Business

There are 627,000 businesses formed in the US every year, and most of these are in a small handful of key sectors. So, when starting a business, not only do you have the economy, the customer, and your unique offering to contend with, but you also have several competitors. Standing out with what you can offer using your personality and the basis of your brand could help you not only beat your competitors but solidify your unique product proposition, while also attracting a loyal set of customers. But, how can your business stand out from the crowd in an increasingly saturated market?

Keep Your Business in Check

One of the most upsetting things for businesses is when everything is going swimmingly, and they suddenly begin to unravel because things weren’t done by the book. This could be in relation to social media, where you are investigated for improper data usage on platforms like Facebook, or it could be as simple as not adhering to policies you have said you would, such as environmental ones or transparency around finances.

One of the main ways you can protect yourself and make sure that you stand out through this transparency is through the proper insurances. As online business insurance quotes suggest, this can range from general liability insurance to insurance specifically for professional errors or omissions. Being fully insured tells customers that if there was an issue, everyone would be protected in order to solve it quickly and efficiently. You can take this further and ensure you are fully accredited in anything to help give you further expertise to help you stand out. This can act as a trust signal to customers about the quality of company you are.

Be Bold

Standing out as a business can mean so many different things, but the businesses that attract our attention the most are the ones who are bold in how they let us know they are there. For instance, Imperfect Foods stands out because they offer the same food at a lower cost just because the products are shaped imperfectly, while the company also makes significant environmental pledges. College Hunks Hauling Junk became immediately recognized as a removal company and one whose playful and obvious messaging sticks in the brain.

Nordstrom, meanwhile, has become a force for good customer service, which helps it stand out through the often over-the-top ways it treats customers. Another such example is Dental Bliss, which changed a standard dentist business into one that resembled a spa, which helped customers place it higher up than a regular dentist and also helped remove some of the unpleasantness of going to the dentist.

Standing out as a business not only gives you freedom to further innovate, but also allows you to attract customers in a more natural way. You can do this in two simultaneous ways. Firstly, ensure that your business is in check and known for its trust signals, such as full insurance and any other licenses it may need. But you also need to be bold and show that you are more than just a company that will stand in line with your competitors – you need to show that you can stand out.

 

You’ve seen the snaps of freelancers working while gazing across Bali’s most beautiful beaches; you’ve heard about writer’s who set their own hours and live where they want. Only one question remains: how do I do that too?

The digital nomad lifestyle is an attractive dream for many, but it’s not that hard to make it a reality. You don’t have to be a writer, endless online job opportunities exist, such as:

• Programming/coding
• Virtual assistant
• Graphic design
• eCommerce
• and many, many more.

Whatever career path you chose to take, there’s one tool that will help your business growth exponentially. Having a website is an essential pursuit for any online freelancer.

Here’s why:

Diverse Marketing Hub

If you’re a freelancer, you may have had the following problem when constructing your résumé. With so many projects in short spaces of time, how can you present your achievements without producing a veritable novel for your employers.

Having a website is a modern solution for a modern problem. It allows you to showcase all of your work in a fun, aesthetic, and interactive way. A prospective client is much more likely to click through numerous pages of a site, than they are to leaf through several pages of a résumé.

Here are some tips for creating a marketing hub that grabs attention:

• Create a brand personality, with color scheme, logo and cohesive font choices.
• Use multimedia to avoid banal, repetitive pages.
• Give your proudest projects the prime space (i.e. on the homepage)
• Create a logical navigation system to find your way around the site.
• If any of your work occurs offline – e.g. events – create blog style posts documenting the experience.
  

  Centralize Social Media Correspondence

Social media is a powerful promotion tool. In fact, most freelancers find clients via this method. The problem is that not all social media is created equal; audiences differ massively, and it’s worth targeting them all.

Consider these statistics.

• 68 percent of users prefer Facebook as their primary social network
• 35 percent prefer Instagram
• 29 percent use Pinterest
• 24 percent use Twitter.

This doesn’t even begin to cover job-specific social media, such as LinkedIn, Upwork and Fiverr. Maintaining accounts on all these sites so they actually benefit you is an incredible time investment. You have to be active, platform specific and relentless to grow your following.

