Promotional gifts are a very popular way to market your brand and gain exposure in the wider world. Many companies create and send out free or paid for gifts to promote a myriad of things. For example, Aldi sells Kevin the carrot toys every year as a celebration of their famous Christmas adverts. If you are thinking about branching into promotional gift giving and aren’t sure if you are making the right decision, let us try and persuade you…
1. Invoke brand loyalty
When building a business and trying to make it successful it is important to think about building an arsenal of loyal followers. This is one of the benefits of sending out promotional gifts from Dynamic Gift as people appreciate companies who invest in items for their audience. By giving a gift to your customer you will make them happy and they will in turn be much more likely to choose you over one of your competitors. It might seem fickle however people are people and this is one of the easiest ways to win over your audience.
2. Build a connection
Offering promotional items can do much more than get your logo out into the world, it can allow you to build a real relationship with your audience. Let’s take an example of this such as KFC. To celebrate the summer KFC created an inflatable pool float shaped like the colonel, and this came complete with a holder for a bucket of chicken. By knowing their audience and what they want, KFC built a clever item that many of their customers will use and enjoy, and therefore build fond memories associated with the brand. By being clever with the items you send, you can build a real life relationship with those who buy from you. This in turn will ensure that they always come to you when in need.
3. Use it to build passion
Another way to make sure that your customers continue to buy from you is to offer products that send a positive message. There are many pressing issues in the world which can be treated, and by creating a product to solve a problem or show that you care, your customers will develop and emotional connection to you and feel passionate about supporting your brand over others. For example, Butterfly Conservation is a trust to support butterflies and moths in the UK, and when they send out monthly magazines, the plastic wrapping is made from biodegradable starches. Instead of throwing away excess plastic you can instead use it to store peelings before placing in the compost bin. This small change to packaging shows the ethical stance of the organisation and will help form an emotional connection to the audience.
4. Reward customers for buying from you
A sure fire way to make sure customers buy your products is to offer them the chance to win something if they shop with you. Mountain Dew is a prime example of this, where back in 2004 they offered customers a chance to collect ‘dew points’ with every purchase, where 500 would allow the customer to receive a limited edition green Xbox. Rewarding your customers by providing tokens or points towards a free product is a great idea and will ensure that people want to buy from you again and again.
Business management is stressful, especially if you’re new to the management world. When you’re in the process of launching your own company, you face a long and twisted path of self-doubt, anxiety, and mood swings. It is the journey of every entrepreneur. While you’ve – hopefully – prepared a strategic plan to guide you through your progress, the strategy is no help to your mental health. Indeed, building your first company is an emotional rollercoaster that can make you feel inappropriate. Creating the foundation for your business is a labor of love that takes a lot of dedication and effort. But, more importantly, it’s a path that exposes your vulnerabilities. As an entrepreneur, you have no choice but to go through and try to keep a cool head. Thankfully, you don’t need to let emotional challenges distract you. There is plenty of practical support available to take your worries away.
You wish you had more time at hand As a solo entrepreneur or the owner of a business with a small team, time is your most valuable asset. It is also the asset that is the most likely to slip in between your fingers. Indeed, you can’t afford to waste your time. However, the resource is limited. You need to prioritize income-generating operations over other time-demanding tasks. As a result, you are likely to fall into the habit of working long hours to catch up with your to-do list. Working against deadlines is stressful, but it’s a lot worse when you try to do everything simultaneously. Outsourcing is the best solution to maintain your sanity: You can’t keep your productivity and concentration for an extended period. More importantly, you are not a superhero. Your days have only 24 hours, and no, regardless of how hard you try, you can’t do everything. Accept your limitations and find an outsourced partner for support.
You wish you were more creative Bringing a new brand to the market is demanding. Getting noticed doesn’t happen overnight. More importantly, unless you are a professional marketer who understands the challenges of creative visibility strategies, you’re unlikely to make it work. Indeed, as an entrepreneur, you can feel you have to be the creative force within your business. However, unless you are specially trained, you are likely to build unimaginative campaigns that won’t appeal to your audience. There’s an essential question about in-house vs. agency: When should you outsource your marketing? As a rule of thumb, outsourcing is the best solution for companies that struggle to attract their audience.
You wish you knew what to do next Things change all the time. The market is a moving force that doesn’t stay still for long. In other words, the observations that have driven your strategy may not be accurate anymore. Entrepreneurs need to inject flexibility and adaptability in their day-to-day routines. However, when you’re new to the business world, making sense of a constantly evolving environment is not easy. But don’t let your fear of the unknown handicap your movements. When planning doesn’t show the way forward, knowing, and understanding your audience offers support. You can keep in touch with industry data through Google stats and Census data information to figure out your next move. Additionally, a supportive network of contacts can prove helpful in times of doubt!
