Showing posts with label business strategy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business strategy. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Here are 10 Questions to Better Understand Your Internet Business Market

A big mistake that beginners often do internet business is making products, but without understanding the internet business market to be targeted. In fact, for a successful internet business, the key is actually very simple. You just have to try to sell your products to people who want your product. Simple right?
Try to answer the following 10 questions to understand the internet business market you're shooting for.

1. Is the niche that I shoot hot enough to make money?
2. Is the market that I have been served with a good aim?
3. What products they really want and do not hesitate to spend money to get it?
4. What exactly are the most desired by consumers of your products?
5. How many customers do I need when beginning to break even return on investment?
6. How much market share that must be controlled to maintain the continuity of my internet business?
7. What lack of competition that I can use to be my internet business strength?
8. Is the market responded positively to the advantages or positioning that I offer?
9. What trends are emerging in the market that I shoot?
10. What is most powerful marketing strategies to reach them?

Monday, February 18, 2013

Do not Make This Business Mistake!

Many businesses, both in the Internet business and offline business, whether successful that later business can thrive;-and instead they ended up bankrupt, never made a business mistake. Those who are successful are successful then learn from his mistakes. Instead they are bankrupt, did not have time to immediately correct the mistakes that they have created.
So, in this post summarized business lessons from the mistakes made.

1. Far from consumers. Sometimes when a person has begun to be successful, they are getting away from the consumer. Yet when it started happening, fall means the business started. Because you do not know what the needs and desires of consumers is growing. And it's like letting "your business is digging her own grave".

2. Lack of focus
. Many businesses who then lay the loss of focus. They do not focus on its core business. So then it is not the core business of developing and it is so screwed up that designed the original business concept.

3. Mistakes on recruitment. Other businesses are errors in HR recruitment. When you do not get the right people for the kind of work that should be addressed. This will obviously affect the performance of the company you build.

4. Obsessed. One mistake that many business people are too obsessed done to make the business was growing very fast and great. As a result, there is little that then there desperate to borrow loans to expand the branch up here everywhere. Though new business for the rest of corn.
In my opinion, the initial goal is to build a business that generates profits, so someday become a big business. Because of these advantages, the business can thrive and be great.

5. Financial mistakes. Poor financial management can be the cause of a roll mat business. Financial uncontrolled causing joints crippled business one by one.

6. Do not have the vision and strategy. When a business owner does not have the vision and strategy of how to grow the business, that means it's time the business will be going nowhere, stuck, and not going anywhere.

When you start to build a business, would you want a successful business. Therefore businesses learn from mistakes ever made is important. So that you do not need to go through the mistakes others have made, and you do not need to make the business ruins.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Engage Your Customer - Write About Benefits

Think quick. In 10 seconds, can you list the 5 key benefits you offer your customers?

I bet you said "Yes". But are you sure you listed benefits? If you'll bear with me for another 10 seconds, I'd like to test out a theory on you.

Recap your answers – maybe even write them down. Now list the 5 main things your business does. In other words, what are your 5 core services? What are the 5 core features of your product?

If your first list looks anything like your second, chances are you're mistaking features for benefits. As a result, it's likely that your marketing materials aren't engaging your customer. Customers don't want to know what you can do. They want to know what you can do FOR THEM.

Don't talk features – talk benefits.

Don't be alarmed. You're not alone. Most business owners and marketing managers are so close to their product or service that they have a lot of trouble distinguishing benefits from the features of their offering. Ask a web host "what are the benefits of your service?", and you'll likely hear something along the lines of, "we offer load-balanced server clusters." But that's not a benefit… that's what they do. The benefit is superior uptime and performance.

In fact, so many people think features instead of benefits that it can work in your favour – to dramatic effect. If you can accurately identify your benefits, and convey those benefits to your market, you'll be light-years ahead of most of your competition. You'll be converting leads into sales while they're still bogged down trying to promote features.

So if you've ever sat down to write a sales letter and wondered how you're going to grab your reader's attention, or you've ever gone 'round in circles writing draft after draft of web copy without ever hitting the mark, now you know where you were going wrong.

The only question remaining is, how do you do it right? Advertising copywriters and website copywriters do it all the time – and most of the time, they do it with benefits. Benefits are the copywriter's holy grail. But if you're not a seasoned copywriter, how do you identify the benefits you offer your customers?

There are any number of ways to identify the benefits you offer. This article discusses just three:
1) Customer Research
2) Speak to Your Sales Team
3) Make it Easy for Your Customer to Get Buy-In

The method you choose depends on your time constraints, budget, and level of customer interaction.

