Opening a business in an overseas location can be an exciting proposition for a business owner. Many business owners have considered a move overseas to further their business goals, but have for one reason or another decided against the move. The following benefits are good reasons why business leaders should consider moving their base of operations to an overseas location.
The business world is not a place for the faint at heart. To dominate a market, you must have a highly competitive business. Otherwise, someone else will surpass your ability to remain the leading company in your niche or industry. The very nature of capitalism is to strive to crush the competition to remain highly relevant as an industry player. So, if you are ready to gain the competitive edge, here are some ways to do it.
Starting an online business is a great idea. In today’s economy, every type of business is online, and some of the most successful ones are exclusively online. Think about Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon. All or almost all of their customer interface occurs in cyberspace. Sure, as behemoths, they now have large corporate offices. In Amazon’s case, they also need warehouses to manage goods, but that’s beside the point. These companies started as online businesses and have never gotten away from that business model.
Your own, brand new online business won’t need a glamorous corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, nor a fleet of logistics workers. This is great because it means your overhead is next to nil. One of the biggest reasons small businesses fail is because of too much overhead. This predicament often causes them to take on too much debt, and, in a short time, the red ink becomes insurmountable.
With that in mind, you can see the advantage of operating out of your spare bedroom or garage. After all, that’s how Apple came into being. Free of large expenses, you can focus on the things that make your business grow. Meanwhile, unlike Facebook, you don’t have to pay teams of lawyers, legions of developers, content monitors, HR people, etc., along with maintaining your buildings, infrastructure, etc., etc.
You do need marketing, and you need it like a thirsty desert hiker needs water. When any business starts, finding customers is the biggest challenge. This was true when all businesses were the brick-and-mortar type. It’s even more true in the online world. As an online business, you lack the benefit of a storefront with an attractive sign that can lure passersby inside. In fact, just getting noticed online is a task that takes a cohesive marketing strategy that must be applied diligently, over and over.
To make it happen, there are five musts. These marketing techniques form your core message. They get you noticed by viable prospects, build a regular audience, boost your reputation, and make you money. As an online entrepreneur, you’ll need a website that sells your business, optimization that keeps people on your website and buying from you, content marketing that resonates with your customer base, search engine optimization (SEO) that gets you to the front of the right searches, and great copywriting.
Online marketing pro Christine Austin notes that there are several experiential musts to create for your users. The expression, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” applies to the online world with far more gravity than the physical world. Online, potential customers can navigate away from your website and forget you forever, all without you having anything to say about it. The only opportunity you have to convince customers to stay on your site comes from its design and content.
Austin explains that visitors should know what your business does within 5 seconds of arriving on your site. The layout should be simple. A blog is a must, and navigating to it should be a snap.
Before designing the website, have a plan. The plan should focus on taking your customers through the sales funnel. The sales funnel contains the steps between initial contact and the purchase. A website, through its design and content, should take the customer, step by step, to the sale.
Once you create your plan and build your website using good basic principles, optimize it. Austin recommends eliminating anything that detracts from your message. For example, distractions may include complex animations, wordy content, stocky images, and jargon. Optimize with social like and share buttons. These help you attract attention! Use call-to-action buttons. These guide visitors from one page of your site to the next, and through your sales funnel. Optimizing for mobile devices is becoming more critical. Ask yourself why someone would visit your website from a smartphone and how to maximize their experience to create sales.
Content can be thought of as the bread and butter of a marketing campaign. While other aspects of the campaign are crucial, without content that sells the product, they really don’t matter. A professionally designed website is great, but without strong content, it’s just for show.
In a Forbes Magazine article, Brian Sutter, a content marketing expert, stresses the importance of influencer marketing. Influencers are people who have an existing audience. Just any old influencer won’t do. You need the one with an audience that fits your target market. Online influencers are all over social media, and they make online entrepreneurs money. Find the ones that suit you.
Also, consider storytelling. This effective content marketing technique makes your business stand out. Great stories arise from how the company started, as well as successes. The key is to tell a story that makes your company shine. People buy products they relate to and believe in. Content marketing creates this feeling, so don’t overlook content marketing’s importance.
To create more website traffic, use an effective SEO strategy. To do this, you’ll need to determine the right keywords. Keywords are words or phrases that your target audience is likely to include in Google or Bing searches. For example, an online title lender in Miami might choose the keywords “online title loans Miami.” Keywords inserted into blog posts, videos, and e-books are very effective.
The content of your blog posts, e-books, and website are your copy. You want it to be snappy, easily digestible, entertaining, and on your message. It should both enhance your SEO efforts and help pull your customers through your sales funnel. Creativity, organization, and English language skills are key. If creating publishable content isn’t your thing, there are many companies that provide writing services at an affordable price.
Marketing an online business requires skill and persistence. It’s important to never underestimate the importance of your sales funnel. Your content must bring people to your website or business, make a great impression, underscore the benefits of your product or service, and provide a call to action that moves them to the sale. Don’t overlook content marketing’s importance. When you offer professional, convincing content, people understand why they need your product or service now.
