Do You Have a Marketing Strategy and Plan for Your Business in 2018?

Do you have a marketing strategy and plan for your business?Without a marketing strategy and plan, you can’t attain your business goals. It’s 101 for a business.Whether you are a startup, entrepreneur, or business, preparing a strategy for the first time, or tweaking your existing plan, this is the first and most important piece of your roadmap to success.A smart marketing plan begins with a smart strategy.Your First Step – A Marketing Strategy:You need to be focused. You need a clear message. You need a process.A marketing strategy is the overarching, big picture plan, the high-level road map to help you attain your business goals. After all, you can’t get there if you don’t know where you’re going!The goal of a marketing strategy is to dive deeply into your business, your sales process, your target market, your message and current marketing to understand your successes and pinpoint your challenges.You need to clarify your goals and objectives that will deliver results.You should identify your niche markets, core messaging, elevator pitch and mission, values and vision statement. This is the foundation of your marketing plan and makes up the specific mix of marketing activities that will drive revenue.During your marketing strategy, you should assess the following:- Organization Overview & Mission
- Current Messaging, Elevator Pitch, Value and Vision Statement
- Products and/or Services
- Goals & Success Metrics
- Brand Positioning
- Target Markets & Ideal Customer
- Marketing Audit: Marketing Budget, Advertising (print/online), E-mail, Seasonal Promotions/other
- Social Media Marketing Audit: Content Strategy (images, videos), Social Media Channels, Blogging
- Website Review & Assessment
- Competitor Site Review
- Search Engine OptimizationYour Second Step – A Detailed Marketing Plan:You need to be seen. You need to be heard. You need to be found.The next step is a to put together a detailed marketing plan from the information you gathered from your marketing strategy.This is an in-depth marketing roadmap, infrastructure and plan that will be used for your marketing. It will include developing content, developing promotional offers, most effective social media channels to be active on, email marketing, building an email list, and budget for Facebook advertising.This detailed Marketing Plan will help your business or organization become more structured, and is something you can implement straightaway in order to see success and become more profitable.A marketing strategy and plan is the KEY to your success. Don’t procrastinate and start them today.

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The 10 Steps to Building a Successful Ecommerce Website

