Much of the success of a business depends upon the strategies used in marketing its products. Advertising is the strongest marketing weapon. The busy schedule of the 21st century man does not allow him to collect information personally about the products he needs. He relies on whatever he sees around him; or what he comes across during his day’s work.
So, it is necessary for businesses to reach out to the prospective buyers. And advertising does a lot in this regard. It takes the information of the products to the masses that hardly have time to dig out information by themselves. Among various tools used in advertisement, business cards possess unique importance. It is an easy, cost-effective means to reach out to a great number of end users.
Being aware of the effectiveness of business cards in reaching out to more people, businessmen of any stature use them randomly. Obviously, different businessmen dealing in the same products or services are also using these cards. So, how can you ensure that your cards stands out from among the rest and convey the impressiveness of your service or product! Well, there are simple strategies that can make the difference.
Be a little different with your business cards. Do not make them so simple that they become unimpressive and are overlooked by everybody. Neither is it recommendable to make them gaudy and full of colours. Make them aesthetically appealing and simply attractive. Don’t miss out any information, nor overload them with pushy ads.
Be lavish in distributing your business cards. You never know which person is going to buy your product or take your service. So, take every chance of giving your cards to people who you think have the best chance of being useful for your business in the future. Play smart and give it to even those who are in good positions.
About The Author:
Alexa is a successful relationship manager in a leading Public Relations firm. He has written many blogs and articles on how to enhance effective communication in the corporate world. Currently he is focussing on Business cards and Leaflet printing as they are major tools of communication for a company.
Get the feel of online marketing with Behavioral Marketing Integration
Behavioral marketing integration mainly concentrates on the various behavioral patterns of the clients. To be more precise, it can be said that behavioral marketing integration seeks to study the different behaviors of clients based on websites, rather than by page contents solely. Patrons of behavioral marketing target other patrons by addressing advertisements to predefined segments or categories. This strategy can be set up by understanding the data that is gathered from IP information and click stream details. The internet visitor gathers information by visiting various content pages of various web sites. The user is then supplied the advertisements through a ROS placement. The run-of-site placement is not the issue, but the web user’s behavior. Behavioral campaigns can be arranged by understanding the various behavioral marketing technologies. Once this is done, then it can be supplemented with the information that is gathered while you perform a media purchase, which can turn out to be an assiduous task with a significant investment in Information Technology and product resources during the implementation segments.
If a marketer tries to accomplish this with 50 properties, the prospect cost of the different resources may counteract the benefits offered by the behavioral marketing integration campaign. Various network providers can provide you with the admission to many websites with one behavioral marketing integration process. With this, you can easily identify the past website visitors, track the priceless users, and then distribute to the users any number of frequencies in a time span. You can easily achieve this with adequate ease and you will need to have skillful accuracy in achieving the task. In other words, it can be said that marketers and advertisers can draw a lot of advantage as behavioral marketing integration helps in boosting up the nature of advertising dollars.
As behavioral marketing integration can help in track decency, it basically allows marketers to target consumers during a specific purchase cycle phase. Thus, messaging in the right track can focus on where that individual consumer is in the purchase funnel. If a consumer is in the process of buying a car, for example, the process can take 30 to 90 days, or longer. As the consumer conducts online research on the type of car to buy, messaging can focus on the various stages that consumer moves through in the process.
Extensive research conducted by behavioral marketing integration analysts show that the various behavior-based advertisements are eventually gaining more impetus and their performance is much better than the advertisements that are placed in content. TM Advertising in Dallas previously ran an advertisement campaign for American Airlines that included print, radio, television and Internet placements on 14 assorted sites, including a behavioral marketing test on the Wall Street Journal Online. The precise goal was to increase marketing brand awareness and reach the ultimate number of audience members probably to have a live interest in making marketing travel plans in the very near future.
As behavioral marketing integration helps in understanding the way internet visitors act and react while going through the various sites, it seems that behavioral marketing integration is here to stay for a long time and to help in the revolutionizing of the entire concept of online marketing.
