Bringing Your Business Through The Pandemic

Three focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Current Events. My businesses were obliterated by the Covid-19 Pandemic while others made it through, thrived, or were even started. If your business is still alive, you want to consider how to keep it going as the pandemic may be nearing it’s end. The following contributed post is entitled, Bringing Your Business Through The Pandemic.

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Many businesses have been impacted by Covid-19, and while things are improving, firms are still battling to get back on track. Let’s take a look at some of the ways you may help your business grow stronger during this difficult time:

Keep Track Of Your Cash Flow

Identify any cashflow issues as soon as possible, and predict with the worst-case scenario in mind, ensuring that your company is ready for any future socio-economic shifts. Employees should be assigned to procedures that are critical to cash flow, even if this implies cross-training. Many businesses lack a proper, regularly updated cash flow projection, resulting in a lack of awareness of their finances and potential consequences; if this is your company, make it a point to build one. Using tools such as Wefunder Agency could help.

Examine The Dangers In Your Supply Chain

You must prepare for the worst, just as you must for cash flow. What if one of your suppliers is unable to supply you with the things you require? If possible, ensure you have viable backup providers, speak with them, and confirm that they can deliver what you require, as things may not be as advertised on their website at the time. You might also need to make certain strategic supply chain decisions, such as concentrating on your most profitable products or services while reducing other offerings and supply chain risks. While these may be temporary decisions given the current state of the economy, it is always necessary to risk analyse your supply chain.

Keep Yourself Updated

As a business leader, you must stay up to date on the newest COVID-19 developments on a daily basis, as the advice is constantly changing. However, double-check official recommendations, avoid sensationalised news and social media posts, and carefully consider what to tell your employees, suppliers, and customers. Avoid panic and perplexity! When planning your strategy for the coming months, keep in mind the government’s response and business assistance policies. The most recent advice can be found here.

Be Flexible And Open To New Ideas

Many firms that survive and prosper through a crisis like this will have open-minded CEOs who can adjust swiftly to change and inspire their employees to do the same. Given how our lives have significantly and rapidly altered recently, your business model may no longer be feasible and will need to be updated. There may also be fresh prospects for you to take advantage of and diversify your business. Check out the rest of my essay on how to adapt and diversify your business.

Make Preparations For The ‘After’

Start thinking about how you want your business to look once the pandemic is ended once all of the big obstacles have been addressed. It is preferable to begin planning now rather than face the shock of returning to ‘normalcy’ with no awareness of the significant changes we have all through. Make a list of everything that is functioning well for your team and that you might want to keep in place in the long run, as well as anything you want to get rid of. Are you looking for ways to work that are more productive and cost-effective? Is your team collaborating more effectively? Have you taken steps to reduce your company’s environmental impact? Consider how your customers and suppliers will function in the future and include them in your strategies.

How To Improve Cashflow As A Small Business

Two key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. While the focus of a business is the generate profit, a key aspect of that is controlling costs and improving cashflow. The following contributed post is entitled, How To Improve Cashflow As A Small Business.

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One of the problems facing small businesses, even profitable small businesses is cash flow or lack thereof. Having a steady cash flow is important for all businesses as it is the means to meeting all overheads such as rent and bills. If payments are due to be made but cannot be met even a successful company could run into difficulty and uncertainty over their future. Here are some tips to consider when it comes to keeping your company cash available.

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Lease instead of buy

Choosing to lease over purchasing property or even equipment and goods may at first seem counterintuitive as commonly you will end up paying a higher amount over the duration of the lease than you would if you bought the property outright. While this may be the case outlying large sums of money into property or goods will tie up your company funds and could have a very detrimental effect on its access to cash and cash flow. It may also be that your lease agreements can benefit from certain tax advantages, advice on which should always be sought.

Liquidate assets

If you do choose to buy your goods or equipment then you will always have the option to sell them to liquidize those assets. Or, it may be that you have surplus inventory to your requirements that you can dispose of to increase your cash flow. Take a look around, and consider whether everything you have is truly needed. Your company tools or equipment will always be worth something and there are specialized companies available who can help value your stock and offer you competitive rates. If you are in the restaurant trade for example take a look at this site to see what services they offer for liquidating your inventory.