Anxiety and stress can drive you to extreme mood swings when you’re launching your company. Nothing can preserve your sanity more than surrounding yourself with dedicated professional support on your way to success.
There’s a need as a business to be connected with your customers more now than ever before. With so much competition to look out for, a customer could change their minds and go with a different supplier or company without even batting an eyelid. So with that in mind, here are some tips for connecting with your customers online.
Use Social Media
With social media, there’s a lot that you can be doing to interact with your customers. Most people now have a digital presence, and most of those people with a digital footprint will also have at least one social media platform. Every social media platform performs differently, and therefore, you want to find out where most of your customers are. You can tell this by how much interaction it might already be getting on those social feeds, regardless of whether you are currently on those platforms or not. When creating your social media profiles, make sure the brand logo is being shown off so that your customers know that it’s you. You can use social media to have a more in-depth and personal interaction than you usually would with more traditional formats of communication like e-mailing, or phoning. So find out what social media platform is most popular for your company and then work on improving that platform to get more followers and more interest in your brand. Welcome every person that follows you and provides a mixture of professional and more relaxed content. Be consistent, and always respond to your followers.
Know Your Audience With Data
There are plenty of software platforms available nowadays where you can find out information about your audience. Like user research software, this way of finding your audience data can be extremely beneficial. Audience data is like a gold mine for any business because what can be done with it has the potential to help tailor content and products or services that the business creates. By knowing exactly what your audience likes and doesn’t like will help you, in theory, to sell more of what you’re selling. There are plenty of ways that you can access this data, but be wary that you’ll need to have the right disclaimers in place to ensure that the customer is happy for their data to be used. Data is a powerful thing, so if you can understand it, this will help you become more familiar with your audience, and it can help build relationships. That’s something you really want to achieve when it comes to connecting with your customers online. You want to be able to build relationships so that customers become loyal not just to the business but to the products or services that they’re buying. If you have the perfect product, then why waste your time going anywhere else?
Respond To Concerns Directly
When a customer complains, a business may have ignored some complaints, but now that the online world is here, that’s not possible anymore. Why? Well, because if a customer is going to complain and they’ve not heard back from you over email or phone, then they’re going to express their dislike for your company in the public domain of social media. It’s a space where you can speak freely, and it’s not something that others can delete unless it’s going against the rules of the social media platform. When you do receive complaints or a clear message directed to your company, respond to them directly. Not only does this show to others that’s your responsive, but it also tells the customer what the protocol is when it comes to a complaint. A lot of people like to complain for the sake of it, and this approach might whittle down those who are just doing it to try and get something to those who have been genuinely messed around.
The more you can do for your customers, the better. It’s important to go that extra mile for them when you can and have the ability to do so. It shows commitment to your customers and that you care for them which will be seen by everyone else who’s watching it via the public nature of social media.
Make Your Interactions Less Scripted
It’s important that when you’re interacting with customers online, you’re doing it in a more conversational manner, rather than something that’s scripted. No one likes talking to an automated robot, and the same goes for those who are clearly working from a rehearsed script. So with that in mind, when you’re responding to people via social media or you’re commenting on things that are said about a product or a company, be personable in your response. Make it more about having fun with the conversation, rather than it having to be too professional.
Throw out the script and bring in something more loose and fluid. Obviously you want that professional manner of what needs including, but in regards to what is said exactly, this can be down to the individual who is responding on behalf of the business.
Have Plenty Of Communication Options Available
No customers will like the fact that you only have an email to get in touch with or just the one avenue of communication. It puts out the feeling that you’re not a company that likes communicating with customers or has any decent customer service. That’s probably not the case but you’re not doing yourself any favors by being unapproachable. So provide as many communication options as possible. From email to phone, postal to online webchat. There are many ways you can offer customer service, so use as many of the above as you possibly can. Don’t forget direct messages on your social media handles too!
Connecting with your customers online is what’s going to make them stick around and to spread the word about your company, hopefully. So create those social media profiles, work on customer communication options, and don’t forget to be personable in your approach to talking to customers online.
The goal of any business is to expand and grow. Most entrepreneurs enter into running a business with a vision of what that might become, and growth is often necessary for survival in a highly competitive marketplace. Many businesses can stagger along for a while at a sustenance level, but that’s not what most leaders want – and certainly not what any investors want. Boosting a small operation into something profitable that generates consistent income, contributes to the local economy through providing employment and custom and serves customer needs is the ultimate end result that you should be aiming for. And for this you need one thing – a growth strategy. Working from your original business plan, a growth strategy bridges the gap between where you are and where you want to be, and with careful planning and some added investment, can pay dividends.