Employees comprise the most vital resource for any organization. A business is wise to retain loyal, smart, and engaged talent. After all, employees are representative of the company they work for. They are an extension of your brand. How you project your values to your customers depends in large part on your staff. Below are four ways that employees contribute to your business image.
Employees who are customer-facing have an extraordinary impact on your business image. Customers who walk into your place of business or chat with your team on the phone immediately perceive the professionalism of your organization. If the staff appears apathetic or disengaged, it becomes challenging to entice a person to make a purchase. Professional demeanors among workers go a long way in ensuring repeat business as well. This is not only true for face-to-face interaction but for customer service over the phone as well. Sometimes this is the only opportunity that an e-commerce business may get to show their customers how professional and organized the business is. You’ll want to make the best impressions in order to invite the customer to return.
The use of social media to reach customers hasn’t even come close to peaking as of yet. Social media is a fantastic place to gain exposure, interact with potential and current customers, and expose the human side behind your products. It’s one of the best ways to get your company known, and for e-commerce companies, it is essential that you use it correctly from the beginning to bring customers to you. Putting a group of high-performing staff in charge of your platforms can be a great way to project your business image. If a disgruntled employee takes the helm, however, disaster may strike. Knowing how to handle negative feedback, whether it’s from a client or employee, is important and showing your clientele how you respond to such feedback is part of establishing your company image.
Handling a company’s marketing campaign is no easy feat, especially if you have an e-commerce business or are marketing services instead of a product. You must put a well-respected and trusted team of talent in charge if you choose to market to your customers in-house. The attitude of your team members will be reflected in the final result. If your team couldn’t care less about your image, it will show through their efforts. A team who truly cares about the company they work for will always put out a better product than one that doesn’t.
Attracting top talent should be a priority for any company. However, it is extremely difficult to bring in great employees if your existing staff is miserable. Your brand image is projected internally as well as externally. A weak company culture or poor morale can doom your business. This is the same for an online business that has employees working from home in different parts of the world. Keep communications open and encourage feedback from your employees so that you can maintain a great company culture even if you all don’t meet together in an office. Having a vibrant and thriving employee base is critical for sustained success in the marketplace. Training employees to work as a cohesive unit through team-building exercises, results in greater productivity and higher morale. Teams that are truly engaged, committed to a clear purpose, and have a deep sense of responsibility are an unbeatable force.
Remember, your employees are your business. Without them, the ship sinks. Customers will only be treated right if your staff feels valued and appreciated. Your business image is determined by the people who stand behind you; if you develop and engage your talent, they will show you the same respect in return.
Ready to take your business to the next level? Contact us now to reach the stars!
As an employer, it is your responsibility to keep your employees, premises, and equipment safe. Whether it’s again malicious behaviors, hacking and theft, or plain ol’ burglary. When you make an effort to enhance the security of your workers, you always create a win-win situation. You should remove distractions that are likely to undermine the safety of your employees.
Small businesses have to invest in the utilization of the resources that they have to maximize productivity hence profitability. Printing is one of the fundamental activities that every company engages in. You can save a lot of money by ensuring that you use the right printing ink in the right way. The following tips will help you to keep on printing to maximize profits.
Customers are increasingly using mobile apps to get information.
In a world where anything is attainable with just one click, the ideal scenario is to turn your online business into a go-to source where potential customers get answers to all their questions, and much more, all in just one application. Learn more reasons why your business may be in need of a mobile app very soon.
Potential customers are increasingly using mobile apps to get information. Customers dislike having to go to outside sources to answer their questions or feeling second-guessed when searching for facts about your business elsewhere.
The ideal scenario is to have your entire business dossier available right there in your app. This way, customers will not have to switch out of the comfort zone that your app can provide, and they will spend more time interacting with your brand for all their needs, rather than getting information from a search engine.
Apps are platforms for creativity. In them, you can allocate all kinds of fun ways for customers to interact with your brand. These include:
Giving customers these interactive opportunities will bring them closer to your brand, making their experience all the more familiar and pleasurable.
Image courtesy of Simply Mac Repairs
Why encourage customers go to Google to find out about you, when your app can do it all for you? As we said, customers are increasingly using mobile apps to get information. Information-seeking generates enormous internet traffic; this is the kind of participation that you want for your app.
Why detour all those visitors to the big search engines, just because your app cannot answer their questions?
Apps promote more visits and interaction with your brand. More hits to your app mean more visitor traffic which, as previously stated, is exactly what you want to promote yourself without having to buy sponsored ads and banners.
The key advantage of business applications, compared to advertisements (apps over ads), in terms of self-promotion, is transparency. An app is a smorgasbord that promotes all the great things your brand has to offer without the need of the “fluff” language and one-sided dynamics of advertisements.
Image courtesy of TechCrunch
What to include as part of your “app”?
Depending on your business, here are some general sections that customers tend to interact with using mobile apps:
These are just brief reasons why your business totally needs an app.
The mobile revolution is in full swing in the online world. And it is not showing any signs of slowing down. If you want to keep ahead of the market in the coming months and years, you need to understand the mobile revolution and how to make the most of it for your business. Here is what you should know and how to prepare:
The world is continuously changing—with new innovations making work and general living easier. This same technology is changing the landscape of the business world. Now, more and more people use technological devices to buy and sell their products—rather than go to physical business locations.
