Category: Small Business Marketing

Posted on

Get out of your comfort zone

This is the perfect time of the year for you to check what habits you are going to get rid of in 2016. Which habits impact your growth and stops you to become what you are meant to become. As entrepreneurs we tend to get in the way of our business and sabotage ourselves. Make decisions that will really impact your results and get out of your comfort zone. This is the only way you will really be able to create new habits and achieve the wealth you are reaching for. If you don’t get out of your comfort zone, you won’t grow. It is that simple

Get out of your comfort zone

Posted on

As a Company, Do you Listen? A Halloween story

I’ve been using social media for many, many years. I know I joined Twitter in 2007. It says so in my profile there and over the years I’ve advised several businesses on how to get results with social media. Unfortunately, up to this day, what I see is most businesses using social media as a broadcasting tool, pushing content, pushing what they think and pushing annoying selfies more often that anyone can digest.

It is a rule that if you want to mesmerize an audience or group of people, get their attention and loyalty, you need to become relevant to them. Well, that is very hard to achieve if you are the only one talking and never listening. It is also very hard when you don’t pay attention on what matters to others and how they tend to behave. You really just spend time, get no results and will end up  joining the “Social Media Doesn’t work” group.

Some companies do get it though. They listen, they act and make bold moves. All according to what is relevant to the people they serve.

A few days before Halloween my daughter told me this story about one of her friends.

This friend has 2 little daughters and was asking them what costumes they wanted for this year when one of them said:

“I’m going be a fairy panda bear!”
“Do you mean a furry panda bear?”
“No, mom. A fairy panda bear.”

Cute and funny. So her father gets this tweet out:

“Our 3 year old decided what she wants to be for Halloween. I hope Amazon has a wide selection of Fairy Panda Bear Costumes!

A few hours later this happened:

amazon's tweets

And a few days later:

amazon halloween costume

 

Fairy-Panda-Bear-Toddler

 

Now, any company could put this together right? But only if they were listening and really participating in social media. Not just wasting time saying how great they are. Amazon did way more than make one little girl happy. They got a whole family to become loyal customers, the kind of customer that would give them a big hug every time they click on the buy button and a whole legion of the father’s followers to see the company in a better light.

They got me to spend my time thinking and writing about them. They became relevant, way beyond 2 day shipping. They reached me on an emotional level.

Simple, inexpensive way to become relevant by listening and acting. This is something any company could do.

But Amazon does not stop there. They don’t follow the herd either and they take bold actions. Something all businesses should do. Stop the excuses and act without fear. But most of us, just want the mass to validate a move before we take a step.

This week Amazon announced its first Brick and Mortar store. Yes, the giant online retailer did not join the crowds saying “Retail is Dead“, it put its money on a traditional model. That is bold and wise. Why rely in only one outlet of revenue when you don’t have to? Do people shop in different ways? Does Amazon sell to different generations? With different behaviors? If so, why not adapt to their behavior?

What about you? What are you waiting for?

Posted on

Did Barbie finally Got it?

At least in this ad Barbie finally got what girls are about. Very clever marketing here. Now it needs to spread to the shelves with career oriented Barbies and to the videos with other messages besides boys and fashion. Imagine the possibilities here. But as a stand alone marketing piece is a very clever way to appleal to today’s girls. We all need some re-branding every now and then.

 

Posted on

5 Ways To Engage Millennials At Work

5 Ways To Engage Millennials At Work

by Xavier Roy-Perras

Millennials are an interesting bunch, and they’re surprisingly easy to engage at work.

Many people over complicate what they’re looking for and have false stereotypes about them.

They’re not entitled, they’re not spoiled, they’re definitely not lazy.

In fact, since they grew up with the internet, they’re one of the most resourceful, knowledgeable, and capable group of workers.

All millennials really want is to be respected (just like any generation of worker), and to be taken seriously.

You should take this seriously, because by 2025, 3 out of every 4 workers globally will be Millennials.

Being a millennial myself, here are 5 ways that I guarantee will work to engage millennials at work.

1. Ask For Their Input

Don’t think that just because they’re younger than you that their ideas don’t count – trust me, they do.