Stay on top of invoicing

It sounds like an obvious one but you would be surprised how many companies lag behind when it comes to invoicing. Firstly be sure to invoice as soon as possible and make sure all invoices are clear and easy to read with all of the relevant information easy to find. Relevant information such as payment terms and payment methods should be top priority. It is also a good idea to include a due date and to make it visible from several locations on the invoice. Finally be sure to chase unpaid invoices regularly. Set yourself weekly or even bi-weekly reminders to send out follow ups as the payment deadline approaches. If an invoice is unpaid after the due date be sure to charge late payment fees.

Consider how people pay you

If your cash is coming from your customers, which it will be, consider the payment methods you offer and whether you can expand these. There are so many viable payment options available from Paypal, Venmo, Apple Pay or even Bitcoin. The more possibilities you have and the more convenient it is for customers to pay you the quicker you will receive your money and improve your cash flow.

Tips For Maintaining Your Customer’s Attention

Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Arguably the most important part of any business is its marketing. A part of marketing is figuring out how to maintain your customer’s attention. The following contributed post is entitled, Tips For Maintaining Your Customer’s Attention.

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Maintaining the attention of your customers is super important so that they don’t lose interest. Non-interested customers will slowly hinder your business sales, which will decrease profits and make it harder to grow and expand your business. To make your business more effective and successful, it is important to engage your customers.

On that note, here are the best tips for maintaining your customer’s attention.

Inside Restaurant Bar – Free photo on Pixabay

Make an engaging website
If your business runs an online website, that it will need to be as engaging as possible to maintain the attention of your customers. If your business doesn’t have a website, then it will benefit your business to work with a website design team who will help to build your site. A business website will help your business be more discoverable, which will boost sales and success.

Your business website should be as responsive as possible, which will maintain the attention of your customers. Using an expert in the field will ensure that your website is easy to use and smooth so that your customers do not lose interest.

Fast responses
An effective way to keep your customers engaged is to respond to their comments and questions as fast as possible. Although it would be ideal to offer your customers immediate responses, sometimes it simply isn’t possible. Therefore, ensure to stay on top of your comments/queries so that you can turn around quick responses.

If you do want to try and increase your response time and offer more frequent immediate responses then it can help to build a live chat service on your website. During business hours, customers can contact you there and attain an immediate response to their query, which will keep them attentive and interested.

Never promise anything
You should avoid promising anything to your customers because if you fail to meet the expectations that you have set out for yourself, then you will lose your customer’s trust. Therefore, never hand out promises.

Instead, fulfilling your own expectations should be enough to satisfy your customers and keep them interested.

Get to know your customers
The more personal you are with your customers, the more engaged they will be. Simply knowing their name or their preferences will ensure that you can be friendly and create a relationship, which will keep them coming back to use your business.

Getting to know your customers will also mean that you can rely on them for regular and honest feedback. The more feedback you attain from your customers about your business, the more you can improve and ensure that you provide your customers with what they want.

Offer regular deals
Every customer will appreciate a good deal from time to time. Therefore, offering regular deals to your existing customers will make them feel appreciated and encourage them to keep shopping with you to attain more deals.

You could offer a reward scheme whereby you offer a free product for every ten purchases made. It will keep them interested and engaged with your business, which will maintain their loyalty.

Phone Etiquette Tips For Business

Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. A component of your business is its customer service. Even in today’s digital age, a key aspect of that is communication over the phone. The following contributed post is entitled, Phone Etiquette Tips For Business.

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Phone etiquette is very important for maintaining customer satisfaction and representing your brand professionally. Your manner on the phone matters, and will change how your customers feel about you and how effective your business is.

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Here’s what every business owner needs to know about managing phone lines, whether you’re a one-man band using your mobile phone, or a larger business with a voip phone provider.

Be Consistent

Make sure everyone answers the phone in the same way. If it’s an inbound call, all the customer wants to know is that they have called the right place. Keep your hello brief. Choose a professional greeting that mentions the company and then your own name. Don’t waste time with extras like, “How can I help you?”. Something like, “Hello, Mary’s Cafe, Ryan speaking,” is enough.

Never Interrupt

Don’t interrupt a complaining customer. It can be hard to do this, but listen to the whole problem, no matter how long the customer talks. Even if you use call center that will hand off the call to a member of your staff, listening to the whole problem is important so that the customer feels you are taking them seriously.

Use The Hold Button

Make sure everyone at your company knows how to use your phone system, including the hold button. Never put the phone to your chest to muffle the mouthpiece so you can talk to someone in the office. Clients might hear things that you don’t want them to hear.

