Kocaeli Business Portal

Archive for the ‘Marketing Tips’ Category

One of the toughest parts of running a small business is building customer loyalty. Unlike big companies, you may not have the requisite infrastructure or funds to invest in big banner ads or give out freebies and discount coupons. How then, do you ensure that the customer comes back to your establishment? If you run a home-based business, then you probably know that it takes time to break even. You need to concentrate on building customer loyalty just as much as you need to attract new customers.

How to Build Customer Loyalty
A scheme of rewards, incentives, and discussion of customer profiles is one way. However, there are many other ways to build customer loyalty. Some of these ways are listed below.

1.Customer Loyalty Programs: Discounts and incentives are a great attraction for customers. You can make loyalty programs that reward the customer for consistent purchases from your company.

2.Maintain Customer Profiles: In order to reward your past customers, you must know their preferences and keep track of what they have bought from you in the past.

3.Up-to-Date Information: Offer your customers information about your latest products through newsletters and emails. In addition, always maintain a lot on stock, because running out of stock means that the customers will switch to another company with something similar in stock.

4.Personalized Service: Personalized service makes customers feel special, and increases customer loyalty. You should be polite and courteous to customers, and they should feel that there is someone to listen to their complaints, if any.

If the customer has a complaint about your product and wants to return it, then it should be easy for them to do so. Most home-based businesses working through an online store do not have a satisfactory system in place, in case the customers want to return what they bought.

5.Feedback: In order to keep improving your products and services, you should encourage feedback from customers. If your customers feel their opinion is important, they will come back to buy products from your establishment.

The Importance Of Customer Loyalty
Building customer loyalty is not as difficult as some people think. However, you need a little experience before you can make the sales pitch or plan great customer loyalty programs. Small business consultants can help you with your customer loyalty programs. Happy customers are a sound investment. Not only will they do more business with you, they will also bring other customers to you.

What is Brand Valuation?

Over the years, brand valuation is being recognized as an important factor to be used in the analysis of marketing and finance efforts involved in the company. It falls under the intangible business assets category and is being closely looked into for ways to expand market share. Hence, many are undertaking new approaches that will boost efforts to increase the value of a given brand.

Since brand is a potent factor in every business, business owners are more interested in being able to translate that into financial terms. This is where brand valuation comes in. It is closely associated, if not directly related, to consumer perceptions about a brand and its list of products or services. However, aside from monetizing that value, business owners also utilize the impact of brand valuation as a way to determine areas that need to be improved to boost performance.

Determining Value of Brand

As a corporate asset, a brand is essential in helping increase the company’s bottom line. If you can create a solid brand that increases your company’s value to shareholders or consumers, then it will help increase your business potential. The concept of brand value remains quite hazy though, given the fact that no clear method has been established to measure exactly the value and worth of a given brand, especially because it is an intangible asset.

Still, there are a few who remains unconvinced as to what a brand really means. It could be the symbol that represents your company such as a name or logo. This then becomes a symbol for what the company stands for and promise to deliver. That definition of the brand is where value comes in as a brand is expected to deliver the expectations it has created to the consumers. To be able to do that takes commitment from the internal operations of the brand.

However, one cannot precisely give an exact value for a brand. There are direct and indirect processes involved though that enables a company to come up with a definite price for the brand, based on the investment put into developing it.

Direct Valuation Methods

To come up with a direct valuation method for a brand, it takes into account all investments put into the brand while also considering inflation. Other direct methods of value measurement used are Franchise Valuation and Awareness Valuation. When business owners plan on releasing a new product into the market, they typically include into the product value the advertising budget for that given product to increase awareness among consumers.

Indirect Valuation Methods

This is a more complicated process of determining the value of a brand than the one above. One process involves assessing the probable profit earnings that a particular brand is projected to produce. This method takes into consideration the effect that a brand has on the actual sales and profits acquisition. Another method also employs the use of the brand name in considering how one arrives with a value for the product.