10 tiny steps to building a successful e-commerce website – A true “dummy’s guide” that guarantees online success.Shannon runs a successful pizza joint on Coney Island Avenue, Brooklyn. He specializes in exotic varieties of Kosher Pizza and after repeated requests from office goers for a website through which they could place orders, Shannon finally relented and got a beautiful ecommerce website. He also installed a computer at the cash counter. Each morning, Shannon would just login at the site and keep the admin page open. The moment a pizza order was placed, the details of the order and address would be flashed on the screen. Shannon would hit the print button, prepare the pizza and stick the printed order on top of the pizza box. Today, Shannon also owns the adjoining shop, has installed more pizza baking units there, and has eight delivery boys working for him.So how did he do it? I love the Pizza but have no idea how he makes them. But, as his friend who helped him build the website and online business marketing plan, I can tell you about the ten steps he took to build a successful ecommerce web site solutions. I’ll leave out the name of the pizza joint lest you think I’m advertising for Shannon.1. Know thy nameShannon paid $9.99 and booked a domain name selecting the same name as the existing pizza joint. This makes name recollection really easy and is one of the important steps in building an online store or online presence.2. Know what you wantHe visited a few existing ecommerce store management websites that take orders for pizza. This gave him a good idea of what was possible. It also gave him some ideas on how he wanted his website to look like.3. Take the right foot forward and be careful where you place itAfter seeing a few advertisements that promised instant online nirvana, Shannon paid $72 and opted for one that promised to “instantly build ecommerce site by reputed web development Richmond Company at the click of a button”. In Shannon’s own words, “the result was identical to my first attempt at making pizza when I was 6 years old – a total disaster”.After much thinking and reading various white papers on how to build an ecommerce web site, Shannon visited a few websites which provides ecommerce web development services and freelancing web experts. He finally decided to work with elance.com because of the sheer professionalism displayed there. He posted his request for a website mentioning his requirements and invited freelancing web designers and web masters to bid on building an ecommerce site.4. Select your ecommerce consulting services partner with careAfter carefully scrutinizing the various bids he received, he opted for one bidder who had several years of experience in building ecommerce websites as well as a good feedback from previous customers.5. Heed sound, professional adviceShannon heeded the advice of the freelancer, and purchased hosting space from the recommended web hosting provider. It cost him $99/year. It had loads of space, guaranteed 99.99% uptime, high speed connection to the internet and every resource (such as database support and other things) that the webmaster required.6. Attention to detailAs the website was being developed, Shannon would visit his website and observe the development as it happened. He could do so because the webmaster would upload the completed sections each evening. If Shannon thought some part of his website or webpage did not look right, he would inform the webmaster who would quickly carry out the changes. Shannon supplied the webmaster with all the content that was required. Which basically meant a list of kosher pizzas, toppings, photographs, prices, seasonal offers, other discounts, time required for delivery, delivery area and so on.7. Take it for a spinOnce the site was ready, Shannon, I and two other friends tested the website. We would select a pizza, toppings etc. and once in the shopping cart, make changes to the order, remove it altogether, add another selection and so on. You could say we “stress tested” the website. On the third and final day of testing, we went the whole nine yards and paid for the pizzas that we had ordered. This way we also ensured the payment procedure worked smoothly. Shannon, would login at the admin panel of his website and check to make sure the order details were correctly displayed. Shannon’s ecommerce website was now ready.8. Let the people knowOn inaugural day, Shannon displayed a few large posters on the sidewalk as well as in the pizza joint. He also inserted a few ads in the local editions of various newspapers, magazines and made dozens of calls to clients who he knew would be interested. The first day he received a grand total of 5 orders from his website. Even that delighted him no end. He was as happy as a little child with a candy bar.9. Let the World knowThe next day Shannon remembered the $49 Google AdWords gift voucher he saw in his web hosting account. Not knowing how to use it, “Googled” for details, got the gist of what was involved and once again visited elance.com. This time he put up a project for ecommerce internet marketing his ecommerce website on Google.com using Google AdWords. This was February 2009. Between then and today, Shannon says he spent about $1,500 or so on Google Ads. Today he receives in excess of 300 orders per day from the website alone.10. Keep it tickingShannon has hired the webmasters that initially designed and developed his site to also maintain his site. Maintenance usually meant changing various offers and schemes or adding new varieties of Pizza and toppings.Whether it’s Pizza, cabbages, EPABX, auto accessories or online consulting, it makes no difference to the procedure. Shannon’s success is proof that the 10 steps he followed were the correct ones. The path has been revealed. Whether you choose to follow the successful one or not is up to you. Use it to your advantage when you build your ecommerce store solution or online office. Shannon and I would be delighted with your success.

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Strategic Advertising for Real Estate Agents