With a smartphone in hand, mobile applications empower users to complete various activities and tasks from the comfort of their couch. Today, there’s an app for nearly any activity and service you can think of. Big-name brands and businesses may be featured in the app store, but what about small businesses? Here’s a closer look at the benefits of developing a mobile app for your business—even if you’re small.
Uses for mobile devices extend far beyond phone calls, text exchanges, and social media posts. Smartphones are also an essential avenue for the exchange of good and services. With a mobile app, you’re literally putting your business offerings and promotional materials in the hands of your customers. Need more reasons to develop an app? Here are other compelling benefits to consider.
Embrace the Mobile Age
This is one of the main reasons why a small business should have its own mobile app. It should come as no surprise that the number of people who own mobile phones is increasing worldwide. So using a mobile app will help your organization reach a larger number of people around the world.
As a savvy business owner you should take steps to embrace this era and take your business mobile. By doing so, you’ll put your company in line with other multinational organizations that have mobile applications.
Prepare for the Future
It appears that innovations in the field of mobile devices and applications are not going to stop anytime soon. As the days go by, you’ve likely noticed the continual introduction of product and system upgrades. With these advancements, even artificial intelligence and machine learning will operate on mobile applications.
You should ensure that your business has its own mobile app so that it can tap into the benefits that artificial intelligence and machine learning will bring to the business world. Having a mobile application prepares you for the future, so take your small business to the next stage by adapting to the changing technological landscape.
Enhance Your Brand Image
Due to increasing competition around the world, large multinational organizations are using mobile applications as a means of establishing and enhancing their brand image. Small businesses should also follow this trend and ensure that they have a mobile app that helps them to remain relevant to the modern consumer.
You should understand that the more visible your business is, the more likely you are to have a large number of customers willing to buy your goods and services. A brand that is available through a mobile application has a better brand image than similar companies with less exposure and digital development.
Boost Your Website Traffic
Mobile applications are available either on Apple’s app store or Google Play. These platforms receive millions of visitors on a given day—which is a significant number of potential customers for you to attract to your business.
Having a mobile app in this platform will attract a large number of downloads, which increases the volume of traffic visiting your website. You might also get backlinks from authoritative sites, which increases the number of visitors who can be converted into customers.
Get Customer Insights
A mobile application will offer your small business vital information about your customers, which can help you make informed decisions about your business and marketing efforts. It is through the use of a mobile application that you will be in a position to gain insight into your customer base—including their detailed information, such as age, gender, and needs.
All the data collected through the mobile application will be used in improving your product. That way, you can make changes that will make it more appealing to your consumers. The app will also give you an idea of where you need to spend your time and resources in furthering your marketing efforts. Rather than performing a general campaign that does not offer you tangible results, you can home in on your audience and target your campaign.
Keep Up With Your Customers
Current research indicates that the number of people using smartphones in 2018 will surpass 2.53 billion. These people will not only possess a smartphone, but they will use much of their time during the day interacting with the device. They will buy products, sell products, and interact with other people from different parts of the world through their mobile device.
It is common knowledge that the most important people for a small business are its customers and as a business owner, you need put your business where your customers are. When you have your own mobile app, you stay connected with your customer base throughout the day—it’s like having your business in their pocket.
If you want to stay competitive, then you should develop a mobile app for your business and join the bandwagon of other organizations that have put their business offerings in their customers’ pockets.
If you’re like most businesses, then you have a website where you show off your products and services to potential customers. Your website is also a platform for listening to customer needs and addressing them accordingly. While you may feel confident in your website design, do you know if your website is responsive?
In our mobile world, responsive websites make it easy for customers to navigate the web using different devices. With responsive web design, your website will be just as accessible on a mobile device as it is on a desktop computer.
Websites that have low-response capabilities discourage visitors from staying on their page, which causes them to bounce to other, more responsive websites. Here are the main reasons to have a responsive website:
People are looking for convenience and a positive user experience, so they’ll want to be able to access your site at all times—no matter where they are or what device they’re using.
Businesses operate in an environment where new, more efficient processes replace old, more traditional approaches to buying and selling. Where face-to-face salespeople and brick-and-mortar stores once dominated, mobile applications and websites are now the new normal. For small businesses to survive in this tech-driven economy, they have to go mobile and focus on user experience.
Interested in making your business mobile-friendly? Reach out to the team at Tech Productions to learn more about our website and application services.
References and Resources:
Mobile Device Use in the U.S. | TechCrunch.com
Non Responsive vs. Responsive Websites | Goshly.com
Must-Have Features for a Small Business Mobile App | AllBusiness.com
Why Your Business Needs Its Own Mobile App | Forbes.com
When your website was first created, it might have been designed with computer users in mind. Even though this might seem like the obvious best choice, the truth is that it’s really important to make sure that your website works well on mobile devices nowadays. These are a few reasons why this is something that you should put a focus on if you haven’t already.
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