When it comes to marketing their small businesses, entrepreneurs have more options than ever before thanks to the popularity of online tools and their easy accessibility. In a recent column for American Express Open Forum Ivana Taylor, CEO of Third Force, gave out a number of small business marketing tips.
The first thing that Taylor suggests is to "speak your mind." By spreading the message that is most important to their businesses, entrepreneurs can bring their biggest issues to the forefront. She also suggests making sure that the company's website is updated to reflect the most current deals and events going on and even starting a blog to spread more information.
Then there is social media. While some have called this a passing trend, Taylor says that it's time to start taking it seriously. "Social media is not a fad any more. It's time to stop experimenting and start managing your social media strategy," she writes. "Create a policy around social media, even if you're only a one-person operation. Your social media policy should include your objectives for each site and any rules you have around posts, articles, pictures, etc. "
Next, it is important to get all customer lists in a single place in order to be better organized. By creating a master list, a small business owner can divide customers into categories and figure out what the best way to market to them might be. Along the same lines is direct marketing. Assuming a business knows where its customers live, sending them mail directly can be a great way to drive business and increase profits. Online Marketing Services Provider.
It is also important to create a brand for the services the company offers. Even if it is a simple repair shop, by giving the service a name, customers are more likely to remember it in times of need. After establishing a brand, it may be useful to produce a video to help promote it. Businesses can set up corporate YouTube accounts and begin posting videos that can give potential clients a free demonstration of a company's services.
When the videos are done, it is time to start a mobile marketing program. By giving customers constant updates via text messaging, businesses are able to benefit by reminding them about any current deals. Taylor writes that mobile marketing is one of the fastest growing channels in the entire world. "Globally, twice as many people use text messaging than e-mail. Chances are your customers interact more with their PDA than they do with their computer."
Taylor also suggests creating a referral system. "Run a referral program that includes regular meetings with people who agree to enthusiastically refer you. Start by creating a referral guideline that outlines what sets your business apart, profiles your ideal customer and describes what they might say that should trigger a referral to you." Direct Marketing Services Provider.
Finally it is important to focus on what the customer wants and try to market the product or service to them. Small businesses should have an idea of what their perfect clients would be, and do everything in their power to attract them. By profiling them in detail, it may become easier to find out what methods they will respond to most.
While none of these ideas are fool-proof, they can be important ways for small business owners to attract as many customers as possible. When a business is made up of only a few people, it can be hard to compete with companies that have a whole marketing department. Of course, there is no magic bullet when it comes to the perfect marketing strategy, but these steps will help entrepreneurs compete with larger competition and find success in the end. Media Marketing Agency.
PR and marketing firm Mainstream Financial has set up a new e-marketing division.
The new company is headed up by E-Business marketing consultant Mark McGuinness who has more than 25 years experience in the gambling and retail industries. Mark has held senior marketing director roles in both the public and private sectors with the last 10 years spent in online marketing with new business start-ups and established e-commerce brands. He is the former marketing director of betdaq.com and is licensed by the UK Gambling Commission.
'We will offer a wide range of industry knowledge about all aspects of effective marketing to online and mobile users,' said Mark. 'In addition, close relationships with the relevant Isle of Man Government bodies, and the Island's major suppliers of hardware and programming, ISPs and telecoms providers, means that we can operate as a one-stop-shop for e-businesses.'
Mainstream Financial already has a number of major e-gaming firms as clients including sportmarket.com and racing2day.com, a US-based wagering company, and there will be more in the coming months. Online Marketing Services Provider.
eMainstream will be targeting e-businesses across the globe, but it is well positioned to provide services for the growing number of Isle of Man-based companies in the e-gaming sector. Right now there are 24 licensed operators in the Isle of Man and the e-gaming and e-business sectors are likely to continue to expand thanks to the work of the government in promoting the advantages of locating here.
Being part of the Mainstream Financial group means that eMainstream's clients will also benefit from the company's link with The Gate, an international marketing communications agency based in London.
Garth Kimber, Head of e-Gaming Development at the Department of Economic Development, welcomed the news. Direct Marketing Services Provider.
He said: 'I'm delighted to see Mainstream entering the e-business and e-gaming sectors with Mark McGuinness. To have this level of expertise available to companies coming to the Isle of Man adds to the world class cluster of skills in the Island.
'With Mark's experience we are able to provide a skill set which companies had previously had to go off-Island for. I look forward to seeing a valuable addition to the Island's economy going from strength to strength.'
Craig Wolstencroft, Managing Director of Mainstream Financial, said that with the company's already established links both in the Isle of Man and internationally, and with the expertise of Mark McGuinness, eMainstream is perfectly placed to be the first port of call for e-gaming firms needing marketing and PR services as well as benefitting from using eMainstream's network of contacts in the gaming industry.