“99% of advertising doesn’t sell a thing.”Sounds like something a local real estate agent might say after paying for yet another ad that didn’t produce, right?You might be surprised to learn that the quote actually belongs to David Ogilvy, legendary founder of one of the world’s largest and most successful advertising agencies.Yikes – if a man regarded as a giant in the ad industry is so negative about advertising’s success rate, how should you feel?The Bad News is the Good News…There is an upside here. If so much of the advertising in your local market is ineffective, you can gain a significant edge on your competition by having a better local advertising strategy than other agents.Advertising vs. Advertising StrategyNotice that I said a better advertising STRATEGY, not simply better advertising. There’s a big difference.A better ad might get you a few more leads in the short term. A better advertising strategy can help you to have a consistent, meaningful message in your advertising, and will position you to get more business from your local market on an ongoing basis.With that in mind, here are three tips to help you define your advertising strategy, and put it into action:1) Have a Strategic Objective In Mind BEFORE you AdvertiseAdvertising for the sake of “building awareness” is probably the fastest way to flush your advertising dollars away.Before you even think about buying an ad, you must have a strategic objective in mind – after all, why should you pay for any type of ad unless it helps you to reach your objective.Here are just a few questions that you might ask yourself before placing an ad to help define what you want your advertising strategy to do for you:- If I could be known for just one thing in my local market, what would it be?- Which part of the local real estate market is not currently well serviced by other agents? Is there potential in this neighborhood/age group/demographic profile?- Which part of the local market is emerging and might be a driving force for sales in future years?- What’s changing in my market right now – immigration, aging population, young families moving in, etc – and how do I capitalize on the change more effectively than my competitors?If you can answer even some of these questions, you will probably be on your way to identifying the basis for an advertising strategy.For example, you may determine that based on trends and current prices, your market will become increasingly popular with first time homebuyers. As a result, your strategic objective may be to use your advertising to become recognized as the local expert in serving first time homebuyers.2) Have a Specific Objective for Each Ad you Place within your StrategyWith a clear objective as part of your advertising strategy, you can now think about investing in ads that support your objective.Here’s a tip – you can create advertising that generates an immediate response while also serving to build your brand in a particular market.Continuing with the above example, if you ran a series of ads in the local newspaper offering a free “First-Time Homebuyers Report” available from your website, you would actually be running a direct response ad (aimed at getting people to download the report) that also delivered a brand building message (the message being that you are the agent for first time homebuyers to call because you are the expert in that field).You can measure the success of the ad by looking at the number of downloads from your site while the ad was running – since generating downloads was the specific objective of the ad. If the ads don’t generate enough downloads to justify the cost, pull them or change them. Ads are only valuable if they get you closer to achieving your strategic objective.3) Be ConsistentAll of your advertising (online, print, directory, flyers, etc) should be similar in both style and substance within your advertising strategy.Yes, a consistent look and style for your ads is important to help you get recognized in a competitive market.But even more important is being consistent when it comes to the messages in your ads. You can’t buy a Yellow Pages ad that promotes you as the leader in client service, and then advertise your “low low price” in the local newspaper, and then distribute flyers that try to promote you as the family real estate expert.Your messages can’t conflict! Again, here’s where an advertising strategy comes in. With a strategic objective in mind for your advertising, you will be able to focus your advertising dollars on communicating a single, clear message to potential clients about why they should call you.An Advertising Strategy is Critical to your SuccessIf Mr. Ogilvy was right, then most of the advertisers out there in your real estate market are getting it wrong. This creates a huge opportunity for you to use an advertising strategy to drive business and outdo your competitors.- Have a Strategic Objective for all of your Advertising – Know what you want to say about your business, and who you want to say it to within your local market.- Have an Objective for Each Ad – Measure each ad’s results against the strategic objective you are trying to achieve – if you don’t, how will you know if the ads were successful or not?- Be Consistent – Make sure all of your ads are focused on helping you reach your strategic objective by communicating a clear message to the market.Advertising can be a tough game, but so can real estate. And in both cases, those with a well thought out strategy will almost always succeed over those that don’t have a plan.

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There is an excessive amount of traffic coming from your Region.

#EANF#

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Keep These 5 Rules in Mind for Successful Commercial Designing

Who doesn’t want an excellent commercial design? Excellent commercial design is important to maintain the reputation and brand image of the company. As it is said, the first impression is the last impression, a good impression always attracts potential customers. It’s obvious no one would ever love to walk in a congested environment with bad lighting.

Bad design and interiors deteriorate the productivity of the employees. It can be a confusing task when planning a commercial designing project for the first time, hiring expert Commercial Architects Melbourne can be the best option to know about the latest trends and perfect matching designs.

This blog is about some basic rules to consider for making the commercial project successful.
Keep structures versatile

When it comes to transforming any commercial space, focusing on convertibility and keeping office interior decor versatile can be the best option. It can be done by implementing a versatile structure to spaces such as cafeterias, offices, and many more. Everyone gives preference to comfort hence, focusing on spatial and versatile design will help to complete commercial designing projects in an optimal way.

Consider the latest technology implementations

Technology plays a supportive role to enhance the commercial designing project. Moving forward with the latest technology is important to execute any business smoothly because technologies make the work much easier and comfortable for the employee as well as organizations. Implementing centralized and decentralized digital control is much needed in any commercial design.

Keep office aesthetics updated

Good aesthetics and interiors impact the overall representation of the office and make the place functional and attractive. Hire a reputed designer for modern décor and furniture ideas. Hiring a designer reduces half of the project stress and helps to meet the contemporary fashion and latest trends. They can help to choose the perfect theme that blends well with the office decor, atmosphere, and colour.

Provide personalized space to prevent congestion

Majority of customer prefers personalized space such as different seating to seat comfortably and do the personal work. Personalized space is one of the crucial factors for customer-based service offices such as hotels and cafeterias to provide an ambient and comfortable place.

