Coaching For Success
Archive for November, 2009
Advertising Online: Preparing for this Holiday Season
Nov 4th
This is best time to have a strong advertising drive, online since the holiday season is fast approaching in the next few weeks. Most of the consumers spend at least 5 hours on the internet daily according on an online survey and that is 40% of the respective media time in comparison to Television, newspapers, magazines, radio, and regular advertising and the internet accounts for typical media for most developed countries. The main key is to buy space on sites that will put your advertising in the correct context, since prospects who go online will see your ad and most likely to act on it.
According to the survey, half of the respondents plan to spend as much or more than they spent online during the previous holiday season. Most of the them also plan to go online early, with nearly a third of respondents planning to begin their online shopping before Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Consumers who go online on or before the holiday season, go there for the following three main reasons:
1. Access to shopping online which is convenient
2. Reviewing and comparing product pricing and features
3. Getting gift ideas.
Not to forget, most Credit Cards even offer attractive cash back offers and rewards as points in certain programs. Online advertisers can take online shoppers cues from this outcome and to support and track their marketing programs based on key online shopping patterns.
When you start looking for some marketing space on different websites, be sure to do your own investigation and ask many questions before you buy. Make sure that the site is somewhat related to your area, and also make sure that they will place your ad appropriately throughout their site so that it gets the attention it deserves.
Your local audience should be targeted the most. The primary key to success for marketers is guaranteeing the ease and speed with which their customers can make a purchase. However, it is equally as important for marketers to precisely predict day-to-day purchasing volumes so that existing order placement and fulfillment processes are reliable. If you have any questions or if you feel you want to leave a comment, please contact us at http://www.theinternetbusinesscoach.co.uk and a business coach will contact you.
How to Plan, Play and Win Online
Nov 3rd
Lots of people start an Internet business lured by the promise of quick riches, cash on tap and more business prospects than they know what to do with, but the truth for most people falls far short of the hype. This does not mean I am implying that riches cannot be made or that there are not millions of prospects because I am not, the truth is that most people starting online follow the bandwagon, suffer from information overload which stops them from being effective or plain old analysis paralysis (analyse everything so never get anything done).
Most good offline business throw all common sense and principles they learnt offline in the bin when they go online and forget that the same principles they applied to their offline business can be applied to online businesses with a few enhancements. The most important of these offline skills that a new Internet business can apply to their business is a SWOT analysis.
For those of you that do not know what it is a SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) is a common strategic practice in the business world. It is a valuable tool and it can be an extremely useful in assessing the status quo and future direction for your business. So it’s important to use S.W.O.T in every business you plan even online.
You should consider all the elements: -
Strengths: – This is what you are bringing to the table, your strengths, what makes your business stand out differently to your online competition. If you have done no research of your competitors how do know you are offering anything different. However your strength does not have to be a difference in product for instance it can be in quality (hint: never base your difference on cost, cheap is not always best and people do not necessarily want cheap). This step should never been under estimated and should be performed to analyse your strengths so that you can grow your business online (Knowledge is power).
Weaknesses: – This is often the hardest part for business owners because most of the time they tend to be blind to the bad parts of their business or the way they work/do business. Now some of you are probably saying you do not have a business yet so this does not apply to me – word to the wise IF YOU are new it doubly applies to you, Why you may ask?
– My question: – how do you grow so your business has strength?
– My answer: – by looking at the possible weakness that can stop you from being successful of course, if you never factor these in you will never understand why your site does not work or worse why you are throwing good money after bad.
We all have strengths and weaknesses and these can translate into the way we do business, but by being honest with yourself and identifying your online business weaknesses you can take essential steps to ensure your success.
Opportunities: – Identifying an opportunity may be the best reason to take action; as soon as you find an opportunity that currently fits with a model you can use or understand in your area of expertise you can apply it and take action now. Opportunities will not wait for you to take action it will just go to the first past the post (your competition will not wait for you, neither will the opportunity). It is really important to quickly analyse whether that opportunity is the right fit for you an example could be you have found a unique niche (place, position) for your online business product or service, if so you need to explode it now so that you can take full advantage of it. Remember you need to assess every possible opportunity regularly for your business growth.