Rajesh Kumar is an Internet marketing specialist and has extensive knowledge about behavioral marketing and targeting. To know more about behavioral targeting and behavioral marketing,Behavioral Marketing Integration visit http://www.audiencemp.com
Setting an effective marketing budget
One of the most important decisions that a small to medium-sized business has to make is how much money to spend on a marketing budget. Prospects often ask, “How much should I spend on marketing?” The answer is, “It varies by industry and business size.”
It is also based on how much you want to grow, and how fast.
Both SCORE and USSBA define the variable for a proper marketing budget to be between 2% and 10% of sales, noting that for B2C, retail and pharmaceuticals can exceed 20% during peak brand-building years.
Most companies underspend on their budgets, thinking that not to spend is to save. This, quite simply, isn’t true. You’ve heard it before, and it bears repeating – you have to spend money to make money. The trick is to spend your money wisely on a tailored marketing plan aimed at fulfilling your company’s goals. Keep in mind that your marketing efforts are directly correlated with your revenue, so now is not the
time to be penny foolish.
Budget-Setting Guidelines
There are two main things to consider when setting a marketing budget:
•The brand development or refinement of the brand and channels used to promote the brand. These include logos, Web sites, blogs, email campaigns, sales presentations, brochures, ads, etc.
•The ongoing expense of promoting and advertising your brand to your customer base.
For most small to medium-sized businesses, the percentage of revenue dedicated to a marketing budget is determined by industry and size. Below is a chart showing what we have put together based on several creditable sources.
Revenue Marketing Budget
Under $5 million 7–8%
$5–10 million 6–7%
$10–50 million 5–6%
$50–100 million 4–5%
Over $100 million 2–3%
Here’s an important consideration:
Every industry is different, so companies that sell to specific government branches or one that has an ultra-specialized niche may be able to deduct 1–2% from the above figures. If your company is B2B or B2C, you may need to raise your budget by 1–3% to see solid results. Retail and pharmaceuticals lead the spending, with many of these companies spending more than 20% of net sales. Overall average is reported as 6%.
Many other circumstances will merit an increase or reduction in your marketing budget as a percentage of revenue. Feel free to contact us to discuss this, or visit
http://www.sba.gov/smallbusinessplanner/index.html.
During an initial branding build or a re-branding phase, you should have a higher budget, which can be reduced in the future. This will allow you to contract for all the media you need to make an impactfull brand impression.
Last year, ImageWorks clients spent on average spent between $50,000 and $120,000 building or rebuilding their “brand language.” The broad range reflects business size and industry.
Can I still grow my company with “baby steps”?
Sure. We call this organic growth, and it is how nearly every business starts off. Remember washing cars or mowing lawns for a few bucks? Next thing you know, your neighbor wants it done. That neighbor refers you to another neighbor, and so on. Many businesses grow their clientele on word of mouth alone, and are very successful.
But they usually hit a brick wall. That’s where building a solid branding campaign helps. To rely on partial branding or organic growth alone, you risk losing revenue from business you did not get because X% never discovered you or did not have their interest piqued when they interacted with your brand. Nor can you account for lost revenue from those who perceived your current brand negatively and left your site without you ever knowing it. This is why it is so important to build the brand correctly. Why risk millions to save thousands?
Why do so many small and medium-sized businesses fail?
One reason is that companies do not allocate enough money for marketing. Successful and highly profitable small and medium businesses (SMBs) know how to allocate adequate funding to marketing each year. SMBs realize that marketing, if done properly, brings back solid returns and vice versa—whereas not allocating enough in your budget for marketing could spell disaster. Think of marketing this way: It is a fundamental ingredient for profitability and growth.
For more marketing information, please contact sales@imageworksstudio.com.
Michael Delpierre and Scott C. Margenau, the key principals at ImageWorks Studio, a leading marketing and branding agency, contributed to this article. They specialize in branding and marketing strategies, persuasive content and optimization, and revenue-generating programs for their clients. To learn more about ImageWorks Studio and what it can do for you, visit http://www.brandsthatsell.com/.
