Tag Archives | IM Marketing

Outsourcing and Business Success

The classic saying “If you want something done right, you need to do it yourself” is not always accurate. There are a number of complexities associated with expanding an online commercial venture. These steps need to be employed effectively or else you may not achieve the desired results. That means your business will not experience any positive impact from the process.

For example, one of the most helpful promotional ventures a business can employ is blogging. While some may wish to sign on with a free blogging platform and write their own entries, but this is really something that should be left to those with experience. If the quality of the writing on the blog is lacking, then the promotional components of the blog will not deliver the intended results. Additionally, the design of the blog would need to be of a high quality or else the visual impression it presents will be underwhelming.

Hiring a professional to handle such tasks would be a much better idea. This is not just true of promotional blogging. It would also apply to developing a website, creating a logo, or producing a custom programming. Sure, there can be a great deal of satisfaction that can be derived from doing something yourself. Unfortunately, there are a lot of problems that can occur as well. Inexperience can lead to such an issue and you do not want to deal with problematic issues when you could avoid them.

Ultimately, you always need to be concerned with two vital components to business success: time and money. This is why outsourcing various tasks are helpful. You can save both through effective outsourcing.

In terms of saving time, quality professionals are very skilled in what they do. This means there will be very little – if any – time wasted in getting the work you need performed done. This can never be the case when you are trying to perform something on your own. Wasting time leads right into the very next problem: wasting money.

When you launch a business, the goal is to make money. That is why it is necessary to avoid losing money through all the steps you take. You cannot guarantee you will make a profit when you are not employing professionals to handle tasks needed for your business to be successful. Again, this is why outsourcing is so necessary.

This does raise questions regarding who to hire and where to find them. The answer to such question is not all that difficult to arrive at. Quality freelance professional promote themselves via websites, online classified ads, and various bid for service communities on the web. Looking for quality experienced professionals on such venues is well advised. It could prove to be the successful formula for your business’ ability to be profitable.

The final analysis here is that outsourcing can greatly boost the success of business. That is why outsourcing is so popular. It delivers results and increases profitability. So, why not look towards such ventures when looking to take your business to the next level.

What is the Cost of Business Tools?

You can’t run a business effectively without access to the proper tools needed to operate the business. That is a truism that no business should ever ignore. That said, not every business will have the budget to purchase specific tools. Then again, some businesses may assume that they lack the budget to make such purchases when their budget is adequate. All that was needed was a little research into the costs of such tools.

So, what are the exact costs of common business tools? Such a question cannot really be answered in complete terms. The answer will be based on the type of business you run and they specific types of tools you need. However, no matter what type of business you operate, there will be certain specific criteria you can look towards.

First, it is important to point out that there are business tools that can be acquired for free. Yes, you read that correctly – FREE! How can you procure free tools? Ultimately, this depends on the type of tools you need. Those looking for computer based tools can download a number of free programs that are advertiser supported.

Then, there are also computer based programs that offer free trial periods. Using such tools during the trial period certainly can prove cost effective. For those in need of such tools, the trial period makes a brilliantly cost effective strategy.

Now, some may wonder about the expenditures that will be required on the various business tools that they need to purchase. Not to be flippant but the answer is that they will range from inexpensive to the very expensive. How much you pay will be based upon the specific tool that you are considering purchasing. Considering the fact that there may be scores of different items to choose from, a variety of budget ranges can be met. Hopefully, a high quality business tool will be procured as a result.

Please be aware that cost and quality do not necessarily coincide in the common manner that most people assume. In other words, the most expensive product is not always the best and the least expensive product is not always of little value. Ultimately, you need to take the proper steps in terms of research in order to discover which particular name brand tool delivers on expectations based on the research you perform into the brand. Again, cost and quality do not always go together.

That said, there will be instances where costs and quality do coincide. Namely, a business tool that comes with a “rock bottom” price tag may be of limited value. Commonly, low cost items are not always built to last. This means they will need to be replaced at a quicker point that other, more expensive and more durable items.

Generally, you can get the right business tool(s) at the right price and the right quality level. You just need to put in the proper effort in terms of consumer research and comparison shopping. It is as simple as that!

