Business Plus Baby

January 5, 2016

Can you really make it work from home?

That home based business is an attractive proposition. Perhaps you have been mulling it over for weeks or even months. Can you make it work? It’s a big question and the answer for many is an unqualified ‘yes’. Working for home has become the mantra for many people. And the dream of starting and running your own business from the home office is a reality. How can you use the experience of others to your advantage and precisely what services are there to help you?

Where you are no longer matters.

It is true. The business world has become virtual. You can be at your desk even your kitchen table in the middle of nowhere and still run an effective online business. All you need is your internet connection and a suitable computer or laptop or even smartphone and you are away.

Startup Stock Photos

Your focus will be on your web presence. That means the front door of your business will be your website. This is where you need to focus the vast majority of your energy. The web is the marketplace of today. It will be the epicentre of your business. So, no it does not matter if you are at the kitchen table in your pajamas. Your business empire can be growing even when you are asleep. You’ll need all the technology you can muster though to make that web presence one that really counts.

The good news is that you can outsource a lot of the technical side of things. Everything from software to virus protection and cloud storage can be taken care of. The same applies to dealing with orders and payments. You can easily work with verified companies who will handle everything you can think of, and a lot more you haven’t.

That means you’ll have access to bigger and more powerful systems. You’ll also be secure in the knowledge that you are covered for any complications or problems that might arise. Building that cost into your business plan means you always know where you are. You will also save a lot of money on expensive systems and updates.

If you need location you can have it.

Being virtual does have some drawbacks. There may be occasions when you actually need to have the security of a physical address. You might need to send or receive mail for example. It easy to setup a virtual address for your business at a surprisingly low cost. You could even go so far as to have a top address in a prime location such as London. The fact is your Virtual Office could be in the epicentre of a the best business district in the world and no one would be any the wiser.

Every service you associate with a fully professional business is available to you. And you still haven’t left the kitchen table. There might be times however when you need to get out there and promote your business. If you need to meet clients, you’ll be able to operate from third party premises. Meetings can be held at business centres. You’ll be able to take your business to trade fairs and conferences. Etiquette might dictate that you want to get dressed for these!

In every respect, you will be able to run your business successfully and professionally from home with no trouble at all. Outsourcing your business needs might mean you are able to punch far above your weight, with a lot less outlay.

December 29, 2015

Want to see increased sales in 2016? Here’s how

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The world of business is a very versatile arena. Having said that, all companies share one common goal: gain bigger profits.

Achieving this target isn’t quite as easy as simply acquiring more sales. Nevertheless, this is a key element that requires a lot of hard work along the way. The rewards of achieving success here are huge, though, and finding ways to improve your situation should be a must at all times.

With these top tips, you’ll see fantastic results in next to no time.

Improve Work Atmosphere

The staff are your most important asset, and there are many reasons to invest heavily in them. This starts with great recruitment, but it doesn’t stop there. This is particularly important when they are the direct contact with your customers, and you must ensure your team is as strong as it can be.

Their dealings with the clients can be very influential to your overall selling power. The power of a friendly attitude should never be underestimated. As a boss, encouraging a positive atmosphere in the workplace should be a priority. It will filter down to improve the customer’s experience too.

Besides, a happy worker is a more productive worker too. if that’s not a big enough incentive, then I don’t know what is.

Increase Online Presence

The goalposts have been shifted greatly in recent times. Online activities have completely changed the structure of business. Nowadays, the emphasis is now largely on building a great online presence. Even for companies that deal with the offline market, success on the internet is a must.

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As consumers, we’re all familiar with the idea of turning to Google whenever we need to find a particular product fast. From a business perspective, improving your search engine ranking can work wonders.

This is achieved through advanced SEO strategies and can improve both the perception and status of your company. Moreover, it will bring more traffic to your website too.

Upgrade Selling Platform

If you are going to make the effort to increase your online presence, then it only makes sense to ensure that the website encourages sales. The only way to achieve this is through building a relationship trust. As well as a great page layout, you should be sure to install the best ecommerce software too.