Use The Transfer Button

You need to know how to transfer someone to another member of your team. Tell your customer something like, “The best person to handle this is Claire, so I’m going to transfer you.” If you need time to find Claire or explain the customer’s problem to her, tell the customer this, and put them on hold, so they understand why they’re waiting. Make sure Claire takes the call with some knowledge of what the problem is.

Keep Customers Informed

It’s important to train your team on this. They need to give the customer a list of what they are going to do, then a longer timeframe than necessary. Do this, because when you solve their problem faster than you said you would, the customer is pleased and feels you went above and beyond to help them. If you take longer than you said, they’ll be annoyed.

Smile When Your Talk

You can hear when someone is smiling. When you smile while you’re speaking on the phone makes a detectable difference to your tone of voice, so make sure that your team sounds as though they’re in a good mood when they’re on the phone. If a member of your team sounds bored or miserable, it will be worse on the phone, as the customer can’t see their body language. Words and inflection are very important over the phone, more so than they are in a face-to-face encounter. Smile, and keep your tone friendly and professional when you talk.

Helping You To Understand What Could Be Wrong In Your Business

Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. If you’re running a business, you may hit stretches were you’re taking losses or a system goes down. You may experience difficulties from the start. The following contributed post is entitled, Helping You To Understand What Could Be Wrong In Your Business.

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Is something going wrong in your business? At some point in their business life, every business owner is going to go through a patch where something isn’t quite right with the business that they own. As such, it’s up to you to find out what the problem is so that you can start working on the solution. In this article, we’re going to be taking a look at some of the more common issues so that you can work out where to go from there. Keep reading if you would like to find out more about this topic.

Employees Aren’t Dedicated

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The first problem that you might have is the fact that your employees aren’t dedicated to helping you see success. If this is the problem, then you need to either put your current employees up for performance review, or you need to get new employees. You don’t have the time to let them sink your business by not caring about what goes on, so you need to make a decision fast. Of course, if there is an employee who is usually working really hard and things have slipped recently, try talking to them first to see what is going on. You never know, there might be something that you can help with.

If this is an issue for you and it’s becoming a constant problem, you can always look at outsourcing instead. This is a cheaper option, and you can get managed devops services, accounting services, human resources and so much more when you outsource.

Your Marketing Isn’t Working

Potentially, the issue is that your marketing just isn’t working. If this is the case, you need to start evaluating why this might be. Have you run your marketing campaigns past a focus group before you launched them? If not, why? A focus group will give you invaluable feedback that will help you understand the position you are in when it comes to your marketing. They will tell you if your target audience is going to find this campaign interesting and engage with it, or if it’s going to flop.

It could also be true that the issue is that you are not being creative enough with your content. People want to see something a little different than they are always seeing. The same thing over and over is extremely boring, and you’re not going to catch anyone’s attention like this. If your marketing is failing to garner attention, this will be your biggest issue.

Customers Don’t See You As Reliable

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Have you ever stopped to consider your reputation? Some business owners seem to think that a bad reputation is better than no reputation at all but this is untrue. If you have no reputation, it’s easier to try and build one, but if you have a bad one, then this is going to be extremely difficult to turn around. One of the things that they might say about your company is that you are not reliable. Now, you will know if this is true or not. You will know if you are consistently providing high-quality to your customers, and you will know if getting through to your business is as simple as it should be. If you are not reliable, we suggest that you get to work on changing that if you want to see an improvement.

Leadership Is Lacking

The final thing that we are going to look at is the leadership in your business. If the leadership is lacking, then things are never going to be successful. Think about the way that you run your business and ask yourself whether there is anything that you could be doing better. If you can’t come up with anything, then you may want to look at taking a leadership course. This might give you insights that you needed, but never would have found otherwise.

We hope that you have found this article helpful, and now see some of the things that could be going wrong in your business. It could also be none of the things on this list and be something entirely different, but if any of these sound familiar to you, it’s well worth taking a look at trying to fix it. Try to remember that all issues in business can be fixed as long as you are willing to find the solution rather than just leave it to fester. We wish you the very best of luck, and hope that you find the answer you are looking for soon.

How To Make Your Business More Effective

Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Once you’ve started a business, one of your keys to success will be ensuring it’s growth and prosperity. The following contributed post is entitled, How To Make Your Business More Effective.