'With our excellent relationships with Government, and service providers in the private sector, we are the ideal agency to offer e-marketing both to e-gaming companies and to other e-businesses,' said Craig. 'We are fortunate to have someone of Mark's experience and standing in the e-gaming sector to add his valuable contribution to the services we offer.' Media Marketing Agency.
July 14 (Bloom berg) -- Vesta's Wind Systems A/S, the world’s largest wind-turbine maker, plans to hire 850 workers at its Colorado plants in the United States over the next year and a half after winning orders in North America.
“Throughout 2009 we didn’t see any orders in the U.S. whatsoever,” Vesta's spokesman Michael Holm said in a telephone interview from the company’s Randers, Denmark, headquarters. “That is changing. We see the market is easing up.”
Vestas lost a net 82 million euros ($104 million) in the first quarter after tighter financing led customers to delay renewable-energy projects. The company said on April 28 that renewed market momentum will lead it to hire 3,400 workers worldwide this year, a majority of them in the U.S., where Vesta's operates three plants and will open a fourth next year. Online Marketing Services Provider.
“We don’t see a fall in demand for our products,” Holm said. “But to some extent customers are still facing financing challenges, so sometimes negotiations on firm orders take longer.”
Vesta'shas announced several orders for wind turbines in the United States and Canada this year, including the company’s largest ever order, for turbines totaling 1,500 megawatts to be installed and maintained in North America, South America and Europe in 2011 and 2012 for EDP Renovaveis SA.
The hiring of 850 workers was reported earlier today by the Coloradoan.
Ford said that June was the third consecutive month that industry sales declined in Europe because of an economy that remains weak and federal automotive incentive programs that ended in many countries.Direct Marketing Services Provider.
Ford, which benefitted more than many of its competitors from those incentive programs, said its market share fell 1.2 points in June to 7.8% of industry sales.
Ingvar Sviggum, Ford's vice president of marketing and sales, said some automakers have increased incentives by 30% or more in certain countries -- a strategy Ford does not wish to follow.
"What is more important is you build sustainable profitability," he said. Media Marketing Agency.
July 14 (Bloomberg) -- Emerging-market stocks rose for a fifth day and currencies strengthened after Intel Corp.’s earnings and Singapore’s growth forecast added to optimism the global economic recovery will be sustained.
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index climbed 0.8 percent to 964.9 as of 3:43 p.m. in Singapore, adding to a four-day, 2.9 percent advance and is set for the highest close since June 22. Benchmark stock indexes added more than 1 percent in Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines and Hungary.
Technology shares posted the biggest gains, led by Samsung Electronics Co., after Intel reported record sales and topped analyst estimates with its third-quarter forecast. The Singapore dollar reached a three-week high, pacing a rally among developing-nation currencies, after the city-state raised its gross domestic product forecast for a third time this year.
“Intel’s result indicates consumer spending is expanding,” said Kiyoshi Ishigane, a strategist in Tokyo at Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co., which oversees about $65 billion. “Given Singapore is a highly trade-dependent country, its economic growth signals the global economy is recovering, with trade as a main driver.”
Samsung, Asia’s largest chipmaker, rose 3.5 percent and Hynix Semiconductor Inc. gained 3.4 percent. Overseas investors bought a net 904.7 billion won ($754 million) of shares in companies on South Korea’s Kospi index today, the most this year. Online Marketing Services Provider.
Fund Managers
Investors are increasing the representation of developing- nation stocks in their portfolios, according to a BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research survey of 202 fund managers who together manage $530 billion released yesterday. A net 34 percent of global asset allocators were overweight global emerging markets, compared with 19 percent in May, according to the survey. Almost half of the investors surveyed also said global emerging markets were the area they would most like to overweight in the next 12 months, more than double the reading in May.
Santa Clara, California-based Intel, the first major U.S. technology company to report second-quarter earnings, said third-quarter sales will be about $11.6 billion. Analysts had estimated $10.9 billion on average, according to a Bloomberg survey. The world’s biggest chipmaker also posted second-quarter net income of 51 cents a share, compared with analysts’ estimates of a profit of 43 cents a share. Direct Marketing Services Provider.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest customized chipmaker, climbed 1.3 percent.
Passenger Numbers
In China, the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.8 percent. Beiqi Foton Motor Co. climbed 2 percent after saying first-half vehicle sales increased. Air China Ltd. advanced 1.3 percent, pacing gains by carriers, after passenger numbers climbed in the first half.
In Singapore, the economy expanded at a 26 percent annual pace in the second quarter, after a revised 45.9 percent growth in the first quarter that was the fastest since records began in 1975, according to the trade ministry. Growth this year will rise between 13 percent and 15 percent, compared with an earlier forecast of as much as 9 percent, the ministry also said. Media Marketing Agency.