Leveraging Your Knowledge By Creating Products

When someone thinks of you, one of your friends or acquaintances, do they think of you as a go-to person? You know, that person everyone goes to when they need something that person specializes in. You know, how Andy works at Dell, so everyone calls him when their computer breaks down. Or when your car breaks down, you’re always sure to call Tony, because he can fix anything. This is called a go-to person and everyone has the ability to become one of those people; some just don’t know how to bring it out.

Think of something you’re good at. It may have something to do with your job. Perhaps you work in an office and you can organize files like nobody’s business. And everyone knows you’re good at that so they come to you whenever they need help filing. If you can’t think of something, you’re not trying hard enough. There’s got to be something you know more than the average person. Something your better at than the average person. By creating products, you can not only increase your knowledge and skill in whatever it is that you’re good at, but you can increase your revenue in the process.

Making products isn’t difficult; not with the technology of today. With a laptop, a certain program, a microphone, video camera, and a little bit of time, you can make products that will help you grow, and help generate income.

E-Books

E-books are in the in thing right now. With the advent of E-Readers, Kindles and the fact that people spend more time in front of a computer screen than ever before, reading E-books has become very popular. The best part is that anyone can make one. When you wanted to publish a book ten years ago, you had to find a publisher and send your manuscript off just hoping that it will be accepted. With a computer, an internet connection, a word processing program and time and knowledge, and you can write your very own E-book. When you write an E-book, you often learn more than you knew before simply because you’re researching the subject. Then, when the E-book is finished, you can sell it online and make good money off of it.

Podcasts, Videos and Social Networking Sites

If you want to go beyond merely writing, you can create podcasts, videos, and you can create social networking sites advertising your e-book or any other product you’ve created with the intent to help someone.

By doing this, you not only feel good about yourself because you’re helping someone else with hanging a door, or quitting smoking, or losing weight, or training their dog, but you’re also learning much more about the subject than ever.

The process of creating these products gives you the knowledge to create more products, thus helping more people and generating more income. Dig down inside of yourself and find your go-to subject. You may surprise yourself and find out you had a knowledge or skill you never knew you had.

Email Marketing is Not Dead

There has been a lot of grumbling in the world of online business that email marketing is dead these days. However, this isn’t true at all. In fact, email marketing is alive and well, and it can still be one of the most powerful and most cost effective forms of promotion that you have in your arsenal. Whether you’ve never tried email marketing or you need a reason to get back involved, it’s important to see how email marketing is still alive and well.

People have been pointing to any number of different factors to explain the “death” of email marketing. Some people think that it just became too crowded of a marketplace, and individuals became worn out with all of the emails and started to ignore all of them. Other people think that the growth of social networks has displaced email marketing as a valuable outlet for you to reach out to your consumers.

However, the fact is that email is still by far the most popular form of online communication. It still is far ahead of the social networks, and it’s still the trusted outlet that businesses and households use for online communication. Even the people who use social networks more, they still need an email address to sign up, log in and be informed of updates. That means that email and as a result email marketing isn’t going anywhere.

Perhaps even more important than all of that however is the fact that email marketing continues to be proven as the most cost effective form of direct marketing that there is. For every dollar you put into email marketing, you get a far greater return than you do with radio or newspaper advertisement, telemarketing, direct mail or anything else. It’s cost effective and it leads directly to sales, this has been proven out time and time again.

Even if you aren’t trying to directly sell something through email, it’s still a powerful tool to stay in touch with your customers and prospects. By using email marketing to stay at the forefront of their mind, you’ll always be a company they remember, trust and turn to in times of need. Therefore weekly newsletters, tips, guides, resources and more are all valuable tools when provided consistently through email marketing.

Your business needs every edge that it can get in today’s competitive times. When budgets are cut, customers’ wallets are closed and other disruptions occur, you can still count on email marketing. It provides an instant, direct outlet for you to talk with your customers and to promote to them, and both of those factors are invaluable.

Today, email marketing is still one of the most successful means of communication that you can have. You’ll develop prospects into customers and customers into long term clients. You’ll save yourself money when compared with other forms of marketing and promotion, and you’ll be able to reach out directly to more people than you could anywhere else. Don’t believe the hype, email marketing is far from dead.

Press Releases Can Help Build Your Credibility

A press release is a written statement sent to the news media for publication. Many marketers use press releases as a way to brand themselves, gain credibility and increase sales. If written well, a press release can position the marketer as an expert in their industry.