The benefit of having a website is that it can act as a central resource to which all your social networks point. Instead of providing in-depth content on every platform, you can include short snippets and links to your website. This way, you can target a wider audience while streamlining your workload.

Establish Online Presence

Finding clients online is largely down to being visible. While social media provides you some visibility, it only really promotes your services to those in your network. Having a website gives you the opportunity to pop up in Google searches.

By creating relevant articles and posts around keywords in your industry, then you can target your content to search engines. This process is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and is a tactic used by most website to increase their visibility.

Creating articles is also a way to demonstrate your authority on a topic. If a potential client reads a in-depth post written by you, which shows you understand their niche, then they’re more likely to trust your services as a freelancer.

Establish Trustworthiness

While visibility is important, it’s not the only factor for securing new clients. Employers need to know that they can trust you to produce high-quality work in a timely manner. One of the best ways to establish this trust is through reviews and feedback from past jobs.

On your website, it’s easy to set up a form where happy customers can leave their thoughts on your experience. Alternatively, you can copy and paste feedback you receive on other platforms – like Upwork or Google – and link to the original source.

Jumpstart Your Freelance Career Quickly

According to FreeTrain, over one billion hours of freelance work was completed in America per week this year. If you want to get a slice of this pie, then you need to establish your position as a trusted, well-known remote worker.

Having a website comes with numerous benefits, including:

• Marketing your skills and abilities
• Streamlining your social media correspondence
• Promoting your services in Search Engines
• Proving your legitimacy

If you are yet to create your own website, now is the time to start.

 

 

 

Outdoor marketing is often viewed as conventional and archaic, and trails behind digital methods of advertising. Although most people have the impression that advertising outdoors has lost its appeal, it is not entirely true even today. On the contrary, companies are aggressively using outdoor ads to gain brand recognition and are creatively marrying digital channels with conventional marketing methods.

The primary reason for the success of outdoor ads is that when they are done right, they are a powerful tool in affecting a person’s judgment towards a brand. If you realise how outdoor ads affect your impression about specific brands, then you understand that it is not outdated but still an appropriate and effective form of advertising.

What makes outdoor advertising effective?

Many people spend hours every day outside their homes. But grabbing the attention of people while they are outside is quite tricky because you only have a few seconds to make an impression. The power of outdoor ads is in their inevitability. Unlike digital ads which you can choose to close, billboards and banners will be in the same place for a while. If the ad is compelling, you cannot avoid it, and therefore it becomes a lasting reminder about a brand. To determine which type of outdoor advertising to use for your company, consider this list of the most effective outdoor marketing strategies to use.

Point of sale display

A point of sale display is usually found in-store close to where customers check out. This type of display is useful in catching the attention of customers as they line-up to pay for the products they bought. This type of advertising is highly targeted, which allows you to promote products and services and encourage the buyer to consider adding more to their purchase list. The most common type of point of sale display is a pop up banner or roller banner which you can quickly move to different areas within the store. Many retail stores use displays to inform customers about promotions, product launches, and deals they can benefit from.

Billboards

Perhaps the most impactful type of outdoor advertising is a billboard prominently displayed over thoroughfares and buildings. Billboard advertising today has become innovative with the help of technology. Gone are the days when billboards were mostly composed of print and graphics. Today, you can see digital billboards and moving billboards that are eye-catching and contain witty messages.

Transit advertisements

Public transportation is another popular location for outdoor ads because of the high foot traffic and captive audience. These areas where people spend time waiting are perfect for advertising because the constant exposure to your brand helps with recognition and recall. Technology has also played a significant role in innovating transit advertising.

Similar to billboards, transit ads today are a variety of static and digital messages effectively promoting all kinds of products and services. From train stations and bus stops, including wraps placed on transport vehicles like buses and taxis, you can choose which location is most suitable for the message you want to convey to your consumers.

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Independent companies have reliably assumed a noteworthy job in monetary development since they make such a significant number of occupations—a lot more than vast organizations. In the initial three financial quarters of 2014, reports the SBA, independent companies included 1.4 million new employment, 39% of which were from private ventures (with less than 50 individuals). As you can envision, independent company was key for the country’s recuperation from the retreat. Between the center of 2009 and the center of 2013, 60% of the employment made were from private companies.

