Using Media to Your Advantage When It Comes to…

When you decide to start up your own small business, you probably have one main goal in your mind: making sales. After all, this is what generates profit and keeps you out of the red and in the black. No matter how much you are invested in your products and services for their own sake, you’re going to rely on sealing deals to keep your company going. So, how can you help keep these figures rolling in and boost the cash flow of your company? Well, as we are all well aware, there are various things that you can do. Advertising is more advanced, more widely distributed, and more easily accessible than ever. It is no longer limited to leaflets, posters, and billboards. So, for now, let’s take a look at using different types of media as a means of advertisement. Use the following advice as a springboard directing you in the right direction!

Videos

Video advertising is the next big thing when it comes to raising awareness of your products and triggering desire in your potential consumers. But What sells video production? Well, in short, it helps you to sell a lifestyle to your consumer. You can pose an alternative reality to them. One that’s within reason. But one that would be incomplete without the product or service that you’re selling. The best video campaigns tend to be discreet. They use beautiful people in beautiful places enjoying themselves. Then they subtly incorporate your product or service into the scene. Not only does this introduce consumers to your product, but it helps them to see what it could help them to achieve in their lives. Not only will content greatly influence the success of these types of campaigns, but style and aesthetic are indispensable too. So, know your target audience. Understand the type of lifestyle that they want to lead. Help them to understand and truly see what you can provide them with!

Social Media

Social media is becoming an increasingly commonly used means of establishing a brand and selling products. More and more people are creating social media profiles for personal use, and if they’re directing a lot of their attention to social media, you should be on there too! Not only is this a free means of advertising, but it’s extremely effective too. You get to curate your own feed, thus establishing your brand’s aesthetic and showcasing your products in the best light possible too. You can even post short videos to show them in use or demonstrate what they can do. The beauty of social media is that it also provides a point of contact between you and your customers, as they can comment on your products or send direct messages. It’s also an easy way to spread awareness of your brand, as they can tag their friends in posts too!

These are just two forms of media that you can easily use to your small business’ advantage. So try them out sooner rather than later. They really can help to get things up and off the ground!

Commercial Crises (And What To Do About Them!)

If standard procedure when a crisis occurs in your business is to tear your hair out and panic, it could be negatively affecting your company. In fact, knowing how to deal with a disaster in the right way can make the difference between success and failure in the business world. With this in mind, below you will find a short guide on how to deal with the most common business catastrophes.

You are understaffed.

Not having enough staff due to illness on a busy day can be a nightmare. That is why it is essential you nip the situation in the bud as soon as possible.

A tactic that you can use to help you solve this crisis is to use a payroll app that each employee can download. This app can then be used to disseminate information about shifts that need to be covered instantly, as well as any changes in the rota patterns that you have to make at the last minute. Something that can ensure you rarely have to deal with last-minute understaffing issues ever again.

There’s a crisis at your location.

I’m betting that your business location is the heart and soul of your company. It’s there you will find all your stock and equipment that lets you do what you do. Therefore, if something happened like a fire that means you no longer had access to this location it could quickly send things into chaos.

Luckily, you can prepare for this by using a workplace recovery provider. These are businesses that provide equipped office spaces in case the worst does happen. Spaces where you and your employees can get on with the day to day tasks of running the business, even though your location is not accessible. Check out sites like this to get more info on this type of service. Remember, planning for a crisis in advance can help minimise the effect it has on your company!

Your supply chain fails.

This is something that the UK arm of the fast-food chain KFC could tell you a little about! Yes, they are a chicken restaurant that ran out of the fowl above. Something that wasn’t too great for their sales or PR, although their marketing team did have an inventive way of getting the public back on side as you can see below.

However, it is always best to not get into such a situation in the first place and to do this it is vital that you pick a reliable supplier for all the essential items and resources your business needs to function.

It is also crucial that bills to these suppliers are paid on time, as late payments can cause delays that will have a knock-on effect on your business. Also, if you are considering changing suppliers as KFC did, do your research on the new company first, and check that they can come through on what they are offering you. Otherwise, you may end up with egg on your face (or is that chicken?) just like Colonel Sanders UK troops did!