Ask them for their ideas, you can even use a tool to collect these ideas. There are many tools that can do this, some more robust than others, but realistically you’ll want to start with a simple and free tool to test the waters.

Remember, the point of this is to increase employee engagement among millennials.

2. Be Transparent

Millennials, because they grew up with the internet and live on social media, are used to an incredible level of transparency.

They expect the same type of transparency at work, which is not normal for most traditional workplaces.

No one works well when they don’t have all the information for context, but especially millennials. They value that trust relationship so much more than others.

3. Offer Flexible Schedules

Did you know that 45% of Millennials would choose workplace flexibility over pay? Use that to your advantage, and offer them the ability to live and manage their life around their work.

Again, this all comes back to trust and respect. Trust them that they have your company’s best interests in mind and that they don’t need to worry about asking you to go for a doctor’s appointment.

4. Give Frequent Feedback

Everyone wants frequent feedback, but millennials are especially after frequent feedback.

For them, everything is instant. Netflix, Google, Social Media. This generation isn’t used to waiting around for anything.

You need to keep that in mind with work. Their attention spans are near zero, so you need to be consistently engaging them in a conversation.

5. Use Technology At Work

Millennials won’t respond well to outdated technologies or processes at work.

There are so many tools that you can use to help increase transparency and communication at work.

Slack, Skype, Facebook, Google Hangouts, any of these tools will do, but you need to remember that all millennials want is quick access to information and an easy way to get answers that they’re looking for.

You’ll notice that most of these ways are free and relatively easy to implement. All it takes is a commitment from leadership to help this group grow.

One of the biggest issues is the misunderstanding of who they are and what they’re like. Once you get past that and remove any biases you might have, you’ll be good to go.

Posted on

Millennials Mostly Talk About Brands Offline.

Online recommendations might be as influential as in-person ones, but the vast majority of word-of-mouth (W-O-M) impressions about brands occur offline, at least among Millennials (18-34). That’s according to new figures released by the Keller Fay Group, which show that some 84% of Millennials’ word-of-mouth impressions about brands take place offline – with 71% the result of face-to-face conversations (versus just 3% over social media).

Not surprisingly, digital media acts as more of a W-O-M driver for Millennials than for other adults, referenced in 25% and 19% of impressions, respectively. (Of note, social media takes a backseat to brand websites and internet ads within the digital media category.)

Second to digital media is TV, referenced in 17% of Millennials’ brand word-of-mouth conversations and 18% of all other adults’ (aged 35-69), suggesting that TV remains a force with this cohort even if they’re watching less than older generations.teenagers online

Understanding how and why brands are discussed in Millennials’ conversations is particularly important given research suggesting that word-of-mouth has a high degree of influence on Millennials’ purchase decisions and tends to act as a bigger influence on consumers than any paid or owned media.

Posted on

Advertising to Baby Boomers

There’s tremendous logic in advertising to Baby Boomers in the US: they control by far the largest share of discretionary spending of any generation, and they are heavily reliant on advertising as a product information source.

Yet only a small portion of advertising dollars are targeted to them, with many Americans complaining that advertisers fail to cater to aging consumers. Marketers must also overcome obstacles, such as Baby Boomers’ skepticism about advertisers’ trustworthiness.

A report released in late 2012 by Nielsen and BoomAgers estimated that less than 5% of advertising dollars are targeted to adults aged 35-64. In other words, an even smaller portion of advertising dollars are aimed at Baby Boomers – and many Americans indeed note that advertising fails to cater to aging consumers.

Despite some Boomers’ use of smartphones for shopping – which is mostly limited to search (66%) rather than applications (4%) – they estimate making 74% of their local purchases in-store. That compares to an average of 56% among the 18-34 bracket.