There are 6 small business growth statistics that you should keep in mind for your company to do well on the business front. They shall be discussed later in this article.

The statistics are given here as follows:-

1. Around 66% of business will endure 2 years in business, half of all organizations will endure 5 years, and 33% will endure 10. The more extended an organization has been doing business, the more probable it is to remain in business—it’s those initial couple of years that are the hardest. The Bureau of Labour Statistics likewise followed business survival crosswise over enterprises and reasoned that these measurements are entirely reliable paying little heed to industry.

1. 120 million people work for small businesses. Almost 50 percent of the world is invested in small businesses. Thus man power is an important factor that gives strength to small businesses, and if utilised in a better way, can be used to turn your smaller company into a bigger one.
2. It is a well-known statistic that an incredible 82% of organizations that come up short do as such on account of income issues. Keep in mind that income doesn’t simply mean the measures of cash that are coming in and out: you need to consider inventory, as well.
3. Small businesses have created 65 percent of the revenue in the modern business world. They added many new and vibrant kinds of jobs in this sector.
4. Small businesses have added almost 8 million jobs to the sector, whereas large companies have downsized in capacity due to multi-tasking, technological advancement in the sector etc.
5. However, small businesses are getting a hang of the sector and learning to manage better. Almost 2/3^rd of small businesses claim that they have steady financials as of now and are guaranteed to last longer. This optimistic attitude is very helpful to the industry and is guaranteed to bring in better business ethics and revolutionize the market sector. The market and Wall Street need to be studied properly before larger steps can be taken.

If you just put an online search about the 6 small business growth statistics required for top companies, you will realise that there is no dearth of advice available on the internet. However, what matters is that you utilise the advice that can truly be useful for you.

 

Having the guts and drive to launch your very own start-up is a great achievement in the modern business age. Whatever market you have decided to move into, simply having the bottle to go for it puts you a step ahead of most people out there. Of course, no one said it would be easy! As a business entrepreneur, there are many things to think about when driving growth in your start-up.

From making sure that your customer service is spot on to getting your financial planning down, there will be a list of things to look after when running your own business. One key thing that all new start-ups need to think about carefully is marketing.

Why is marketing so important, and why is digital marketing king?

When it comes to running a successful business, what will make you last for the long term? In simple terms, it is a case of letting people know who you are, what you do, and where they can find your services or products. This will naturally lead to sales, revenue and a loyal base of customers. All of this is achievable with effective marketing.

A key trend within the whole marketing sphere is digital marketing. This is basically any marketing activity that your business does online. With around 4 billion internet users worldwide and around 3.5 billion social media users, the evidence shows just why it makes perfect sense.

Awesome digital marketing tips for your new business

If digital marketing is so key, how do you make the most of it? Before we look at some amazing tips to help, you need to first identify your target audience. Look at the type of people who use your services or would be interested in them. These are who you should be targeting your marketing efforts at to get the best return.

Let’s take a look at the best digital marketing advice around:

• Video marketing – stats released in 2018 show that 55% of the population watch a video online each day. This shows just why video marketing is taking off now and why it should be a channel you use. Consumers are increasingly responding more to visual marketing that engages them on a level that they can feel as well as see. Create top-quality video content to market your services or products to then share via popular platforms such as YouTube.

 

• Social media – another great place to share video content is other social media sites such as Instagram or Twitter. The big social media platforms allow you to market your business on a global scale and to many more people than traditional forms of marketing can. They are also superb at building up your brand and establishing personal relationships with your customers to inspire brand loyalty.

 

• SEO – one very important part of any digital marketing plan is search engine optimization (SEO). This is basically structuring your website in such a way that it ranks higher in the search engine results when people look for the type of service you offer. It also involves other factors such as link building and image optimization. If you know how to do this, then it is well worth it – or you can always get help from a specialist SEO agency if needs be.

 

• Creative content on site – one great way to market your brand and get it established is to have a regular stream of fresh content on your site or site blog. The big bonus here is that this can also be marketed via your social media accounts to drive more traffic to your site and sales. Make sure that you post content that marks you out as an authority in your field and solves problems for consumers. It is also good to show a lighter side now and then to add personality.

