilly, or encounter other issues with no help or support. Read some reviews and find out how the different services manage a problem and how much support they offer. You’re paying for a service; you should be able to count on support.
  • Compatibility – Make sure the text messaging service is compatible with the mobile service providers in your area. You want to be able to reach the major providers and if you have some smaller ones in your client base, those, too.
  • Look for someone willing to work with you and your needs – You want to be able to trust your text messaging service, just like you want your customers to trust you. Not only do you want support if there’s a problem, but you should also be able to look to your service for advice on what’s best for you. At the very least, you don’t want them pushing something you don’t need.
  • Talk to colleagues and other small business owners – Whether in person or via social media, reach out to similar business and see who they are using and if they are happy. You know how important work of mouth is, tap into it.

Any new endeavor is exciting and a little nervy.

Check into some different text messaging services; see what they offer and how each fits your needs.

Soon your customers will look forward to that weekly text from you, and your business may increase before your very eyes.

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

About the Author: Heather Legg is an independent writer covering topics related to small business, social media and working from home.

Do You Have the Right Brand Promotion Mix?

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marketing-words-blackboard-shows-selling-promotion-and-sales-100211117Are you looking to grow your company, gain exposure to the media and market your business to a specific clientele?

If so, you’re going to need to carefully plan exactly how you should go about marketing your business. There is no “one size fits all” method, but rather a mix of strategies that work together to give your business the type of growth it needs.

Popular ways businesses go about marketing include networking with other businesses and individuals in the area, asking for referrals, using free forms of advertising (such as Craigslist), developing an online social media presence, placing ads in the newspaper or print media, creating a mass email or text message list, offering deals and specials, donating to a local charity and more.

There are hundreds of ways to market your business, but the trick is finding a mix that works best for your specific industry.

Get More Social

Social media is quickly rising to the top when it comes to marketing. Not only is it an effective way to advertise for nearly all businesses, regardless of industry, but it’s also a free way to advertise.

To market via social media, you first start out by setting up your business accounts on various social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn and more.

Then, start networking with other business and individuals, post information on your company including any specials or promotions you have going on, interact with customers and start developing a following.

Finding the Right Combinations

While growing your online presence is one of the best ways to market your business, it shouldn’t be the only way. A business that markets well knows that it’s a combination of marketing strategies that are the most effective.

The article “Integrating social media, text and email” suggests that the best social media marketing strategy incorporates text messages and email marketing into their plan. Instead of having three separate plans, it’s best to have them work together to form one larger marketing campaign.

So how do you get all three to work together?

A few ideas include asking customers via email to “like” your Facebook page, getting customers to “opt in” to your text message service by offering a discount on your product or placing a “subscribe to my email” option on all of your social media accounts.

By offering discounts or free products to the customers and making it easy for them to share and follow you, you’ll have a much better chance at growing a following and gaining customers.

Once you’ve combined your social media marketing strategy with your text and email campaign, you can begin to seek out other ways to advertise.

Its trial-and-error, as some methods will work wonderfully and others will crash and burn. Your strategies will also change over time as new and improved ways of marketing come on to the market.

Be flexible and be willing to try a variety of methods in order to figure out what works best for your business.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: Sarah Brooks is a freelance writer living in Charlotte, NC. She writes on a variety of topics including social media, small businesses and personal finance.

Is It Time to Rethink Your Marketing Strategy?

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sales-marketing-shows-selling-e-commerce-and-offer-100291369When it comes to the world of marketing, you have either got it or you don’t.

The “it” factor is do you have a sound marketing strategy in place? If you do, you’re likely reaping the benefits of such. If not, you are probably thinking about how you’re ever going to get your message out to consumers.

When you stop and think about it, today’s consumer gets marketed by a wide variety of brands.

In order for your targeted consumers to come to and stay with you, your marketing strategy must be informational, exciting and something that the competition isn’t doing.

So, is it time to rethink your marketing strategy?