Improving Your Website Conversion Rate Made Easy

As a business owner, the majority of your time is spent analyzing different facts and figures surrounding your company. There are so many different rates, margins, and stats that you have to contend with. Amongst all these things is your website conversion rate. This is a vital statistic that shows you how successful your website is at taking all your traffic, and getting them to do something.

A business can convert traffic in many different ways, it all depends on what your aims are. For companies that sell products online, you may want to get your traffic to make a purchase. Other businesses may just want their traffic to fill in an online form with their details, or download a copy of an ebook, etc.

Regardless of what you’re trying to make your traffic do, it’s so important that you have a high conversion rate. Otherwise, you’re just bringing in traffic and getting nothing in return. It makes all your efforts to improve web traffic completely pointless! Well, you’ll be pleased to know that improving your conversion rate can be very easy. At least, it’s easy if you follow the points in this guide and implement them right away!

Target The Right Keywords

The first thing you should do is look at the keywords your business website is targeting. Are you as specific as can be, or are you targeting more general keywords relating to your industry? This is important as the more defined and targeted your keywords are, the more relevant your traffic will be. Keywords are such a vital part of every SEO strategy so you might want to review which ones you’re using and try to focus on the most relevant ones for your business and target audience. As a quick example, imagine you run a business that makes and sells wedding cakes (random, I know, but it’s a good example to use!). Here, you might target keywords like ‘cake business’ ‘fresh cakes’ ‘wedding food’ and so on. In which case, you may attract traffic from people that aren’t necessarily looking for wedding cakes. They might just be looking for fresh cakes, click on your site, and leave because they don’t need a wedding cake. Instead, focus on keywords like ‘wedding cakes’ ‘wedding cake supplier’ ‘homemade wedding cakes’ and so on. This will draw in an audience more likely to be interested in your business, making conversion a lot easier.

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Create Dedicated Landing Pages

There are a couple of ways people will end up on your website. They may find you through organic search results, or they might click on one of your adverts and get taken to your site. It’s that second option we’re going to focus on in this point. It’s so crucial that you have a good conversion rate from any adverts you place online. Otherwise, you’re wasting a lot of money. The key is creating dedicated landing pages for people to visit when clicking an ad. They’ll get taken to a page that’s set up to help convince them to complete an action. For example, if you run an accounting company and your advert says ‘free guide to bookkeeping’ then you need a page setup that has a download link for the ebook. This means people click the advert because they’re interested in what’s offered, and they see it right away. It’s easy for them to download the ebook, and you’ll make a conversion. Compare this to if you just sent them to your homepage, it would result in a lower conversion rate. They’d have to find the link to the ebook you advertised, and would eventually give up and leave. So, landing pages are an absolute must!

Simplify Things As Much As Possible

If you make things too complex for consumers, then you’ll never convert them. Let’s say you want them to fill in a contact form, but you have endless details they need to add in, loads of boxes to check, and just too many fields for them to pay attention to. They’ll look at the form and think it looks more like an exam paper than a contact form! Consequently, they’re less likely to spend their time filling it in. On the other hand, if you make the form as simple as possible and include very few fields, then it immediately looks more appealing. They’ll see a small form that requires a couple of details, and think they may as well fill it in. You can apply this concept to a lot of other things too; just make life as simple as possible for your web traffic.

Make Them Feel Like They’re Missing Out

Let’s be real here, why would someone complete an action that doesn’t look as though it benefits them in any way? No one is going to buy a product or give you their contact information just for the fun of it. They need a genuine reason to do whatever it is you want them to do. Or else, they’ll just go about their day as normal. The secret is making them feel like they’re missing out. Make your traffic really feel as though they need that product, or they need to download your ebook, or they need to sign up to your mailing list. The easiest way to do this is by simply convincing them with the language you use. Clearly talk about how they’ll benefit from everything, and make them feel as though their life is worse without it. You could also use reviews and testimonials on the page to help with this too. By seeing how everyone else is raving about your business, it convinces consumers that they need to act fast to gain the same benefits.

Conversion rates are often underrated and hidden below the buzz surrounding web traffic. Every business seems intent on trying to get as much traffic as possible. But, what’s the point if you’re not converting anyone? A high conversion rate comes first, and then you’ll make the most out of your web traffic.