Basically, all these methods are merely educated guesses to be able to account an efficient method for putting a price into the brand. Despite all existing debates about what the best method to use in computing brand value, or if brand value does offer any significant impact at all in the sales department, is something that will be settled only with the help of proper strategy. A brand is primarily not just a logo or name, but it is the set of values exhibited by your company for a consistent period.

So, as long as you have established the quality of your brand, then brand valuation should be easier to figure out.

Let’s face it, if you’re in business, you’re in marketing. What was true 50 years ago remains true today: nothing happens until something gets sold. And selling begins with effective marketing, but most marketing plans fail for two simple reasons:

1. They fail to capture the customers’ attention. As strange as it may seem, the big task is not simply getting your message out to customers. In fact, that doesn’t count for much. You can see the evidence for it everyday and everywhere.

Look at your mail, read newspaper or email ads. Most of what passes for getting the message out totally misses the mark. We’re flooded with messages – and most of them go right by us. Why? Because they focus too much attention on the advertiser – not the customer.

What purports to be a message is no message at all. It may tell your story but if it fails to capture the customers’ attention, it’s a waste of money.

2. Perhaps the most pervasive marketing problem of all is a lack of consistency. Everyone starts out with a bang. It’s going to be a great ad campaign or product promotion. Time, effort and money go into the projects. And where are they six months or a year later? More often than not, they’re either all but forgotten or already a memory. The success of marketing is not so much in award-winning ads and brochures as it is in keeping the program going.

Business owners have an enormous challenge when it comes to marketing. They almost never have the time to put together and implement a comprehensive marketing program – and, most importantly, to sustain the program consistently over a long period of time. Here are some tips to help you create a lasting marketing effort:

1. A little planning can go a long way. Your calendar is a potent marketing tool. Start with your deadline and work backwards writing down each step required to complete the marketing endeavor.

2. Get others involved. Very often marketing initiatives require coordinating with printers, designers and even your staff. Getting everyone on board ahead of time will save you a tremendous amount of aggravation.

3. Avoid the temptation to waiver from the plan. Results from your effort may take months to manifest so don’t give up too soon. Remember, consistency is an important factor contributing to a successful marketing effort.

The best marketing tip you will ever hear is to advertise your product or business. In fact, any marketing tip you hear or see will be related to some form of advertising. In this article, we will go over several marketing tips and the reason you should use them.

One great marketing tip is to use an auto responder. Autoresponders automatically send out emails to people on your mailing lists or to people who have been to your website. You can then send out advertisements of your business or service. This is a great marketing tip because it is often inexpensive and sometimes free to use an autoresponder.

A second marketing tip you may enjoy is the use of slogans or logos. This is an excellent marketing tip. People will always remember a clever logo or slogan. Many people find it best to use a funny slogan because it brings people happy thoughts when they think of your business. Try to think one up.

A third great marketing tip is to put your URL everywhere. Get yourself noticed. Put your ULR all over your site, in your autoresponder emails, hand out fliers, business cards, etc. This is always beneficial.

The next great marketing tip I have for you is to use an SEO. An SEO (search engine optimization) enables your website to be listed at the top of search engine lists. SEO uses keyword and link popularity to maximize this result. This leads to more visitors to your sight and more profit. Again, this is another great marketing tip.

Another great marketing tip is your web design. A great web design can attract more people to your site, and keep them coming back. In addition, another similar marketing tip is to use flash pictures to get attention. Or, another marketing tip is to use eye catching photographs or illustrations or your product or service. This will attract more attention as well.

My favorite marketing tip is to use testimonials and offer feedback to customers. This marketing tip is a must for anyone who wants to show positive feedback of their business. A similar marketing tip is to post these positive testimonials on your site or to send them out in your auto responder.

Lastly, a great marketing tip is to keep your domain name simple and easy to remember. People can’t find your sight if they can’t remember it, let alone if they can’t spell it. A catchy domain name is always helpful.

For another good marketing tip, try asking fellow business owners. I’m sure they will have a marketing tip or two to aid you. You can then make some friends in the business circle and swap ideas. Eventually it will all lead you to a successful and promising business.