Growing Your Existing Market
This is the most applicable growth strategy for a lot of businesses, especially ones who have strong relationships with customer advocates, a good understanding of the market they operate in and a good niche in what they do. Don’t make the common mistake of immediately thinking about how to get new customers all the time when your existing customers are the best bet for maximizing your sales. It’s a much greater return on investment if you can get people who already understand what you do and are happily buying from you to increase their spend or branch into new products or services. Customer retention is a very cost effective strategy, and whether that means winning new forms of business from existing clients or increasing the average basket spend on an ecommerce website, it’s a tried and tested form of business growth that should be your first port of call.
Develop a Referrals Scheme
Second only to increasing business with your existing customer base – Getting them to recommend you to others! Although there’s no reason why these two complementary strategies can’t be used together. The best recommendation for your business to someone who hasn’t dealt with you before is a glowing review from a customer that they know. So setting up an incentivized referral scheme is something that should be top of your list for consideration. Actively seek referrals out by using tools on your website and social media to make it easier for others to share what you do – and add something for them into the deal. Leverage the power of social media and let your customers spread the word about you, or use testimonials as a key part of your marketing strategy.
Extend Your Reach
When you’ve set the two strategies above into motion, you can move on a third front – extending your market reach. This is a big shift that generally requires preparation and investment. You might find that you need to scale up systems and processes pretty rapidly if this takes off – everything from taking on additional staff to purchasing or hiring new machinery, expanding your office space, taking on virtual services to help you with business support processes such as chasing up invoices or accessing customer data – the exact nature of it depends on your business. It may involve opening new physical locations, or even virtual ones like an online shop. You should support this move with a targeted advertising strategy that drives up brand awareness and conversions within new customer segments to generate more demand. Often with this strategy it can be a little chicken-and-egg – you need the growth in sales to fund the expansion, but you need to expand to service those additional sales. So be prepared to seek out growth capital funding to give you some financial breathing room while your business makes the expansion. If you have a solid business case and some proof of the demand, then aim to leverage relationships with existing funders, or target a specialist growth funding provider for support. This move takes a lot of careful planning, but it’s one which can take your business into another league.
Focus On Reducing Costs
This one may seem like it doesn’t belong on the list, but actually contraction is a form of growth. Because what you are trying to do is increase profit and grow your bottom line – and that can be done without expansion. The difference between pre and post tax profits can be a huge one, which makes constraining costs a highly effective growth strategy – and one that can be combined with others on this list. You may look at liquidating products which aren’t performing well or cutting loss-leader service, or you could focus on improving your inventory turnover. Either way, a well-thought out cost containing strategy can equal growth on paper which can prepare you for an expansion by creating more working capital to expand in another direction.
Hiring a new member of a team is always a challenge and it can be an exciting part of running a business. If you are looking to hire a new team member for your business this year there are a lot of tips and tricks to take on board.
One of the most important things you can do during the recruitment process is to perform certain background checks on candidates. Background checks are a great way to check important information such as social security number (SSN trace), criminal convictions, and drugs.
Today we are going to run through some of the top reasons why you should perform some background checks on all candidates this year.
Criminal Convictions One of the most popular background checks that is performed is a criminal record check. As an employer it is important to trust the person you hire, as once they work for you they will have access to your business data as well as acting as a representative of your brand. In order to trust an employee, it is crucial that they don’t have a criminal record that could impact either you directly or your reputation if found out. Of course, some companies will give convicts a second chance to change their ways, but it is still important that you make an informed decision.
Reduce Your Liability Risk Think of your business like a child that you must protect from harm. As a ‘parent’, you would never leave someone you don’t know in charge of your child or allow them to interact with your child. You should apply the same principle to your business and perform background checks to get to know who your candidates are. Building a picture of the person you look to hire can sway your decision one way or the other and it is crucial to do this. For example, a social media check may uncover that a candidate is abusive, rude, or racist online and this makes them a huge risk to your business’ reputation.
Protect Your Employees Another important reason to consider performing background checks on your employees is to protect those who already work for you. It is your responsibility as a business owner to protect everyone who works under your roof, and this will likely include performing checks to understand what a candidate is really like.
Verify Education It is a simple fact that everyone lies a little bit on their CV. A white lie such as being able to play the piano or knowing two languages can often be overlooked, but if a candidate lies about having a degree that is relevant to the role this can be a big red flag. Ensure that you perform a background check on candidates to verify the education they have received and this will make a huge difference to your business.
Peace of Mind Honestly? The best reason to perform background checks is to give you some peace of mind. Hiring is a tough process, and it may help you to have that extra confirmation to show you that your decisions are the right ones.