There are many things to write up a press release about some of which include the announcement of your business’ launch, business events, sales and discounts, giving away free items, achievements and more. Two main advantages of press releases are they build up credibility for your business and they help build page rank when you distribute them online.

Press releases are a cost effective form of marketing that builds strong credibility. Because of this credibility, they give the marketer an edge over their competition. With each PR you write and publish you become more trustworthy to customers. They begin to realize that you know what you are doing and are more likely to buy from you than your competitors.

A way to really build the faith in your customers is to write a well written informational release that is valid and researched with facts and statistics. People like facts instead of opinions in a press release.

Another benefit of press releases is they increase your page rank and rather quickly. This is due to the news sites being authority sites and having high page rank. Search engines look favorably on links that are on authority sites.

Not only will publishing press releases on any of these authority sites help with your page rank, but placing them on sites such as social networking or newswire sites will help as well. Also, many sites and blogs may pick up your PR and place it on their pages which will increase your page rank as well.

In addition to publishing your press release on the sites above, you can also optimize your PR for higher ranking and more traffic. People will be searching certain keywords on the Internet and if your PR is optimized with these keywords, it will be displayed to these people increasing both your traffic and sales. Be sure not to overstuff your press release with keywords as search engines frown on this. Also, you will want to include your keywords in the first 250 words which are most important when optimizing.

Press releases are a very effective way to get the word out on your business and drive loads of traffic to your website. To take the most advantage of them, be sure to write up and publish at least 1 PR a month as typically the news sites only keep them up for no more than 30 days. This will have you receiving a consistent flow of daily traffic which will increase your sales.

While Tools are Important in Business

If you want to do anything right, you need to have the right tools. This is true in all facets of life and it is most assuredly true in the world of business. When you have the right tools at your disposal, you can be sure that your business will run as smoothly and as efficiently as possible.

This does raise a few questions regarding what types of tools are needed for a business to remain successfully operational. Before an answer can be provided, it becomes necessary to define what the term “tool” means. Different businesses will require different tools. So, rather than provide too specific of a definition, a “tool” can be defined as any item that specifically aids in the day to day operations of a business. As such, the following will be a look at the prime tools needs to make sure any business can be effectively operational.

A quality computer set up is an absolute must. No, this does not mean you need to have the most high tech and expansive computer system installed in the office. However, you will want a computer system that is operational and works effectively. Older and outdated computers should be replaced with reliable new models.

The internet is also a must have tool for any business. Without sufficient access to the internet, the ability to stay ‘wired’ on all available info related to the business will prove difficult. This means you need to have a quality name internet service provider. You will also need a high speed connection and an effective routing system. Tying all these components together will lead to maintaining an excellent internet system in the office.

Installing various communications systems is another vital component of effective tool building. This includes a proper phone system, faxing, and other information components. Without effective communications, you can’t reach people and people can’t reach you. That certainly would not be a help for those in business.

Of course, there are a multitude of different tools that would be business specific. To list all the tools that each and every different business in every industry needs would be space prohibitive. In the most succinct terms, it would be enough to say that without the proper tools needed to operate a business, the operation of the business would be impossible.

Efficiency is vital for the proper operation of a business. The same could be said of time management. When you lack the proper tools required to run your daily business activities, you undermine both goals. Consider this the strongest endorsement of all for acquiring the right tools for a business.

The subject of tools for business can be among the broadest topics to discuss. However, no matter what business you operate or what tools you need, the subject always returns to one single word: efficiency. Without the right tools, a business cannot be efficient.

The New Year’s Resolution is a popular and fashionable trend. Everyone seems to have one, if not more, and they’re often a source of conversation as the year winds to a close. It is also common, albeit less spoken about, that most of these resolutions are broken in January.

So why adopt such a strategy if it’s lack of success is so certain that it’s practically part of the same series of beliefs that birthed it? Instead of making and breaking New Year’s resolutions, why not simply skip them and make effective goals year-round?

First, why does making major life changes seem more important at the beginning of the year? Instead of perpetuating this thinking, adopt instead the notion that you can make any change at any time simply by setting an effective goal. Not only does this offer you many more opportunities for improvement, but it also grants more chances to succeed which, in turn, makes future success even more likely.