Marketing via online ads                                                                     

A major part of many organizations’ digital marketing plan is using online adverts to reach more people. This could be in the form of Pay Per Click adverts, where you construct ads that pop up when people search for keywords in them. The beauty here is that you only pay when someone clicks on them to use your services! Marketing on Amazon can work in much the same way and may be worth looking into – often, using a specialist Amazon marketing agency is wise here to make sure that your adverts are fully optimized.

Marketing online is key for modern business

If you are just starting out on your business journey, then you need to do all you can to succeed. Digital marketing is one way to really help here and reach as many potential customers as possible. The sheer number of consumers who hang out online now means that you simply cannot miss out on the chance to market your services to them there.

There are a lot of ecommerce stores out there that specialize in lifestyle products. You, however, believe that you offer products and services no one else does, and therefore consumers should turn to you. How do you let them know of your existence, though? How can you raise your voice over the online cacophony? If you want to draw new customers to your business and retain old ones, you are going to have to pay attention to the details. Here are a few ways to optimize your lifestyle brand.

Make your website beautiful and functional

Your website is the digital equivalent of a brick-and-mortar establishment’s physical space. You cannot adorn it with paintings and plants, but you can make the UI and UX design aesthetically pleasing and seamless. No one wants to have a challenging time navigating a website, so put in necessary efforts to improve how users will experience their time with you. Make sure it’s fast, too: slow loading times can have a significant influence on who stays and leaves your site.

Pay attention to the details when it comes to your product images and copy. Product descriptions should be intriguing, proofread, and paint a picture of what your merchandise would look like in someone’s life. Your photography can do something similar: because you are a lifestyle store that sells products people typically like to see and feel for themselves in-person, you can use pictures to fill this need and give them an idea of what using their orders would be like. Videos never hurt, too—they’ll enhance your legitimacy and put you ahead of your competitors.

Streamline the payment process

How annoying is it that when you are online shopping, the retailer requires you to enter information on multiple pages and maybe even create an account in order to purchase? You want to find your items, add them to your cart, enter payment information, and expect them on your doorstep in three to five business days. If you have to go out of your way just to pay for something, you might be inclined to find similar items somewhere else.

Do your best to streamline the payment process to avoid online cart abandonment. According to Baymard Institute, an average of 69.89 percent of virtual carts are abandoned amongst 40 other studies from major companies (like SaleCycle, Adobe, and IBM). Don’t make life hard for your customers. Make the transaction process simple and accept multiple forms of payment (such as wire transfers, eChecks, and Bitcoin).

Keep your brand consistent

Don’t spread yourself too thin. It’s tempting to appeal to as many people as possible, but being slightly good at multiple things won’t attract customers who prefer to go to businesses that are very good at one or a few things. Reflect your commitment to your niche in your branding, too—expert Carolina Rogoll says:

“Consistency pays out. Frequent exposure to the same brand identity and message helps increase brand recognition and awareness. If you have a well-defined and managed brand identity combined with messaging that’s compelling and executed consistently, your media investment will also have higher returns and go further in building the strength of your brand.”

You might be able to leverage your personal brand. If both your personal and business brands are intertwined with one another, what boosts one will hopefully prop up the other, but what drags one down will certainly do the same with the other. People like to do business with companies they know are run by people (as opposed to faceless corporations), so remind customers that you are, indeed, a person who wants them to have the best experience.

Make sure your products are high-quality

You would hopefully not be in business if you wanted to sell products that are anything other than high-quality. If you are using the drop shipping model and not making products yourself, however, the decision is not always up to you. To provide the best merchandise possible, you need to find the best drop ship lifestyle suppliers available.

Vet any manufacturer you consider partnering with. Are they ethical? What are their materials made of? What are their locations compared to your highest concentration of customers? If something goes wrong, customers will contact you, not them, which means you will need reliable allies to avoid damages to your brand and a world of headaches.

Lifestyle e commerce is a competitive landscape, but offering the best shopping experience possible will help distinguish you from the crowd and keep customers coming back. How will you optimize your online store?

For professionals, if neither a café nor a restaurant is an option, it is quite tricky to find a decent place to meet up for business purposes.