Always keep safety first

Safety is the central feature of every construction and designing project. Hence, it’s the high-priority factor to keep the aesthetic and functional safety at the working place. It can be compromised for interior decoration and design purposes but it’s not at all affordable to compromise for safety purposes.

Following the above useful ideas can easily help in the successful completion of a commercial designing project in a safe and pleasing way. In today’s, modern construction, reliability, and comfort is also an equally important factor.

Final words,

It’s important to hire the experienced Building designer Melbourne to make the commercial designing project worthy. Hope the above rules helped you to scale up your interior designing projects with a better outcome. Follow the above tips for any renovation or remodelling project and surely you will get award-winning and achieve a better office experience.

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How Long Should A Laptop Battery Last And How To Increase the Battery Life

No matter how expensive your laptop is, its battery won’t last more than four years. According to experts, a new laptop battery gives you as many as 1,000 cycles. In other words, you can charge and recharge the battery up to 1000 times. However, many factors play their role to increase or decrease the lifespan of a laptop battery. For instance, the material used for producing the battery substance. So, if you want to ensure that your battery stands the test of time, given below are some of the tips that can help.

1. Install a good battery monitor

If you are looking for an alternative, you can choose from tons of third-party utilities. Basically, the software programs help you monitor your laptop battery. These programs have no compatibility issues with any type of laptop.

Using these tools, you can find out which programs are using most of the battery power. You can then close the unwanted programs to save battery power.

2. Install maintenance apps

You can use some manufacturer-recommended maintenance tools for maintaining your laptop battery. Based on the type of your battery, you will receive different suggestions. Apart from this, your operating system will come with a built-in utility that can help you keep an eye on your battery condition.

3. Maintain your device temperature

You should try your level best to ensure your laptop maintains its temperature. In summer, electronic devices tend to heat up, which negatively impacts the life of the battery packs.

Therefore, you should make sure that there is a little bit of space between the bottom of the device and the table you have placed your device on. Besides, the ventilation system of your device should be working properly. For this purpose, regular cleaning of your device is quite important.

4. Don’t use maximum brightness

When your screen brightness is at maximum level, your device will use the maximum power. So, turning down the brightness is the first thing you can do to save power. Also, it is not a good idea to keep the brightness at max level as it can have a negative impact on your eyesight.

So, by following these simple tips, it will be easier for you to extend the life of your laptop battery.

5. Change the power-saving settings

Before you do anything, go into the power options of your laptop. If you are using Windows operating system, you can go to the control panel to access the power options. The control panel can be accessed from the Start Menu.

Some users have MacOS. If you are one of them, you need to access Energy Saver, which is found in the System Preferences. If these values are set to default, your computer will use the least amount of power.

So, what you need to do is make small changes to the settings so that you achieve a balance between power and performance. For best performance, there is always the choice to connect your device to the AC outlet.

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The Best Ways I’ve Found To Make Money Online From Home

Have you been looking for a way to make money online without having to know much of the internet stuff? Wanting to work at home but don’t know how to do it? Here is the key gem: Between all the tricks on joining the craft beer movement, opening a gallery or being a tour operator, you will find clever advice that anybody can apply to make money online quickly.

The most basic way to make money online is through affiliate marketing. It is really easy. Basically you set up an ad for someone she is selling something and when they click through and buy it, you make money! Simple enough if you have no technical skill at all. Here are some simple tips on how to earn using affiliate marketing:

Drop-shipping is one of the most useful methods. You select a product in which you believe there is a demand and then drop-ship it to your customers in small quantities. You make money from the difference between what the stock costs and what you sell it for. For this method, it is important to note that you may need to make space for your inventory on your premises or perhaps wait until you have a build of an inventory before you can start drop-shipping; but the advantages make it a good choice for those seeking to make money online from their spare time.

Paid surveys are a great way to earn some extra cash. These can be accessed easily and there are many sites where you can get paid from spending your spare time. There is one site, though, which is said to pay $200 a week for twelve weeks straight – you can’t beat that kind of money making potential. With paid surveys, it is important to note that the sites are generally scams, and that you need to do some research to ensure you are making good money making opportunities.

Finally, a passive income generating method that can bring in money on autopilot is eToro’s Forex trading. This works by allowing you to invest on a demo account and earn money from the performance of the currencies being exchanged. The best thing about this system is that it allows you to do virtually anything and still see profits coming in. eToro has an average starting price of less than $50 and can generate an income of five figures in just a few months.