Effective goals should be specific and measurable. Simply saying “I will be happier in the coming months” is not sufficient enough. Instead, determine what specific changes are necessary to achieve said happiness, as well as how your progress can be measured.

Good goals must also be both attainable and realistic. Setting a goal that is beyond your abilities will result in automatic failure which, in turn, will encourage cycles of negative thinking. By ensuring that your goals are actually achievable, you can not only reverse such cycles, but can also build future successes on today’s goals.

Finally, good goals must be time-based. Deciding that you will open a business or write a novel is not very helpful if you’re perpetually procrastinating. In fact, this is little different than setting no goals at all. Instead, by deciding that you will achieve the goal within a specific timeframe, you not only encourage yourself to take regular steps, but you also grant yourself another mechanism by which to evaluate progress. For instance, if half of your a lotted time has elapsed and you haven’t achieved at least half of your specific and measurable results, then perhaps your goal should be re-evaluated and adjusted to remain effective.

By making your goals specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-based, or SMART, you will have unlocked a tool more powerful than can be had with any simple New Year’s resolution. Furthermore, these tools are available to you not just on New Year’s Eve, but on every other day as well.

It is very easy to make goals during moments of inspiration, then to forget said goals later. As such, it is usually helpful to keep a pen and paper handy for when such moments strike. Even if your initial thoughts don’t fit the above criteria for good goals, they may later be more thoroughly fleshed out during times of contemplation.

Learning how to set effective goals and to clearly chart your progress is an incredibly useful tool that can absolutely revolutionize your life. With such keys to empowerment at your disposal, why would you ever make another New Year’s resolution again?

Autoresponders Can Drive Your Business

If you started a new business, you don’t have a lot of time, but one of the things you do want to do to make your business successful is to build a relationship with your customers so that they’ll keep coming back. To do that, you need to share information about your business regularly, but it’s difficult if not impossible to send personal notes to each customer all the time about new products and services available, and just to say, “How are you doing?”

This is where autoresponders can help. Autoresponders give you the ability to send customers regular information, and to follow up in customer service and other matters automatically, so that you don’t have to spend all your time writing emails. In addition, autoresponders are also great at sending out scheduled information on a regular basis over time, so that your customers aren’t inundated with a bunch of emails from you, which could get you blocked because of spam.

Let’s take a look at a couple of the ways autoresponders can help you drive your business and put it at least in part on “autopilot.”

Establish brand and market presence

If you want to become well known as a business and therefore attract customers, you need to build a brand and market presence, where you’re going to be easily recognized by people. To do that, though, you need to stay very visible in the marketplace, most especially when it comes to your current customers. (Potential customers as well can utilize this information, through word of mouth and Internet searches.)

That’s where autoresponders come in. Autoresponders can automate this “branding” process, so that every time someone sees an email that comes from you, they’ll know it’s some sort of valuable information specific to your brand. Used wisely, autoresponders can make you more recognizable in the marketplace, because they’ll keep you “out there” and visible without a lot of effort from you.

Keep customers up to date

As stated previously, you can’t sit down and write a personal note to every customer every time, but you can keep customers up to date on new developments, products and services by sending out an autoresponder message every time something happens that’s going to affect your established client or customer lists. This frees you up to spend more time in your business and with your customers individually one-on-one as needed, which again is only beneficial to your business and its prosperity.

Use them for customer service and order confirmations

There are times, of course, when customers are going to need your one-on-one, personal attention for a particular problem. However, I’m willing to bet that 90% of these types of emails are simply orders that need to be filled and then confirmed with the client. By using autoresponders to send order confirmations, you’re letting customers know that their orders have been received and are in process. With that taken care of automatically, you can focus on filling orders and meeting your customers’ needs — and growing your business — instead of these mundane things that simply can be taken care of with an autoresponder.

One final caution

Autoresponders are a great tool, but use them wisely. Don’t “spam” customers with useless information or tons of information on a regular basis about “new and improved” products. Your customers will simply turn you off, quit reading your emails, and may even go away altogether. Use your autoresponder sparingly and wisely, so that your customers know they’re really going to benefit by reading your autoresponder messages. Done right, though, your autoresponder can give you the extra time you need to make your business even more profitable.