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When you run a business, you want it to be as profitable, efficient and useful as possible. You want to get the most output possible, whether that be through the capabilities of your staff or the amount that you bring in each money. Luckily, through the use of technology and a few other tactics, you can soon make your business more effective. After all, the most important thing when running a company is to remember all times to work smarter, not harder. If you are looking for some great ways to make your business more effective we have put together some top things to consider below.

Make use of the technology on the market

There is so much innovative technology on the market now, it is important to utilise it to your advantage. Whether it is implementing the cloud so your employees can access documents from anywhere, or using a more advanced accounting system, it is up to you. It is also important for you to keep an eye on emerging trends such as virtual reality which can be a real selling point to your company, or World Mobile Token which enables you to connect to any network in the world. By keeping in the know about technologies that are coming up, you are well set to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your company.

Ensure your staff members are happy

Your staff members are integral to your business so the happier they are, the more money you will make and the more effective your company will be. There are many ways that you can ensure your staff are happy, from giving incentives such as finishing early on a Friday, to an employee of the month and end of year bonuses. By adding simple things like this to your strategy, you will soon find that your staff members are much happier and your business will be reaping the results. Try to book appraisals with your employees too, so you can find out anything that is bothering them and also help them to improve if they need to.

Think about where you are spending your money

It can be easy to spend money needlessly in a business. This could be through different monthly subscriptions and programs, or simply through using a service that is more pricey than it necessarily should be. To combat this, go through where all your money is going and see if you can cut it down. It could be that you are paying over the odds for your phone contracts, or perhaps you are ordering more stationery supplies than are needed.

These are just a few simple ways that you can make your business more effective. By implementing these top tips you are sure to improve how it runs and find an increase in profits and hopefully a decrease in your expenditure. Do you run a business? What are some top tips you like to follow in order to make it more effective? Let us know in the comments below!

How To Give Your Business The Competitive Edge

Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Once you business is up and running, you want to determine if you have competitors. If so you, need to determine how to set yourself apart from you competition. The following contributed post is entitled, How To Give Your Business The Competitive Edge.

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Keeping a business afloat isn’t always easy and this is largely due to the threat of the competition. If you don’t take steps to give your business the competitive edge, your nearest rivals could steal away your potential and existing customers and limit your chances of making a profit.

There are a number of things you can do to gain a competitive edge and these include the following.

#1: Improve your SEO

The higher your business website ranks on search engines the better, as you will instantly elevate your business over the competition. This is because customers tend to trust the businesses that rank highly so you will be giving your business the credibility it needs To improve your SEO, you could take steps yourself, such as tweaking your website content to accommodate the keywords your target demographic will be searching for. You could also outsource to web design services akin to WebX360 as they have the know-how to improve your website, manage your content, and elevate your search engine ranking.

#2: Work on your brand identity

Your brand is what sets you apart from other businesses. At a very basic level, it’s about working on your businesses’ physical image, such as the logos and colors you choose to represent your business. However, it’s also about less tangible qualities, such as the values that your business represents. One such value could be care for the environment as this would do much to win over the hearts and minds of those shoppers that prefer to go green with their purchases. Check out our branding tips for more advice and browse our website for any similar topics.

#3: Become an industry expert

If you have worked in your industry for a while, you will have built up quite the knowledge base related to the products and services you provide. You can use this to your advantage by sharing what you know with others. When you do this by speaking at events and conferences, you will increase your credibility with a wider audience. You could create your own podcasts and YouTube videos too, write ebooks, and write informative articles that could be placed on prominent sites online. This is your way to make an impact on the people that use your business and is an excellent way to leverage yourself above your competitors.

#4: Find your niche

If your business isn’t very different from the others in your industry, it’s understandable that your business might get lost amongst the crowd. You need to stand out in some way, as we have discussed within our other suggestions. One way to stand out is to find your own niche, giving people something that isn’t being offered by any of your rivals. To do this, you need to research your competitors, look for gaps in the market, and then fill those gaps if you think there is a demographic for something unique.

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Too many businesses experience failure because of the competition but you don’t have to let this happen to you. By giving your business the competitive edge, you may be able to sidestep failure, as you should be able to attract more customers to your side. Consider our suggestions and then think about the other things you need to do to elevate your business over the competition.

How To Succeed In Your Newfound Small Business

Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. If you’re fortunate enough to have had your business survive its initial stages, you must continuously think about how position it to survive and thrive. The following contributed post is entitled, How To Succeed In Your Newfound Small Business.