After all, new customers will rightly be a little apprehensive at first. Giving them a familiar experience will put their minds at rest. It’s equally important to accept as many payment methods as possible. Otherwise, you’re essentially shutting your doors to a section of the audience.

It’s not only your online activities that require the most pleasant transaction. Upgrading your shop’s POS systems can make a vast impact to the overall shopping experience. In turn, this can be a great way to encourage repeat business too.

Make Smarter Marketing Choices

Every business owner appreciates the importance of clever marketing. This is the key to recruiting new customers, and finding ways to gain great conversion rates in a cost-effective manner is crucial.

Social media campaigns are a fantastic option for reaching a wider audience without the need to spend huge sums of money. The key in this aspect is to create unique content that could go viral. If those posts become popular, you will see a steep upturn in brand awareness. In turn, this will virtually guarantee increased sales too.

As far as offline marketing is concerned, it’s about reaching as many people in your key demographic as possible. Running promotional events are a fantastic way to build a buzz around the business. Once you’ve got that initial interest, it’s up to you convert it to sales.

Embrace Word Of Mouth

Marketing is vital, and cannot be underestimated for a second. However, one of the most powerful selling tools is word of mouth. For a consumer, it’s one thing to hear positive noise from the company. But hearing it from impartial sources, such as friendly and family is far more influential.

Nowadays, though, those words don’t have to come from our closest relatives. As a business, you should be keen to place testimonials on your website to increase those feelings of trust. Meanwhile, you could also encourage further word of mouth by offering a recruitment bonus to existing customers.

Do remember, though, that negative words can be equally powerful. Gaining a bad reputation can damage your hopes of gaining new customers. Therefore, if you do ever encounter a troubled client, you must try to find a solution ASAP.

Invest In The Customer

Solving customer problems isn’t the only key part of dealing with the customer, though. Those people are the most important aspect of your entire business model. Without them, you cannot achieve any success. Therefore, treating them with care is a must at all times.

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Regarding offline sales, you are the biggest USP that the business boasts. Build positive relationships with the audience, and it will improve your conversion rates. After all, consumers like to have that feeling of supporting a likable business. Meanwhile, you can give them the feeling of preferential treatment with Motivators promotional gifts. These items can work as great long-term marketing tools. This is especially true when those freebies enhance a customer’s daily life.

Another great tip is to make the customer feel like they are participating in the cause. Get them involved in ventures by asking for their opinions, and that active role will encourage better sales figures.

Run Promotions

Sometimes, though, you need to give your customers an extra incentive to use your company over the rivals.

Running special promotions such as Buy One Get One Free can encourage a significant short-term sales boost. As long as you are selling large volumes, it doesn’t matter if the mark-up per item is lower than usual. It’s a great way to give customers the satisfaction of getting better value for money, which is great for keeping them loyal to the brand.

Moreover, those deals can be used to snatch customers from rival companies too. Quite frankly, there is no better way to improve your chances of long-term success.

December 21, 2015

Don’t be fooled by first impressions. Conversion is the only stat of importance.

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The world of digital marketing can be confusing for newcomers. There are a lot of terms thrown around that don’t mean an awful lot without context. If you’re just trying the marketing game on for size, it can leave you feeling somewhat lost. But, truthfully, once you get to grips with the jargon, the techniques are pretty simple.

As you’ve probably figured out by now, there are a lot of different methods that are used by digital marketing agencies around the world. They all have their own rhyme and reason. They each perform different results. Figuring out exactly which approach your company should be taking can be difficult. But, ultimately, it’s down to personal preference. The techniques you embrace will depend on what you’re looking to achieve.

One of the most confusing trends in digital marketing is the Pay-Per-Click phenomenon. It’s not that it’s a complex idea to get your head around. Far from it. It’s a relatively simple idea. The basic premise is that your link will appear somewhere on the internet, and you’ll pay for how many clicks you consequently receive.