1) Customer Research
The most obvious way to identify benefits is to ask your existing customers. They're spending a lot of money on your offering, so you can be sure they know what benefit they're getting from it. (In many cases, it can be handy to ask them what benefits they'd like to be getting from you too!) Unfortunately, like everyone else, your customers are busy people. In most cases, you won't get useful feedback by simply sending an email enquiry. You have to make it easy for them to respond, and you have to make it worth their while. Think about questionnaires and surveys for quantitative data, and interviews and focus groups for qualitative data. These are the simplest techniques, but you still have to make sure you interpret the results appropriately. And always remember that they're self-report methods. People will sometimes tell you what they think you want to hear. (That's also why you have to word your questions very carefully – try not to ask leading questions.) Of course, there are plenty of other research techniques around. Do a bit of homework and find the methods which best suit your business requirements. But don't get carried away by the possibilities. All the research data in the world is pointless if you're not talking the language of your customer.< 2) Speak to Your Sales Team
Sadly, not every business can afford to invest in market research. If your budget doesn't stretch far enough, try talking to your sales people. They're out in the field every day, talking to customers. And because their livelihood depends on their success in engaging customers, chances are they'll be able to tell you what your customers want to know. (A word of warning, though… Be careful not to make lofty promises. Unlike your sales team, written collateral doesn't generate a rapport with your customers. Customers won't make as many allowances, so you can only stretch the truth so far in writing before your credibility suffers. What's more, if you do push the boundaries, you're more likely to be held to your word!)

3) Make it Easy for Your Customer to Get Buy-In
If you don't have the budget for in-depth customer research, and you don't have a sales team, a good tip is to imagine how your customer gets buy-in from their boss. Quite often, the decision maker is someone higher up the food chain than your direct audience. Your audience will probably be the key stakeholder – they'll be the user of your product, or the recipient of your service. But when they find an offering they like, there's a good chance they'll have to sell it to someone further up the line. If you can make this sale easier, you'll have a foot in the door. Don't just appeal to the sensibilities of the direct audience. You also need to ask yourself what they need to know to convince the decision maker. If the decision maker is a CFO, think Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). If the decision maker is a CIO or MIS, think performance, technological sustainability, availability, manageability, and ease of integration. If the decision maker is a CEO, think liability, risk management, and ROI. And only use jargon to prove you know your stuff. Remember… tag line will probably have the ultimate decision maker scratching their head, not reaching for their cheque book.

There are many many more ways to identify benefits. This is just a very superficial snapshot of some techniques you might like to try. At the very least they'll get you thinking benefits.

In the end, the message is simple. Forget all the fancy talk about complicated revolutionary marketing principles. Forget new-age hard-sell advertising quick-fixes. Forget looking to so-called "experts" for solutions. Just think benefits. And if you can accurately do that, the rest is just mechanics. Once you know what you want to write about, you just need to put pen to paper. And that's a whole another story!

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Customer is not Target, but Friend

Sales will be hard to do when the salesperson is overly aggressive offer products like hunting prey. All traditional salesmanship based on persuasion method, namely to persuade people, as the main thing. Because it usually emphasizes pad salesmanship training techniques to identify target markets, and approached to find out what is needed and not desperate to be handed a wide selection of sale.

Also learn about denial or objection that may appear to be prepared answers. The theory is based on a belief: "If no objection, then the customer is ready to close the sale." Spin selling is to avoid the objection. Because, if there's an objection, the actual psychological denial will arise. Through this approach the customer pattern is not a target but a friend, if possible customers are not pressured to buy , but aided by a trusted friend.

In 4-D bridge harry Potter, Walt Disney World, Florida, I was fascinated and carried away to "another world" for three minutes. Although very brief, but it was long, and I was out. Outside there was a special counter selling many magical wands of the characters in the story of Harry Potter. The guards just asking simply, I fit the character which one? He never sold it to me, also never offer a discount on the magic stick that costs U.S. $ 25. I do not know the character details respective roles in the Harry Potter story, but with a spontaneous, I replied that I liked the character of Harry Potter. The assistant it says: "Wow, that is you, man! This magic stick reflect your character if you put it at living room. "A statement from a friend who seemed wants to help me reflect on my dream character.

I ended up buying the expensive rod and still comply with the seller. I put the magic wand in the living room. Thus a stick for U.S. $ 25 becomes expensive again because I do not buy a piece of wood, but a symbol character. Greater is after I make a selection and pay; the seller wrapped it and handed it to the rapid style of a friend while saying congratulations. "Congratulation man, you are the character now!" It turns out I'd love to hear greetings like this than a thank you.

