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How Traditional Businesses can Find New Success Online
While Christmas 2010 was a more snowbound festive season across the whole of the UK than has been seen for many years, Christmas 2011 proved more High Street Shopping friendly. Major retailers hoped that the Jingling of their Bell’s would tempt customers away
from their iPhones, Blackberries and their Laptops. It didn’t. Year on year internet sales are outstripping the High Street type, in growth at least. This is not true only during the Christmas period but throughout the year and the e-commerce sector is one of the few growth areas in the economy. So can any business not afford to take the leap into the virtual world? Almost certainly not.
Old Tricks and New Technology
Traditional businesses can have a tendency to view the web as unsuitable to their own business. This is often the case with smaller, family run businesses and seems to originate in a fear of the technology. This fear usually has as much to do with lack of knowledge of the technology as it has to do with the reality of the perceived unsuitability of it. As younger family members join the firm, an internet presence often comes with them and an internet presence is crucial in today’s climate. Small to medium firms who operate in traditional businesses also show some unwillingness to go online – believing it is fine for supermarkets, big brand names or ‘suitable Continue reading
How Automated is Your Business Marketing?
As a business owner myself, I am fully aware of how little time there seems to be in a given day. I wear many different “hats”, and it’s a constant struggle to manage the time that is devoted to any one area.
I recently attended a marketing conference, and came away from it feeling like I ran my business in the dark ages. I couldn’t help but think to myself how differently marketing conferences must look today as compared to 5 or 10 years ago.
It was quite a kick in the pants to chat with people and to see how they are running their businesses. Yes, businesses…plural. Some that I talked to ran as many as 10 online businesses. Now, as to the level of success of any those businesses, I didn’t get into that. I was more amazed at the fact that these people found the time to scale that workload. I realized that it’s not a matter of “finding” the time, it’s all about “managing” the time. This is where automation comes in.
Taking the necessary steps to automate your workload as much as possible, will certainly take off some of the pressure. Growing your business is where your primary focus needs to be…not on doing repetitive tasks to keep up with your current customers, conduct transactions, etc.. The “new rich”, as Timothy Ferriss puts it in his book, “The 4-Hour Work Week”, are creating multiple revenue streams, automating their business efforts, and enjoying life.
Don’t be fooled into thinking this is as simple as it sounds. You still need a good product, a quality marketing plan, and some hard work, but it’s very possible in today’s digital age.
Here are a few ideas and tools to get you started when thinking about your own business.
-Creating autoresponders, through an email marketing platform like MailChimp, Aweber, or GetResponse, is something that you should not be without. An autoresponder is exactly that, it automatically responds to communications from your customers via email. They can also be great for list-building, and sending specific email correspondence (special promotions, usually) to current customers, who maybe have not ordered for awhile. One such product, Call Loop, also offers autoresponders via text or voice message.
-Using PayPal can take away a lot of the burden of processing payments and keeping transaction records. They do it all for you, so you can see exactly where money is coming in, as well as Continue reading
Top Career Opportunities For Those Who Want to Travel
Often career opportunities are attractive because of how convenient they are to our lives as we know them; few think of the potential a career can have in changing your life. We all yearn to travel and explore the world, but we contradict our desires by choosing career opportunities from a home perspective. However if you’ve ever thought about getting a job that allows you to travel, we’ve compiled a list of job opportunities with international potential; you’ll be able to travel while you work and earn money for it – sounds win-win to me.
Make Your Job a Cruise
Without a doubt one of the most popular options is working on a cruise ship. There are many opportunities for employment internationally for a career on a cruise ship and it’s not limited to simply being a waiter or bartender. Cruise ships have become self-reliant villages in their own right; there’s a local doctor, psychologist, personal trainer and even (believe it or not) local television producers. Pretty much anything you do in your normal life can be done on a cruise ship. Don’t underestimate the work hours though, this may be a cruise but it’ll be as such for everyone other than the crew; however board and meals are usually covered in addition to your paycheque. An advantage of working on a cruise is that crew members get to explore every port of call fully during their off time Continue reading
7 Tips for Effective Email Campaign
Email marketing is still an effective way to reach your customers. If you’re not seeing much success, you may not be employing the right email marketing tactics.
You cannot simply throw an email together, send it to your customers, and expect it to work magic. Email marketing takes time to plan, create and assess. The following tips will ensure that your email campaigns have impressive results.
1. Have an updated email list.
If the email list you have for current and potential customers is extremely outdated, your email marketing campaign isn’t going to work. With an outdated list, you run the risk of having old email addresses. If email addresses aren’t current, you may not be reaching out to anyone.
Always make sure that any new customers or potential customers have their email addresses added to your list immediately. If you get an unsubscribe message from a customer, be sure to remove them. If you continue to send them emails after you asked them not to, it will only upset them and you will lose their business.
2. Divide your list into segments.
Not every one of your customers is going to react to the same messaging. In order for your email campaigns to be effective, you need to create separate segmented lists and write engaging, personalized content to each group. This way, you’ll have a better chance of
reaching your audience with a message they can relate to.
3. Write the best possible subject line.
This is one of the most important—if not THE most important—part of an email campaign. If you have a poor subject line, it will have a Continue reading