There are countless websites for you to seek a great space for business appointments, but too many options might make it difficult for you to find the right place.

Below are 10 tips that will help you make the right choice to prepare for your next successful business meeting:

Lighting

Lighting is a decisive factor to make sure people in the meeting are alert. It is also wise to find a meeting point with natural lighting to help reading the printed documents clearly. To find a proper option, Venuefinder is a good platform that will help shorten your time when searching for meeting rooms in Manchester.

Size

The size of the meeting room decides the intensity of the meeting. If there is a group of 10 people holding a meeting, then it is important to think about how to fit in all of them to engage the process of conversations.

Decoration

Apart from the size, the decoration of the meeting room also decides the mood of the discussants. Imagine how it changes people’s moods when they see a Georgian terrace with ornate fireplaces and high ceilings.

Package

Business meetings can be boring and long. If it is a full-day meeting, then usually the convenors will arrange meals in between meetings. Considering it might be a meeting that crosses all three meals in a day, then it has to be three different meeting rooms with three different meals, creating a sense of freshness that will help to accomplish great business deals.

Spacing

Not only does size affect the quality of meetings, but the spacing is another factor beyond the size of the meeting room to take into consideration. A small room can elicit a sense of space if it has a minimalist setting; a big room can seem to be crowded if it is filled with art installations and paintings.

Architecture

Needless to say, business also means luxury. The design and architecture of the meeting room can create a high-class feeling. It offers a more isolated feeling from hustle and bustle, prompting a better sense of decision-making.

Location

The location decides the punctuality of discussants. The closer it is to the city centre, the more likely it is for all discussants to be punctual.

Food

Meetings require energy. Making a deal after enjoying gourmets served by a qualified chef is a sheer depiction of altitudes. With good food, any business meeting is guaranteed to go well.

Colour

The right combinations of colours of the meeting rooms dictate the tone of the meeting. Warm colours like beige and red facilitate a friendly deal; cool colours like blue and grey simulate a hard-core deal.

Facilities

Like the tip on the package, facilities are crucial before and after the meetings. Sometimes, the real deal happens before the meeting even begins, or, if there is no deal during the meeting, then a follow-up event will make it work.

New company credits are an extraordinary method to dispatch a fruitful business. Tragically they are some of the time the hardest to get from loaning organizations. Cashfloat on demand New company advances are one of only a handful couple of territories that even the Private venture Organization don’t offer to aid and this turns into a noteworthy obstacle to banks and credit associations making this sort of advance accessible.

The Private venture Organization is an office of the national government with a particular order to help independent company in America. It gives a great part of the subsidizing to business credits made by banks as assurances for these advances. In the event that an obtaining business defaults on a business credit or goes bankrupt the Independent venture Organization will advance in to take care of the bank’s expenses.

In any case, with regards to new company credits, the organization tells banks and independent companies that they are without anyone else. That obviously does nothing to console the banks who are sufficiently anxious about loaning fledging organizations any of their stored gold and it underpins the banks’ own particular tendency to not give new company credits. Keeping in mind the end goal to get endorsement for new company credits the banks will typically require an individual certification from the entrepreneur or a promise of an insurance resource for secure the advance.

Meeting those conditions will just get a business to a respectable starting point with the banks as far as new company advances. After this underlying audit the banks will nearly look at the strategy for success of the forthcoming business borrower and need to be persuaded that the business has a fantastic opportunity to prevail before give financing as new company credits. What’s more they will probably survey the individual financial record and records of the entrepreneur to guarantee that their record does not give any potential peril hints.

The most ideal way is get new company advances is likely not through banks or credit associations by any stretch of the imagination. It is significantly less demanding to get cash from companions or family on the off chance that they have the budgetary ability to help. Another road for new company credits is to acquire accomplices or financial specialists who trust that the business bodes well and need to partake in the incomes that will be made. A third place to search for new company credits is in the neighborhood business network.

There are regularly effective specialists who need to help new organizations to begin and they might be a hotspot for new company credits or they might have the capacity to give references or referrals to individuals who can. There’s no damage or loss of face in requesting assistance from these individuals. Indeed, even the best among them has presumably been turned down for new company advances before and a significant number of them will give somewhat back to help the newcomer on the square begin in the business world.