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Creating your own small business is an incredible feat. It is something that most people dream of and with more people taking the plunge, there seems to be more competition than ever. With that being said, it is important to know the best tips so that you can take your business idea to new heights and succeed in your newfound small business. No matter which industry you work in, here are some tips to help you succeed in your small business.

Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay

Stay up to date with the latest trends and news

Being behind on the latest trends and news within your industry can result in your business falling behind. Opposingly, staying up to date with the latest trends will ensure that you offer the most effective solutions for your customers.

Simply researching the news and trends once a week will ensure that you are always inspired by new ideas and don’t fall behind should there be a leading trend that is winning over customers.

For instance, if you work as a freelance gamer and miss out on the new gaming updates, then you could lose your audience to others that have bothered to be on-trend and give the audience what they want. You can do your research and stay up to date with websites like iGaming News so that you can be ahead of the game and succeed in your business.

Keep learning new skills

Attaining new skills and continuing with training will move your business to greater success. The more skills and knowledge you have, the more you can offer.

For example, if your new business is a marketing agency then the more skills you have, the more you can offer clients in terms of packages and results. It is ideal to have the most skills possible so that you can win over clients and ensure to be efficient and achieve the best results.

Ensure to get your marketing under control

Speaking of marketing, it is an important area of the business that you need to get right. The more you knuckle down on your marketing strategies, the greater your business’s reach will be. A higher reach will result in more sales and therefore, more profit.

Although business success isn’t defined by finances, more money certainly helps take a newfound small business to new heights. It will enable you to hire more staff so that your business can grow.

To get your marketing under control here is some advice:

● Start automating. Automation in marketing is extremely useful to reduce the amount of manual labor that you have to put into your business. It allows your business to share marketing content throughout the day without having to manually push the publish button. You still need to create and schedule the content. Yet, you won’t have to worry about sharing it. Automation means that you can share more frequent marketing content, which will increase reach and brand awareness.
● Cross-promote. Cross-promotion is crucial if you want to reach out to as many people as possible. Although your business will likely have a target audience or a niche, reaching more people will likely result in more sales. Use email marketing as well as new marketing methods, such as social media, to reach as many customers as possible.
● Get help. Should you lack knowledge and experience in marketing, then you could put your spare money to good use and pay for help. Although a small business does not always have the extra money to pay for help, the return will be worth it. When your marketing is under control by someone who knows what they are doing, they can help expand your reach and therefore, grow your business.

Focus on customer service

Happy customers are the backbone of every business, no matter how big your business is. Should you disappoint customers and not fulfill their needs, then they will likely lose interest and go elsewhere.

Therefore, it is very important and beneficial to offer the best customer service possible. To do so:

1. Respond as quickly as possible. You can lose a customer’s interest by taking a week to reply. Thus, reply as quickly as possible to maintain their attention.

2. Help no matter what. Whether your customer has a compliment or a complaint, ensure to help them no matter what. While doing so, be friendly and never use negative language as it can put them off of your business.

3. Never promise anything. If you promise a customer something and fail to meet the expectations, then you might end up losing them for good. Should you tell them a product is coming back in stock in 5 days and it doesn’t, then they might shop elsewhere and therefore, you will lose them as a customer. Never promise anything so that you never disappoint anyone.

Build an online presence

Alongside marketing, an online presence will form. This is essential for any newfound small business in today’s technology-based world. Should you lack an online presence, then you might struggle to achieve your goals.

An online presence will showcase your business to more customers, which will result in you attaining a wider customer base. A wider customer base will always result in more profit, which is a stepping stone for small business success.

Build an online presence through social media pages, a website, a blog, and great reviews. Adding a blog to your website is a great way to be more engaging, improve your SEO, and become a more personable brand.

Be personable

On the topic of becoming a personable brand, it really helps to be personable. Simply being friendly and getting to know your customers will attain their loyalty. Loyal customers will help your business maintain regular sales and therefore, regular profit.

Get to know any new customer from the get-go so that you can create a great relationship with them. Ask their names and know something about them so that you can give them individually special service each time they use your business. Being personable as a small business will attain customer loyalty and help them trust you, which will help maintain a long relationship.

The Dos And Don’ts Of Advertising Your Business Successfully

Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. One of the most important parts of your business is its advertising. Though some may not know it, advertising is an art form. The following contributed post is entitled, The Dos And Don’ts Of Advertising Your Business Successfully.

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Getting people to know about your product and business, and to trust your brand are all vital aspects of being successful. The good news is the best way to achieve all of these goals is to embrace advertising for your company. Of course, for this to be effective you will need to understand what does and doesn’t work, topics you will find covered in the post below.