Always Be Thinking Ahead

In order to keep your marketing game on top, remember these tips moving forward:

  • Your audience – Your marketing game can’t and won’t succeed if you do not have a clear understanding of your demographics. It only makes sense that if you are marketing financial retirement products (IRA’s, 401K’s etc.), you should not be solely targeting senior citizens in their 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and above. Sure, you may find some on the lower end of that age spectrum who are interested in some of your products, but your main audience should be those individuals in their 30’s, 40’s and even 50’s. People in their 20’s typically are not yet focused on their retirement years, but it doesn’t hurt to market them some information to at least get them thinking about the day they retire. Those a decade or two older should already be saving money and thinking regularly about being able to retire comfortably one day. Know your audience in order to increase the odds of more sales;
  • Your efforts – Yes, you likely have a busy schedule which precludes you from doing all you want in a workday, but that is no excuse for dropping the ball on your marketing needs. Make sure you set aside the required time and efforts needed to get all your daily tasks done. A typical day should include reaching out to current and potential customers, looking at new campaigns to pitch, networking, and staying on top of your social media game (see more below);
  • Your socializing – While many marketers already have a social media presence, others have been slow to move towards social networking. For those in the latter group, now is the time to get caught up. Whether you use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram or any number of other social sites, you need to be active. When you share and retweet worthwhile links from others, you not only increase the eyes to your marketing profile, but you stand to gain some potential new business. It is also a good idea to follow relevant people in the marketing industry (individuals, associations, trade publications etc.).

While there is much more to the world of marketing, take a few minutes to review your current strategy.

If it is lacking in a defined audience, time commitment and a social component, work on those three areas to get your marketing strategy back on course.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: Miguel Salcido has been a professional search marketing consultant for over 11 years. He is the founder and CEO of Organic Media Group, a content driven SEO agency. He also likes to blog at OrganicSEOConsultant.com and share insights into advanced SEO.

How to Kickstart a Product-Based Business

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This week I’m pleased to interview the two creative minds behind the Ryo adaptor (launching today on Kickstarter), Lori Liu and Kevin Lieber. Crowdfunding is a great way to road-test an idea, gauge market demand, and obtain financing for your project.

I thought it would be interesting to get the insider scoop on what it’s like to take the leap from idea to Kickstarter campaign.

Ryo adaptor

1. What are the backgrounds of your founders?

We are a team of four made up of a creator/entrepreneur, a legal adviser, an auditor, and a Youtube channel producer and host. It’s a good mix of creative talents and business acumen.

2. How did you come together for this project (since some are in New Zealand and one is in the US?)

The three of us in New Zealand are associates and we came together because we believed in Julian’s idea and also because we just wanted to go all in and take a real shot at creating something outside of our day jobs. We needed a US partner to be able to launch a US based Kickstarter project, so we pitched our idea to Kevin as he is active in the science and tech space and seemed like somebody who would be interested. Our pitch was honest and personal, and Kevin jumped onboard quite quickly. We’ve found that if you are open and honest with people, you will get the same back.

3. Any tips or advice on working together remotely with a business partner?

It really isn’t hard if everyone shares a common goal and is invested in the project. The logistics are a bit more difficult than working with local people, but we’ve found that there’s almost nothing you can’t sort out over email and Skype (of course, Julian had to fly over to the New York to shoot our video with Kevin). The only difference in working with a remote partner is that there needs to be a clear division of labour so that he can be a lot more independent in what he is doing. Back home we just tag team a lot and pick up the slack for each other whenever it becomes necessary.

4. What made you decide to use Kickstarter to get the product launched?

We are a small startup working on a very tight budget. Kickstarter is fantastic because it is basically free market validation, and it’s a great platform for newbies like us to build a following for future projects.

5. Any tips for someone considering going to Kickstarter with their project?

It’s still a bit early for us to be giving advice as we’re still testing the waters ourselves. Rather than a tip we can share the approach that we’ve taken with Kickstarter. We have invested a LOT of time and energy to create a good Kickstarter page. Everything from the video to the visual assets and the text has been created with the utmost care and attention to detail. We believe that while the idea itself is important and is obviously central to the project, it takes a good looking campaign page to give people that extra push to really want to check out what you’re doing. At this point we just really really really hope we’re right.

6. How do you go from product to business? Do you have a strategy in place for how you will scale and grow?

We have a business plan for taking the product to retail after the campaign. Of course that will depend on the success of this campaign. If we are successfully funded we will be able to do our first run of production and get the ryo adapter and kushi out to our backers. If we get a decent amount of funding we will be taking this to local retailers here in our relatively small New Zealand market. If we raise a significant amount of funding we will be well placed to take this to the larger retailers overseas. We have also looked into exit strategies for our worst case scenarios. We are all at pretty critical points in our respective careers so if we don’t hit certain targets, then this project will not be worth quitting our day jobs for. In this case we will have to look for a buyer to take over. I think if that happens the best deal we could reach would be agreeing to a majority takeover with the original founders taking reduced shareholdings as silent partners.

