Most of us chase success by working hard, sacrificing our personal lives and even our health in an all-out pursuit of Mammon. But it doesn’t always have to be that way. For a fortunate few, it doesn’t mean a Harvard MBA or years spent perfecting a new drug. It just means doing as little as possible and still making more money than you ever dreamed of.
Is your message, product or service worth talking about? We certainly hope so, because a recent study conducted by eMarketer.com concluded that 53 percent of online traffic comes from recommendations made by family members and/or friends. This confirms what guerrillas have always known: Positive word-of-mouth “buzz” is the best advertising money can’t buy–whether offline or online! So every single business person in the world should be spending a great deal of their time strategizing ways to acquire and retain profitable customers using word-of-mouth marketing–especially since the internet makes it so much easier!
In this highly competitive marketplace, it’s vital to keep your marketingcampaigns fresh, new and on target. This fall, kick your marketing into high gear with this seven-point checklist.
1. Reestablish Listening Posts
Smart marketing relies entirely on understanding your customer. You need to know not only who they are and what they buy, but why they buy — and why they choose to buy from you. Redouble your efforts at dialogue through socialmedia, message boards and blogs. And get direct feedback from customers or clients, or via your front-line salespeople.
As more and more people start or consider starting their own business, it is important that they understand the core steps that are required to launch successful ventures. These steps include spotting, assessing, selecting and executing upon opportunities.
Spotting Opportunities:
The first step to entrepreneurship is identifying opportunities. The entrepreneur must be able to spot an unmet need. Oftentimes this need is seen through an inefficiency in the market – something that doesn’t work quite the way the entrepreneur would like it to. As a result, the entrepreneur figures out a potential solution and the opportunity is born.
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Ready to kick off a new advertising campaign but don’t know where to start? The first thing you need to do is determine what type of ad will generate the most interest for your particular product or service. Remember, not all ads are created equal. Just because a certain pitch worked for one business, doesn’t mean it’ll work for yours.
The key to choosing a good advertisement begins with deciding what you want your ad to highlight. Are you trying to sell a specific product or are you trying to sell your business as a whole through your brand image? To answer that, you need to understand what the four main types of advertisements are:
The FTC describes the most common types of business opportunity ventures as follows:
2) Do you have the characteristics of an entrepreneur?
There are certain traits and attitudes that make some people more suited to running a successful small business than others.
In one study where entrepreneurs were given a list of attributes and asked to rate their importance for success, the seven most highly ranked qualities were perseverance, the desire and willingness to take the initiative, competitiveness, self-reliance, a strong need to achieve, self-confidence, and good physical health (William E. Jennings, “A Profile of the Entrepreneur” in Entrepreneurship: A Primer for Canadians).
Thinking of starting a small business? You’re on the right track. There’s a lot of thinking to be done before starting a small business of your own.
Starting a small business is one of those huge, life-altering events. Think of it as a marriage; running a successful small business takes the same depth of commitment and desire. As in a marriage, you’re going to be living with your business 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Like any relationship, if you want your small business to be successful, you’re going to have to work at it. And it’s going to have its ups and downs and surprises.
But on the positive side, if you’re the right person with a solid plan, starting a small business of your own can be the most satisfying, exhilarating experience of your life.
This article looks at four aspects of starting a small business so you can make an informed decision about whether or not starting a small business is right for you:
By Shari Waters,
Do you have a marketing idea? At the end of this article, you can Share Your Ideas with others.
Small business owners can easily get too involved in the day-to-day operations of their retail stores to spend any time brainstorming marketing ideas orpromotional events. Some retailers worry that marketing is too expensive, others may find it too time consuming. Without announcing who you are and what you sell, how will anyone know? Here are 50 marketing ideas for retailers.
You will often find that many people confuse marketing with advertising or vice versa. While both components are important they are very different. Knowing the difference and doing your market research can put your company on the path to substantial growth.
Let’s start off by reviewing the formal definitions of each and then I’ll go into the explanation of how marketing and advertising differ from one another:
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