Do not think that it applies only to small items and retail sales. The principle is the same if you want to sell big ticket items, such as cars, houses, and even insurance. You are not being herded, but helping a friend through a transparent conversation. When the decision has been taken, the next is a bigger moral obligation to continue to show that the choices made are not wrong!

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

What You Should Do When Launching A Product

Who says launching a product to market is difficult? If you are self-employed may indeed be difficult. However, if you are holding an event organizer, promotional activities will be very easy, and the results would be perfect because it is handled by experts person .

One way to launch the first product to market is through hiring the event organizer. You can imagine, it is not easy to hold a conference. In addition to setting up your product that you launched, you need to set up committees intricate and complex. Who would you invite, how many invitations were distributed, how the concept of the show, etc., it all is a task that must be carried out by the organizing committee. It's complicated and time consuming.

However, the complexity can be overcome if the event organizer involved in launching the project. By involving an event organizer, the conference management will handed entirely by them. You need not decayed to form a committee. What you just do is prepare the product, submit a list of invited guests, and the concept of launching. The rest is done by the event organizer company for this launching project in order to be successful and under control.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Constantly Look For Ways for Networking

In business, companies both large and small companies always need the help of others who act as a strategic partner in developing its business. Always constantly searching for a network, such as friends, school friends, members of associations / clubs and others that they might be able to help your success. Forming alliances with people who can help you or you can help them is also very important. To succeed in business, you need to have the skills to make a good network and always alert to opportunities to expand your contacts.

You do not need an MBA, SE or university degree to be successful in your own business. In fact, there are many entrepreneurs who did not even finish high school education. Nevertheless, these people have reached the peak of their success in the financial and business objectives because they are willing to keep learning and learning. To succeed, you must always make questions; remain curious, interested and open to new knowledge. Willingness to learn becomes very important given the rapid changes in technology and business strategy.

Obtain and search for a network it tricky. A potential network will not show up in an instant. Getting a potential network requires a time, process, perseverance, foresight, and intelligence. It takes time because the network is usually based on the principles of trust, and the trust of others towards us it takes time. Process means a change from a trust to benefit financially. Perseverance means is that we cannot meet someone only once for a network of potential business. It needs many times until they comfortable with us. Nevertheless we also must be careful in choosing a potential network. We did not arbitrarily choose people because if one could harm our business too. Further intelligence observing situations, characters, and a great time to decide whether a potential network we are also a thing that is not less important.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Turning Customer Complains Into Compliments

If you sell a products or services to your customers, there are two things you will receive about customers satisfactory. First, compliment about your product or service. This compliment would not be a problem for you,because this is what you want to reach in running a business. Second, complain about your product or service. This would be a problem for you if you are not fix it immediately. complain from customer shows that they pay attention to your product or service, and this is an opportunity for you. You can act immediately about they customer attention with turning their complain into compliment. If you can change it, then your business will grow because you will have so many loyal customers.

So what should do to turning customers complain into compliment? This is principle:

• Change customers perception about your brand. If you don’t respond about their complain, people will assume you don’t care with what they think. If you do make any respond, customers see that you do care about your product, and as a brand, you are trying to make an effort. This can build brand loyalty and confidence from customers.

• Stop the negative word of mouth. If one person starts complaining about your product or services, it can have a snowball effect. With the power of word of mouth, more people will see and hear the complain session, and then instead of having one complain, you will have dozens, or maybe even hundreds of complain. Stop their though with handling they complain immediately. If your business steps in and offers to help the person who has complain, then the snowball effect will be lessened or even stopped.

• Act immediately, and help them out. Let’s say someone complains that they never received a product that have been ordered. Instead of letting that complain stalemate, you should respond to it. Ask the person who made a complain to contact your business with their shipping information, and then ship them a new product or work with them to track down through the shipping company. This act will cause two things, you will satisfy the customer, and show other customers that your business is professional because willing to help them immediately.

Those responses will give your business the chance to turn a complain into a compliment! Take the time to listen their concerns and either help them to resolve their issues immediately. This will make a great impression on potential customers about your business, and they will become your loyal customers.

Yeeehaaa!! My Blog Page Rank is Increase, Thanks Mr. Google!

This morning I opened my blog, this is a routine that I do every day to manage my blog so that more qualified and interesting for my loyal readers. Apparently I struck a very pleasant thing, my website Page Rank is up. Indeed, the increase is not much really, from PR1 to PR2, but it makes me believe that what I did during is correct. More precisely the strategy that I did is not violating the Google rules.

So what is the effect of this PR increase? As we know that the higher PR indicates that blogs are highly qualified and have many loyal visitors. With the high Page Rank of a blog, it will be easier for people who are interested in marketing their products or brands in the blogs that we have. In other words, earning money will be easier if your blog has a high Page rank.