7. Can you share any tips from your marketing plan? Any successes so far?

I don’t think our success can be measured until we launch. As a startup we aren’t too focused on a commercially driven marketing campaign that shoves the ryo adapter down people’s throats. We really just want people to know we exist and we’ve basically tried to use every avenue available within budget. One thing we’re definitely limiting our spend on is banner and sidebar ads. It might have been good a while back, but if you think about the sheer number of startups we have today vying for ad revenue versus the slower growing target audience, it just doesn’t make financial sense. We were pretty blown away by how much these ads cost, the prices have been driven up by the fast growing number of startups and other ad sellers all chasing a limited pool of money.

8. Anything I forgot to ask about that you’d like to share?

Yeah, my credentials! I’m so new at this myself and I don’t feel qualified at all to be giving any tips. I hope my answers are of some value to your audience. You should hit me up again after the campaign and hopefully then I’ll have some gems to share!

I think that’s a great idea. Look for a followup article here, once the campaign closes!

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for Social Strata — makers of the Hoop.la community platform. Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Cook Up More Revenue with Consumer Text Marketing

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couple-enjoying-dinner-at-a-restaurant-100234263If you’re a restaurant, fast-food establishment or local eatery owner, you know that getting customers through the door is a constant focus of your business.

Even when business is good, there are always those quieter times of day when it can be hard to get enough patrons into those seats.

Using mass texts is one way your eatery can draw in more customers, get people excited about your food, and entice them with special offers and exclusive deals.

So just how can you use text marketing to increase your eatery’s revenue? And what are some examples of restaurants that are already doing just that?

Text Marketing Gets Customers’ Attention

As the article “Mass Consumer Texts Driving Up Sales At Restaurants” points out, using text marketing means you can reach a large number of potential customers in your immediate vicinity.

A text message has a personal feel. Unlike an online ad or billboard, a text message arrives directly in front of each customer, inviting them to open and read it, and grabbing their full attention for a few minutes.

Text marketing gives you the chance to start a personal interaction with each customer, putting your restaurant and food at the forefront of their mind, and ensuring they’ll think of you when it’s time to grab lunch or dinner.

Text Marketing Gives Them a Reason to do Business

The beauty of text marketing is that you can use it to entice your customers to eat with you. Text marketing is the perfect vehicle for sending them delicious offers, such as buy one get one free deals, or money off coupons.

If you particularly want to increase revenue at a quieter time of the day or week, you can use text marketing to send out time limited offers for those periods, encouraging people to come and eat with you at that time.

In addition, why not consider sending out weekly specials, daily discount coupons, text-to-win sweepstakes, or even conducting surveys to find out what your customers think of your restaurant, what works and what doesn’t.

Eateries Finding Success with Text Marketing

Several big-name eateries have already seen success with text marketing:

  • McDonald’s used a text-based sweepstakes competition with a wide range of prizes. 1.5 million customers joined in, showing that text marketing can be very effective indeed;
  • Chuck E. Cheese used text message marketing to encourage customers to join their email list – not only did it become the most successful method for getting customers on the list, but customers who joined via text were more likely to open the emails than any other customers;
  • UK pizza place Papa John’s sent out text offers for cut-price pizzas to customers on their text list, and saw a 33% jump in revenue for the duration of the offer;
  • Dunkin’ Donuts asked their customers to join their mobile marketing list, and got a fantastic response, with stores in the Boston area seeing 21% more customers walk through their doors;
  • Taco Bell branched out into using mobile marketing to connect with their customers, offering a free drink to those who opted in to their mobile marketing list. As a result, they garnered 13000 subscribers.

Text marketing is an immediate way to reach many customers quickly and easily, and it’s frequently more cost effective than other forms of direct marketing.

By reaching your customers when they’re out and about you can encourage them to stop off at your establishment and take advantage of your special offers.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: Tristan Anwyn writes on a wide variety of topics, including social media, SEO, restaurant businesses and SMS marketing.

7 Death Traps to Avoid When Starting an E-Commerce Business

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By Simon Horton

The Web offers endless possibilities to businesses. You sure are aware that the Internet has changed the dynamics of buyer-seller relationship forever. The lure of the Web is very difficult for an entrepreneur to resist and you are already planning your e-commerce blockbuster.

There is more happy news for you. The holiday season has brought in bumper sales for retail sellers. Cyber Monday saw sales totaling $2.68 billion with almost 21% of that sales coming from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

The weekend after Thanksgiving raked in more than $2 billion in online sales. Online sales in the US for the months of November and December combined are expected to surpass $89 billion, an increase of 16% over 2013.