Don’t forget the power of video

The first thing you need to remember when advertising your business successfully is that video is one of the most powerful forms of promotion at the moment. This is because a large majority of people consume video content online both on video only platforms like Youtube as well as social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

The great thing about video advertising content is that it no longer costs a fortune to produce or edit. It can also be embedded in other forms of marketing such as your website and email to add interest and get even more engagement from viewers.

Do use an agency to help you get the best ROI

Another important point when advertising your business is to remember that it’s OK if you aren’t an expert. Indeed, advertising is an entire specialism and for your efforts to be effective you will need an expert to help you come up with your strategies and concepts.

The good news is that you can work with advertising agencies to get the expertise you need and create a campaign that will provide the best return on your investment possible. Indeed many businesses find that in terms of ROI, actively advertising their company is far more effective than many other marketing techniques.

Don’t ignore the reach of podcast advertising

While podcasts may be the new type of content on the block, their reach is undeniable. They also tend to be pretty specialized, which means they are ideal for businesses looking to target a very specific demographic. (Something that has been shown to be most effective).

However, when advertising through a podcast there are some rules that it’s important to use. The first of these is that you need to provide a special offer along with your advertisement, as this can help give listeners that added push to buy. Additionally, choosing a podcast on which to promote your product should be done carefully, with particular attention being paid to finding presenters that can talk about your product engagingly and genuinely.

Do use PPC as part of your SEO strategy

Last, of all, another form of advertising that can be very helpful to your business is PPC or pay per click. This is when you pay for your business link to appear above the organic search results online. The advantage is that because it’s first, prospects are much more likely to choose your link to click on.

Indeed, combining the paid form of advertising along with other marketing techniques like SEO can be the most effective way of getting your products in front of people that will buy them.

Creating A Strong Identity For Your New Business: Essential Branding Tips

Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. One of the key aspects of your business is your branding. Your branding will help shape your reputation and will define your operations. The following contributed post is entitled, Creating A Strong Identity For Your New Business: Essential Branding Tips.

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One of the most important steps to take when launching any new business is to create a strong identity for your brand. Every business faces competition, and it’s critical to ensure that your company stands out. If you’re preparing to set up a new venture, here are some essential branding tips to take on board.

Relevancy

Relevancy is one of the most crucial boxes to cross when building an identity and working on names, packaging designs, logos, straplines, web design and social media content. Your brand name and everything that is linked to it should be relevant to the type of business and your target customer. Clients and shoppers should be able to form an association between the logo or business name and the products and services on offer. Once you have defined your ideal customer, make sure your branding will resonate with the client and create a positive first impression.

Image source: https://pixabay.com/photos/target-group-advertising-buyer-3460039/

Research

Research is vital when working on a branding strategy for a start-up. Use market research to identify and analyze competitors, get to know your ideal customer and gather suggestions and ideas. You can use surveys, focus groups and online polls to gauge reactions to everything from logo designs to business or product names. Focus on your target audience, collect and evaluate data and use the feedback you receive.

Help and advice

Being an entrepreneur involves spinning multiple plates. It’s unusual for business owners to have expertise in every area required to set up and run a successful business. If you don’t have experience in branding or building a company, it’s beneficial to consider seeking advice and getting help. You can outsource, work with freelancers or use resources available online. If you have questions, such as ‘what is a branding kit?’ or ‘how do I design a unique logo?’ it’s an excellent idea to reach out and seek advice and take advantage of training, skills workshops, online courses and resources before you sign off on a branding strategy.

Consistency

Another key consideration for company branding is consistency. Everything that bears your brand name should fit a mold to ensure that you have a unique, distinctive identity that is relevant to the business and will appeal to the target customer. From the tone of voice of the posts you share and the look of your website to staff uniforms and your logo, everything should be consistent. Branding for a law firm or a bank, for example, should look very different from that of a toy company or a clothing brand for teens. A strong identity can help to provide clarity and ensure that customers know what they’re buying and what kind of business they are buying from.

Picture credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/marketing-exit-technology-business-7413915/

When you launch a new business, it’s essential to make sure that you have a strong identity. You want your branding strategy to resonate with your ideal customer and set your business apart from competitors. If you are currently working on a business plan for a start-up, make sure your branding is relevant to the business, prioritize consistency, test designs and ideas, carry out research and seek professional advice if you have limited experience.