It is not easy to increase the Page Rank; it needs hard work and perseverance. In fact, Hard work and perseverance is not enough, because we have to understand the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques. Although my SEO techniques not as advanced as fellow bloggers else, at least I did proven techniques. And this is my simple technique to increase Page Rank:

1. Active post articles that fit the blog’s theme.
2. Blog walking, and making quality comment.
3. Social Bookmark Post article such as Google Plus, Technorati, Stumbleupon, and digg.com.
5. Affiliate blog with various social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

That's some strategy which I do regularly, and hopefully with rising Google Page Rank will be more and more money flowing into my pocket.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Text Message Marketing

There many ways in implementing marketing strategy. Ranging from "simple" strategy such as promotions, product discounts, to a sophisticated marketing strategy that uses the internet and mobile telecommunications.

If using the internet, marketing strategy usually launch websites which represents product or brand, while the use of phone cell telecommunications usually based on SMS, or we can call text message marketing. Text message marketing, or briefly called text marketing is the process of introduction of products or services through the spread of text via SMS. Text marketing can also be done with the appearance of the logo or product name on the television screens, newspapers, or maybe in the stadium.

Text marketing can be fairly effective, and may even lower cost if compared with other marketing strategies like television advertising or sponsorship. If television advertising requires a plan and materials that need to be discussed, then text marketing does not take that long. Text marketing only needs to think of simple keywords which can be precisely targeted.

Text message marketing can be done simply by sending text messages to contacts that we recognize. So that the effect could be more severe, you can use a company that provides text marketing as a their product. By using this company, then text marketing can be sent not only to the people we meet alone but also others or perhaps to many companies that we have not met before.

As a businessman, it is certain that the determination of the best marketing strategy is essential to run the business agenda. Multimillionaire businessman may be easily implementing marketing strategy in any form because they have a huge budget. But for beginners or medium-sized businesses who have limited marketing budgets, the use of text marketing can be a great alternative. I think we should try it

Monday, January 7, 2013

Basic Attitudes In Serving Customer

Each employee must provide services by placing himself as a consultant to all customer that comes into the store. The attitude of an employee is a reflection of the company's attitude towards its customers. If the employee is bad in terms of customer service, then the corporate image is also bad in the eyes of customers. So, it is important to communicate to the employees about the fgood service to customers.
In general, the basic attitude of good service to the customer are:

1. relax
This means :
- Use nonformal language, according to the character of the customer being served.
- Show a confident attitude
- Able to create a fun and friendly atmosphere

2. Prioritize services to customersservices to customers than other activities.

3. Do not obtrude.

4. Required to provide information on:
- self-identity
- product advantage
- ongoing promotion

5. Always show an attitude ready to serve any time.
Things that are considered not show a service attitude is:

- Receive or play Telephone / Mobile in the store floor
- Indifference
- Joking and huddle with fellow employees
- Relying on the product display,door, display window, etc
- Stand idly Attitudes

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Corporate Values As a Component of Strategic Thinking

In March 2002, Fortune magazine named Wal-Mart as the largest company in the world. Now this global retailer has about more than 3,000 outlets across America, and more than 1,000 retail outlets in any types of retail store (discount stores, supermarkets, department stores) in foreign country. Wal-Mart is the first service and trade company that won a position as the world's largest companies. Wal-Mart is an example of the triumph. Sales in 1973 of approximately U.S. $ 1 billion per year. And 20 years later, the company could generate that much revenue in just one week only. Previously the company has also been cited as the "Retailer of the Century" by Discount Store News magazine, one of "The Most Admired Companies in America" by Fortune magazine, and "100 best companies to work for" by the Financial Times.

All these achievements are not created in an instant. Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, has for many years apply some principles key to his shop called with 10 values of Sam Walton. When asked what makes Wal-Mart can be a huge successful business, their executives said that this company is making the values of Sam Walton as their main source of competitiveness.

The story above is an inspiration that you can bring the values of working in your shop. Just select a few key values that you want to be a priority. Here are some of key value that can be highlighted in your store:

1. Ethics
Your store operates honestly, both to customers and employees. For example, all employees of the store shall refund the excess payment to the customer, you do not sell products that have expired, not cheating in the use of weights, etc..

2. Environment
Your store will care for the environment (nature and society), because you realize that the development of your store depends on the warmth of your relationship with the environment.

These values are different from the vision and mission that can be embedded or notified verbally. These values should really be felt by all parties involved in the store, and applied consistently. Direct example and your behavior as a store owner will determine the success of the realization of these values.