The Internet obviously is the place to be for businesses. Amazon shipped approximately 426 items per second on Cyber Monday, with sales totaling in excess of 37 million items.

But finding your place under the sun in an unforgiving online marketplace is not easy. With super-hot competition breathing down your neck it becomes increasingly important for you to be at the right place at the right time to land the sale.

Success is very hard to find in an over-crowded global marketplace. Here are a few things you need to keep in mind to avoid a potential disaster for your online business.

1) Think Style over Substance

Once you have decided to take the leap and start selling online, is time to work out a clear strategy.

Do not spend hours creating the most attractive, interactive, responsive and stylish website. Not only are you required to put in endless hours, but you also end up spending quite a lot of money.

Dive into the potential customer base you are targeting. If you are selling kids’ garden accessories, make sure you know where to find your customers. Parenting blogs, forums and self-help groups offer much potential.

So do schools and kindergartens. With increasing stress being laid in schools on teaching children to eat healthy and natural, on how to source food from their kitchen gardens, and in general encouraging them to spend more time outdoors, your products do have potential to sell.

Go where your potential customers are more likely to find you and try to engage them constructively.

2) Neglect Content

Your website need not pay big bucks to bloggers to write for you. Spare some time to share valuable, informative, engaging and interesting content with your online visitors.

Blogging would not take up more than a few hours every week. Once you get the hang of it you will be easily able to post two fleshed out posts every week. And that’s all that is required in the early stages of your business.

Do reply to all comments and suggestions, and ensure you do not neglect any visitor to your blog.

3) Not Stay Social

Social media holds much sway over the online marketplace. This is where your potential customers meet and share ideas, opinions and latest gossip. You need to be familiar with popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Once you have succeeded in building up considerable traffic to your site, you will be able to leverage social media to increase your visibility to a much vaster audience.

If you ignore social media sites very soon you will be left behind in the race with your competition getting there first and building up a dialog with the prospective customers.

4) Not Gauge the Practical Aspects

Your business is not all about your brilliant idea and yourself. You will need the help and support of plenty of others to actually get your business up and going.

Vendors, suppliers, shippers, customers and employees are all stakeholders you need to work with to ensure the success of your online venture. You need to measure how much all of this is going to cost you financially. How long can you sustain the nuts and bolts of your venture if the revenue takes time rolling in?

Amazon would not have been the success it is if it had shipped stuff late and broken all through its formative years. You will have to sweat to win your customers trust and most importantly their familiarity with you.

You have to honestly and thoroughly assess all of this before you set up your online store. Do you have all the necessary ancillaries in place for your business to flourish and run well?

5) Do Not Have a Customer-Centric Site

This is one of the biggest mistakes that could really mar the customer experience.

An online business site should be a delightful experience for any guest, not just for those who have painfully created an account. Do not make it mandatory for visitors to register to complete sale. Ensure the visitor faces as few hurdles as possible.

Quality, high-resolution images should be provided along with comprehensive product descriptions. There should be no room for doubt in your prospective customer’s mind as to what he is paying for.

You should also clearly specify the price of the product and the shipping options available. All modes of shipping do not cost the same. US Postal Service offers several benefits for small businesses that you can pass on to customers. Be clear to your customers about the choices available to them..

You should also clearly define your return policies and provide all info regarding customer support for all available channels including phone, e-mail and instant chat.

6) The Checkout Process Is Tedious

Tedious checkout processes can really depress your sales. Help your customer complete the payment in a single click. Follow the industry standard for entering credit card information and make the flow as intuitive and responsive as possible.

When you shop at Amazon or eBay the breezy checkout process makes shopping a pleasant experience.

A long and tortuous order placement process can make your customer abandon the shopping cart and find a better place to shop at.

7) Limited Payment Options

71% of e-transactions are made with cards. But a whopping 29% are using non-card methods which include PayPal and e-wallets. Go for payment methods that are favored by your target audience.

Lack of preferred payment options will deter your prospective customers from completing the transaction.

Ensure you allow payments without having to create an account and do not redirect people to other sites. SSL and PCI badges add to the credibility of your website. Customers value the padlock icon and the https URL prefix that shows you are using a secure payment gateway.

The path to online marketing success is waylaid with potential deathtraps. Avoid these mistakes and your venture is sure to succeed and win customer loyalty.

Author’s Bio: Simon Horton is the Founder of ShopIntegrator.com, a Hosted Shopping Cart Store Add-In. His years of experience has helped him setting up this platform. Feel free to reach him out on Google+.