These are the best things I have found for making money online from your home. Though none of them are as good as, say, a paid-online course, they are much more affordable and can provide a valuable education to start earning money immediately online. With just a little research, you should be able to find a legitimate opportunity to get paid to learn the basics of making money in the currency markets. This is a truly remarkable opportunity.

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Finding the Best Business Idea For Your Home Based Business

How many home based business opportunities are available to you? If you want to make money online at home, you really have many options to choose from. The big question is – which one will give you the biggest chance of success? Is there a ‘one size fits all’ answer? The simple truth is that not every opportunity is right for everyone, and not every opportunity will bring you the greatest amount of profit.

So, what are some home business ideas that can make money online for you? The quick and dirty answer is: the one that best suits your particular set of needs. Make a list of your priorities, including a high income; a low-risk schedule; freedom; flexibility; work-life balance; independence; something in your range of skills and expertise; and interesting work that you have an interest in… You can take this list with you and talk to people who are working from home on the same things that you would be considering. Chances are that you will find some great niches that fit your standards and your desires.

But what if you want to get started right away? It’s easy to think that you can jump into a new business idea and be successful immediately, but this often isn’t the case. It takes many different things to make sure that you will be able to get through the hurdles and actually make it to a point where you are seeing profit. If you don’t work at it slowly, you will be setting yourself up for failure. Here’s the lowdown on some different things that you should consider as you create your own business idea:

First, you need to think about what you have to offer. If you don’t have any ideas as to what to do as a freelance writer, a lowdown on finding a niche is very important. Many beginners go into this completely clueless. But if you know that you have a skill that others are desperately seeking, you may be able to provide them with the service they are looking for without having to spend much time building up a website or getting traffic to it.

Another thing to consider is what kinds of products or services would best fit a niche that you would like to get started in. In this case, the lowdown on finding the best business idea for you would include taking a look at what you love to do and what you can offer others. If writing is not your strongest point, but you love to get creative, consider freelance data entry. Freelance data entry does not require a lot of startup capital, but you still need to have the skills that will allow you to be successful in this area. The best lowdown on finding the best business idea for you is to simply start looking at what you like to do and what you can offer others.

There are many other areas of freelance writing that you can explore in order to make the most out of your home based online business. Freelance writers are in high demand online. If you have the skills that are needed to do well in this field, there is no reason that you should not be able to find a great home-based online business that will give you the income that you want.

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Earn Money Writing From Home And Never Run Out of Ideas

Is it your dream to work from home as a writer and earn money from everything you write? That was my dream for years, and 20 years ago it became my reality.

One of the hardest things at first was to come up with ideas of what to write about. I started by doing freelance writing and I also set up my own website and I wanted to write and publish books. It was all a great plan, but it meant coming up with thousands of ideas.

At first I didn’t think it was possible, but it turned out that not only was it possible to come up with endless ideas for writing, but I ended up with notebooks full of ideas because I had more than I could ever use at once.

And I’ll tell you 3 things that helped.

1. I write fast. Once I’m into writing an addictive story or an interesting article – or series of articles, I get into a writing ‘flow’ and can write for hours. I never stop and second-guess myself. I just keep writing because fast writers are mega producers and never have time for writers’ block.

2. The more I write and the faster I write, the more writing ideas I have. Productive writers always get an abundance of ideas as they write. When I’m immersed in my writing, my creative mind goes into hyper-drive. Even if I started with only one or two ideas, once I sit down and start writing the ideas start flowing. And it doesn’t matter what I write. Even if I’m journaling or copying out someone else’s writing by hand (just for practice), it inspires ideas.

3. I love to write. Most days I’m excited and motivated to sit down and write. I hurry through other chores I have to do so that I can get to my desk and write.

At first, being a writer was hard because it’s not easy to work from home with no boss, no set hours and too many distractions. But once I got a writing routine, I found that once I sat my backside in my chair and started writing, it was easy to ignore everything and motivation arrived and kept me going.

So if you find yourself longing to write but stuck for ideas, just sit down and start writing. Write anything even if it’s just nursery rhymes you were taught as a kid, or open a book and start handwriting it out.

And if you’re like me you’ll find that even on days when you think you don’t feel like writing and the ideas just won’t come, sit down and write anyway, and before you know it you’ll be overloaded with ideas.

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