The Singapore dollar reached S$1.3733, the highest level since June 21. The ringgit also climbed to a three-week high and South Korea’s won strengthened for the first time in three days.
Consumers have looked past global market gloom and recent interest rate rises to push a gauge of confidence to its its best increase in 13 months, taking it to the highest level in 3 months.
The Westpac–Melbourne Institute Consumer sentiment index posted its strongest monthly jump since June 2009. It was the biggest increase from the 100-point level since records began in the mid-1970s, Westpac said. Online Marketing Services Provider.
''We were surprised at the vigour of the bounce back,'' said Westpac's chief economist Bill Evans. ''We saw a comparable surge in confidence in 2009 when households realised that Australia had avoided recession but at that time the Index was recovering from a much lower level.''
Economists have worried that European sovereign debt and the prospect of a double-dip recession in the US could slow global growth, denting prospects for Australia's export economy.
''Since the last survey the RBA has held rates steady for a second consecutive month and the dispute over the mining tax has been largely settled,'' said Dr Evans. ''Global financial markets have also recovered somewhat.'' Direct Marketing Services Provider.
Dr Evans said that households have also been encouraged by a strong jobs market, which created 46,000 jobs in June.
Despite the strength in the jobs market in recent months, other weaker aspects of the economy, such as lacklustre retail sales, have painted a mixed picture of the economy's health. Consumer spending has been hit by RBA's six interest rate rises since October - with three of them this year alone.
Dr Evans said the rebound in consumer confidence came after steep falls in the index, suggesting the current period can’t be compared to the months before the global financial crisis or the recession in the early 1990. Media Marketing Agency.
We're sticking to our guns about our outlook for Bing.
Namely, we continue to think that Microsoft's dream of building a large, profitable business in search is a hallucination. We continue to think that by trying to compete with Google in search, Steve Ballmer is shoveling billions of dollars of Microsoft shareholder capital down a bottomless rat hole.
Futher, we see no sign that the search gains Microsoft is crowing about are coming from anything other than overpriced toolbar and other distribution deals that no one else in the industry is dumb enough to pay up for. We think Microsoft will never get anywhere near the DIRECT search share that it needs to build a big profitable search business, and we expect that Microsoft or its shareholders will eventually realize that and exit the business--either by spinning Bing off or by just shutting it down.
How can we say such a thing when Bing's share of the US search market has increased from ~8% to ~12% in a year?
First, because Microsoft is clearly buying these search share gains through uneconomic distribution deals that negate the benefit of the growth.
How do we know that?
Because Microsoft's financial disclosures suggests that Microsoft is paying as much to gain every point of share as it is generating in revenue from each point of share. Put differently, it appears Microsoft has a 0% gross margin on its search market growth of the past year: For every $1 of new revenue it generates, it spends $1 in traffic acquisition costs. That's just not a sustainable business. Online Marketing Services Provider.
The reason Microsoft can buy that share, meanwhile, is twofold: First, unlike a normal company, Microsoft has a tremendous pile of cash that it is willing to shovel down a rat hole. Second, no one else in the industry is stupid enough willing to spend $1 on search traffic to make $1 of revenue (before all other costs).
Microsoft's theory here is that, eventually, it will gain enough share to get economies of scale and its revenue per search will go up. And the revenue per search may, in fact, go up. But Microsoft's revenue per search will have to SKYROCKET for the company to start breaking even in this business, let alone start making money.
The second reason we're just not that impressed with Microsoft's search share gains over the past year is that, given the huge amount of money Microsoft has spent, they're just not that impressive. Over the past year, despite losing more than $2 billion in its Internet business, Microsoft has gained about 4 search share points. Each point of growth, therefore, has cost Microsoft about $500 million.
Analysts have estimated that, based on the total size of the US search market, each point of search share is worth about $150 million per year. Per that analysis, Microsoft is flushing away $350 million for every point of search share it gains. Direct Marketing Services Provider.
Importantly, because Microsoft is buying its Bing share gains through distribution deals, the share gains are not recurring. If Microsoft wants to keep those share points, it will have to keep paying for the distribution. That means flushing a lot more money down the toilet.
Lastly, judged by any normal measure, Microsoft's Internet business (including Bing) has been--and still is--a complete disaster. Take a look at the chart below: Microsoft is now burning nearly $3 billion per year in a business in which every other competitor (including the hapless AOL) is wildly profitable.
If this business weren't hidden inside a massive global cash-spewing software behemoth, shareholders would long since have revolted at the amount of money that is being burned with so little to show for it. Eventually, we expect shareholders WILL revolt. Or they certainly should, anyway. Media Marketing Agency.