So, where does the confusion begin to creep in? Quite simply, it’s that people don’t understand the key differences between impressions and clicks. A common misconception is that the number of impressions you make is relative to your success. It makes sense right? The more people that see your ad is going to make it more likely to achieve results. Not necessarily.

Before we get into the hows and whys of the matter, let’s first explore what those terms actually mean. As we touched on above, an impression counts for each time your ad is potentially seen by an end-user. It can be anything. A banner, a link, a keyword. Whatever it is you want, really. So, every time somebody visits a blog that features your ad on the page somewhere, that’s an impression.

Clicks are, obviously, a different beast. Those that have their wits about them know that click-through rate is the only measurement that really counts in PPC marketing. Why? Well, simply, what use is your ad if nobody is paying attention to it. It’s not even necessarily that your ad is poorly executed. It could simply be a matter of poor placement, or you’re targeting the wrong audience.

Any PPC agency worth their salt will charge you for your click-through rate only. Don’t be fooled into thinking that impressions are the long and short of the story. Like I said, what good is your ad if nobody is actually clicking on it? Let’s reinforce that idea before we go any further. Your goal is not to present yourself to a ton of different eyeballs. It’s to make those people click your link.

It’s not likely that you’ve taken total control of your PPC campaign. At least, not if you don’t have a good grasp on digital marketing already. The chances are that you have (or will) call in the experts. A very wise choice, indeed. In that instance, the agency is probably going to take control of all the hard work for you. By all means, you’ll certainly have some say. But, by and large, they’ll ultimately advise you on things like the placement. Hey, that’s why they’re the professionals, right?

Where this is beneficial to you is that it makes analyzing the figures a whole lot easier. Think about it like this. You’re presenting with a bunch of statistics that show your ad is reaching a bunch of people. It just so happens that nobody is following through on it. That’s the point that migraines start to develop. It’s your job to get to the bottom of why.

But that’s only if you put all of the expectation on impressions. The figure that you really need to be looking at is the click-through rate. It’s sort of like a puzzle that needs solving. Forget how many people are seeing your ad. The vital information that you really need is how many of them are clicking on it. With that knowledge, you can make a decision on how you approach the next step.

I mean, aren’t you going to embrace any concept that makes your life, as a business person, easier? Of course, you are. And that’s the point of this exercise. Your click-through rate will paint a much clearer picture than just analyzing your impressions. Don’t make the same mistake that many other business executives are making. Impressions aren’t important. Not if they aren’t making a significant difference.

So, what can you learn about your marketing strategy just from your click-through rate? More than you might think, now you mention it. Simply telling your analysis team to get to the bottom of it isn’t going to work without context. Instead, they’re going to need to know everything they can about placement, site traffic, and such. Then they can begin to make educated assumptions about what you’re doing right. Or, equally, what isn’t quite going so well.

More often than not, your marketing agency of choice will be able to help decipher this information for you. They have years of experience in this relatively new marketing technique. And make no mistake about it, it’s a trend that is evolving rapidly with each passing day. Don’t sweat it. It’s their jobs to know what to look out for.

You should always look to the professionals for guidance. This is especially the case if things aren’t going quite as well as you both hoped. Now isn’t the time for playing the blame game. It’s about fixing things before you waste any more time and money on an endeavor. Seek honest advice and be open to compromise. You may have to change your strategy. That can turn your average control freak into a drooling, incoherent mess. You didn’t plan for this! How can it be happening?

Sometimes things just don’t work out as you’d planned. That’s okay. Digital marketing is very much a game of trial and error. Don’t give up on it now. Keep pushing through until you find something that works. Then, and only then, will you see your click-through rate rise above and beyond.

December 18, 2015

The seriously simple way to improve your website

Having a great website is one of the most important aspects of business. If you don’t take the time to build a fantastic website, you can’t expect people to want to work with you. These seriously simple tips will help you on the way to a much better website. Enjoy!