Threats: – Sounds awful doesn’t it! But its not that bad a threats is often in form of competitors, however change in consumer behaviour or economic issues can also be major threats. Some threats may already exist in your business that you are aware of, others may become real threats in future to how you operate online. All threat types need to be researched in order to optimise your long-term strategy for the future safety of your business. Don’t let the threats you identified prevent you from taking action, if anything they should encourage you to take action in a specific way as they have helped you identify which direction to take to ensure you are heading for a successful online business.
Every successful business or person who have made their fortunes online have learned to use and problem use a S.W.O.T analysis in one form or another to grow their business and save it from current and future threats. The old adage ‘if it ain’t broke then don’t’ fix it’ truly applies to SWOT analyses it is as important online as it is offline and should be a must use tool to aid you in your online success, if you are not sure how to perform a SWOT analysis and would like some help do use the contact form on The Internet Business Coach homepage for help.
Benefits Of Oursourcing
Nov 3rd
Outsourcing has several advantages that can give your business a competitive lead over others. For large businesses it is a very good idea to consider outsourcing their accounting work since it has been known that the cost of maintaining an accounting department is very costly.
In times of economic ambiguity, outsourcing approach for your business can help you to successfully reduce costs while industrializing your potential for the long haul.
Outsourcing can help you address your liquidity issues, improving your growth in the market, and cash flow. This helps your business come into view from the recent recession into a stronger competitive situation. The advantages of outsourcing are shown below:
Reducing Cost
According to statistics, businesses that outsource their services have positive impact on their bottom-line performance. This is because the operational cost has been brought down drastically as compared to employing the local staff to do the same job. Getting access to high-quality services at a cost-effective price is the biggest benefit that you can get while outsourcing.
Getting New Projects done quickly
Outsourcing can help your business to start a new project in a very short time span. If this was done in-house, it may take weeks and months to find the right team, training, and giving them support. Besides this can also help save on distribution centers, rent, and any capital investments, since the initial process can be difficult to start with.
Helping the core business
You will discover in outsourcing that will help your managers set their priorities more clearly with more time and with less effort, since it shifts the focus from tangential activities toward work that serves the customer. Businesses are looking for a service provider with wide competence, magnitude and past performance for success that they can trust to help them navigate the dramatic changes they need to make.
When you outsource all the non-core functions in your business you will be free to give attention to core business and your team can be put to better use.
Outsourcing is more viable for small business owners to opt for local service providers as opposed to foreign outsourcing company and not only that it is cheaper to do so, there is no need to deal with long distance business relations. If you have any questions or if you want to hear from us, please contact us by visiting our website, www.theinternetbusinesscoach.co.uk and one of our business coach will get in touch with you.
How To Target The Right Market
Nov 2nd
In this article we will look at how to find a market that would be hungry for your service or products in your Internet Business. To attract clients, we need to focus on what the customers need, and not lose focus on market demands. In fact if the product resembles your competitor’s, then pricing will be an issue, and it is tough to build a successful brand. Once you get to know this, you can get people from all over the world, and you can be reasonably assured that you internet business will do well. Here are the main factors that you need to check before you target a market.
A Large Target Market
The first thing you need to check if there would be enough people to buy your service in the target market, which can sustain your businesses model. This can be achieved by finding the organization and other groups that the target market may belong to.
Is the target market Hungry
You may not enjoy the industry, but because you know there is a lot of money out there, you target a specific business market. Besides if you have discovered that market is lethargic to your products and service then you need to do something about it. Once you have checked about the current products and services available, then rest assured you know the market is hungry.
Will the target market pay enough
This means that you will be charging a price that which will be greater than that of the cost of production. If it costs more to manufacture your product, and the target market is willing to pay you only a fraction of cost price, then you need to recheck your product. A research on the target market will help to see how much are they charging and also checking the pricing tends.
Besides you need to create compelling ways for customers to buy your product, especially when it speaks directly to their needs. Unless we create an excitement and interest with the prospect and target market, you would lose the link of confidence in them which means that you’ve got to get interested in that part of the business which the target market wants.
If you found that this article has helped, The Internet Business Coach would love to hear from you. So please feel free to leave a note or comment and a business expert will reply back appropriately.