Points to Remember When Marketing to Boomers

  • Boomers are at a time in life when they really don’t want to compromise their authenticity.
  • For Boomers, process is at least as important as the end result. They want “the ride.”
  • Boomers like to inspire others. Help them feel helpful.
  • Boomers have been around long enough to know there are few absolutes, little is black or white.
  • Accentuate personal style over rote action or blind ritual.
  • Boomers are oriented to the human dimension, that’s the only real thing. They can see the humor in most situations.
  • What Boomers really dislike is felling put upon by arbitrary power, feeling trapped, conned, boxed-in, and being thought of as one of the masses.
  • Boomers are both creative and conservative (“A beautiful garden is wild and tended”).
  • Boomers go for what gives voice to things they are thinking and feeling, but haven’t fully worked out yet.
  • Boomers respond to what stands out by its presence, not its loudness; and what shows them it really listens and, therefore, understands.

In its recent list of Top 10 Consumer Trends for 2010, trendwatching.com identified several trends that closely match with Boomer trends. These include a need for companies to be transparent and honest about their efforts to conduct environmentally sustainable business practices and genuinely collaborate with their customers rather than try to dictate to them. In addition, consumers are increasingly using social networks as part of everyday life and respond well to products and services which have a charitable component.

Ear and marketing

Posted on

Are Young People Watching Less TV?

Nielsen’s most recent study indicates that Americans aged 18-24 watched a weekly average of a little less than 22 hours of traditional TV during Q1 2014. That was a 95-minute drop-off from Q1 2013, which in turn had been down by 80 minutes from the year before. In fact, in the space of 3 years, Q1 TV viewing by 18-24-year-olds dropped by a little more than 4-and-a-half hours per week. That’s a substantial amount, equivalent to roughly 40 minutes per day.

Traditional TV viewing among 18-24-year-olds in Q1 2014 was down by almost 7% year-over-year.

The decreases in viewing might reflect increasing consumption of over-the-top video, although it should be noted that the Nielsen data indicates that time spent watching traditional TV still exceeds online and smartphone video by a considerable margin, even among youth. Indeed, research suggests that online video tends to largely act as a complement rather than a replacement for traditional TV, at least for the time being.

 

 

Posted on

The Best reasons to create an information marketing business

entrepreneurial mind

You have seen businesses out there that besides the main business they also sell information products: CDs, DVDs, Training etc. When we get what we have inside those 6 inches between each ear (our brain) and package as a product we have an information marketing business.

An information marketing business can be a business in itself or a side business that compliments your main business. It can be a nice 6 figures business. You can cater the information to your existing customers or to people in your industry that would like to do things the way you do.

CDs and DVDs are some options but you actually have dozens of other formats to sell information including training, live events, online courses etc.

It does take some work to create and market the products but the return on your investment can be quite high. There is no magic but information when well packaged always sell.

Over the last 10 years I have created tons of information products for my main business, for side niches and to my competitors. Why not? There is a lot o money with our competition waiting for us.

I’ve done the same with several clients. For example, Phil D. came to me several years ago with an idea of an e-book to help authors market their books. We first turned that into a full training program called “Publishing in a Box” and then into a membership site.

 

Phil later offer that box program to a printing company which was later turned into a program for franchisees and a whole revenue model called “Book to market” for that company.

I believe it takes the same amount of effort to create something small as it does to create something big so why not go for big?

The fact is that information marketing businesses last and can be done in any industry from coaches to dentists to carpet cleaning.

That is why I love it so much. Just by packaging what you know you could easily double your exisiting business.

There is a process here: You need to pin point what type of information you have that can be sold.

Package the information in a way that is proprietary to you.

Find the best format to deliver

Market.

Not too much but it can bring so much.

Why not start the second half of this year creating something new in your business and a whole other source of revenue?

Talk to me.

Posted on

Majority of US Internet Users to Use a Connected TV by 2015

The number of US connected TV users is rising rapidly, and next year, the majority of internet users will go online via such a device. The connected TV audience is set to more than double between 2013 and 2017 as double-digit growth rates continue.
eMarketer estimates that more than 113 million people—35.5% of the US population and 45.0% of internet users—will use a connected TV regularly this year, and in 2015, the majority of US internet users will access the internet through such a device. The connected TV audience will post double-digit growth rates through 2017.

If you are a content creator and you are not scared of a camera, you should consider star your own TV show before it is too late.

Check more info here

connected tv