Split Testing

Split testing your website will help you to work out which parts are working best and which parts may need to be changed. You start by changing one small thing about your website; maybe a piece of text, font, or colour. You then send both versions to two different groups of people, and see which one is best responded to. You can then change your site and continue to do this until you feel happy with what you have. In some cases it’s an ongoing process that you can use to continuously improve your site.

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image credit: Flickr

Calls to Action

Having calls to action on your website tells people what you want them to do. You might think they already know that you want them to buy from you, but they don’t. They are so much more likely to sign up to your newsletter if you ask them or tell them to. Include large calls to action above the fold to make them more likely to click.

Easy Navigation

Having easy navigation makes it simple for your audience to make their way around your site. They should be able to understand things easily and should be able to get to where they want to go with no hassle. If your site is too difficult, it doesn’t matter how good it looks. They’ll leave and go elsewhere.

Your Colour Scheme

Maybe your colour scheme doesn’t show up well on certain computers. You need to consider different models and members of your audience. Make sure your colour scheme not only matches your brand, but is easy to see.

Quality Content

Having quality content is probably the most important thing you can have. Your site can look amazing, but without quality content it’s unlikely to go anywhere. Just like you can have quality content and a poor looking site, but it still might do okay. Fill your site with it regularly, and make sure it’s totally original.

SEO and Marketing

SEO and marketing will make your site more visible to your audience. You can’t get away from it if you want it to do well! Websitepromoter.co.uk can make it easier for you to market your site.

Put Your Face on it

Putting your face on your site makes it so much easier to trust, as people can see who’s behind it all. Make sure you include sufficient contact details too, so people can speak with you if they have any worries.

Try these tips and you won’t believe how much better your website starts to get. It’ll look better, get a better response from your audience, and you should build your reputation too. Improving your site is a continuous process, so don’t give up!

December 18, 2015

4 Mistakes that are probably costing you customers

You need to make sure that you focus on securing business and attracting customers at all times. There are a lot of ways to do this, but there are also a lot of mistakes to make as well. And you need to realise that it’s very easy to scare clients away. The most successful businesses are the ones that find a way to avoid these mistakes and secure custom.

When you run your business, you’ve got to look at the basic errors you might make and address them to help you run a better business. Now, it can be difficult to identify these errors when you first start out. And that’s why it’s important to follow guides such as this one. They can help you come up with a foolproof approach to securing sales and ensuring that you get customers coming back for more.

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Photo credit: Flickr.com

Being Too Complicated

One of the things that will scare the customers off quickly is being too complicated. You need to make sure you keep things simple. These days people are after convenience and simplicity, and they want this from businesses. By making your transactions and business dealings as simple as possible, you’re more likely to attract people. Being overly complicated is a sure way to scare people away and never get them back.

Lack of Payment Options

When you are trying to sort out business transactions, you need to provide a multitude of payment options. Don’t just limit yourself to one or two because this is going to restrict your customer base. Suppose people aren’t carrying cash on them. Or, perhaps they don’t have the time to queue up in store for card transactions. Try to make sure you have a lot of different options available. Things like online payments, check, cash, card and PayPal are all great ideas.

No Attention

Are you one of those business owners who are guilty of not showing your clients enough attention? Well, this is likely to be costing you customers! So you need to work on your approach and try to make interaction a little more personal. Something like email to text messaging services is a great way of achieving this. If you don’t show your clients attention, you will give the impression that you don’t care, and this is hardly likely to enamour them towards you.

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Photo credit: Flickr.com

Being Overbearing

But, on the flip side of the coin, you need to make sure you aren’t overbearing. You have to give customers a bit of freedom to work things out themselves. Constantly badgering them is a definite way to annoy them, and scare them off. You’ve got to get that perfect balance where you’re there if they have questions, but you also let them make their own decisions.

When you’re trying to secure business, you have to make sure you know what you’re doing. There is nothing worse for customers than a business that seems to be unclear about what they offer. If you want to make sure you keep customers and secure sales you’ll need to make sure you avoid these mistakes. You need to really take the time to understand how to close the deal.