An Introduction to Experiential Marketing

By Horace Tait 

job, jobs, career

Experiential marketing differs from more traditional forms of marketing fundamentally because it encourages and promotes an interactive process through physical contact with a brand or product. This fundamental difference can be taken further when asserting that experiential campaigns interact with the consumer on a far more personal, individual level than massive media campaigns. The result of this personal, interactive contact is a greater emotional attachment to the brand or product, leading to increased conversions from relatively little financial investment.

An experimental marketing agency offers something wholly disparate from regular media advertising. This form of advertising; such as the television advert as been losing its effectiveness for some time, perhaps down to an overcrowded marketplace, a greater consumer awareness of advertising techniques or just cynicism amongst the consumer public as a result of constant advertising bombardment. The difference is that experiential entices the consumer to connect, whilst not coercing them into engagement.

The uses of this type of marketing are diverse and have myriad benefits for businesses; some of the uses include:

• Raising awareness of a brand or product.
• Building relationships with customers and increasing loyalty.
• Creating positive memories of the brand or product that in turn leads to word of mouth.
• Creating hype around a product or brand amongst a specific target audience.
• Undoing past negative PR through positive reinforcement.

Experiential marketing does however have limitations, it is rarely used for large scale campaigns, national activities are usually too big due to budgetary restraints whilst international campaigns are extremely rare (although not impossible). These larger campaigns are usually combined with more traditional campaign to make the most of the experiential events.

Events will normally work best in areas where large number of people are situated or pass through each day. To achieve a successful campaign the selection of a location is vitally important, as is ensuring that the staff are well equipped, amiable and professional. A good experiential marketing agency will be able to not only create effective experiential ideas and campaigns but should also be capable of managing the campaign so that achieves the greatest reach within budget.

How to Advertise Your Products With Promotional Items

By Matthew Zande

job, jobs, career

There are countless ways to advertise your brand or the line of services you offer but one of the most tested ways is to give out Promotional Items. Handing out promo merchandise has been used by companies to promote their products because it is proven that clients use these items primarily since they are free. Not only do the clients appreciate the thought behind the act, but they also like the idea that they are valued as customers.

Give Away Wearable Items

One of the most popular items to give away is clothing or wearable items. Companies like giving them away because of its capacity to endorse the products for a long time and clothing Promotional Items are highly visible. With one tee shirt, you can reach as many potential clients as you can especially if the one wearing it is exposed to populated areas or loves to roam around town. There are several fresh and cool wearable items that you can choose from. You can opt for caps, hats, sweatshirts, jackets, and hoodies among other things. If you would come up with an attractive tag line or print, you can be sure that your promo clothing will not go unnoticed.

Give Out Everyday Essentials

Your target clients may already have tons of coffee mugs at home or on their office table but surely they won't mind receiving another coffee mug for a promo item especially for people who want variation and those who love collecting items. You can also give away pens and other common but essential items that would make your client's day easier and more convenient. These types of Promotional Items may be ordinary and are usually taken for granted as they are always around but getting these small items from your client's everyday life would definitely be difficult. One good thing about these items is that they are useful to your clients. They also only require a minimal amount of budget allocation compared to other items.

Give Out a Variety of Promo Items

In order to keep your clients from losing their interest on your brand through the Promotional Items you provide, you should make sure that you give them different items per season. Do not saturate your clients with the same items and avoid being predictable. If you gave out calculators last season, perhaps you can give them towels or some other items this time.

Building a Brand and Sharing Your Unique Selling Proposition

By Daniel Hall

job, jobs, career

A book is the ultimate form of one way communication and helps with building your brand and sharing your unique selling proposition (USP). Every writer has a brand of some type. Christopher Moore is a writer who built his brand around innovative and humorous books about all kinds of wacky characters and he has legions of fans and gets to write and live anywhere in the world that he chooses.

You can build a brand in the same sense with your book. Maybe you're a Svengali when it comes to acquiring financing for a small business and now you're showing others how to do it if they want to start a small business or how to get another loan so a business owner can keep their company afloat.

Now a unique selling proposition is something that you set up and sells something that is completely unique to your business. Maybe you offer some type of program that has more bells and whistles than you can shake a stick at. Maybe you offer personalized one on one training at a reduced rate for your clients or offer expert analysis on a sales letter. This is all relative to what your business actually is and only you are going to be capable of figuring out what USP will work best for you. But there is no doubt that you will make more money if you use a book to build your brand and come at your customers with a totally unique selling proposition.

One of the other big advantages to using a book to build your brand is once a book enters the stream of commerce it continues to build your brand and communicate your USP without further effort. In fact, when they are really good some books seem to take on a life of their own. That is, they make it to places and into hands of people that never could have been reached without the book.

Top 10 Techniques to Optimise A Business for Sale Advert

By Simon Burge

job, jobs, career

When submitting your business for sale to the many directories and advertising boards on the internet, there are a number of techniques you can use to help optimise viewings, attract the right buyers and ultimately get inquiries coming in thick and fast. By following these top 10 tips, you will ensure your advert gets seen more on search engines and directories than competing businesses for sale and get that sale done and dusted faster.

1) Detailed, Accurate Titles

The first thing any visitor to one of the many business for sale marketplaces is going to see are the titles of countless listings. I have lost count how many times I've seen nondescript, anonymous titles used in business for sale adverts and in the most part, these businesses spend months floating around these directories with very little interest. If you are selling a cafe in Washington, don't simply submit a title such as "Cafe for Sale" - add some meat to the bones!

If you have a specialism or something that stands you out from the crowd, then make some more noise! A title with more definition will attract far more interest. Examples could include "Successful & Profitable Cafe for sale in Washington". If you sell fresh baked goods or health food, try to include these details such as "Health Food Cafe in Washington For Sale" or "Specialist Fresh Bakes Goods Cafe for Sale in Washington". Make the search for your business as easy as possible.

2) Use The Right Categories

Many business for sale listings are fed out to countless other external websites, directories and portals using RSS and XML feeds. Without going into the overly technical details of how this works, for the most part they feed all of the listings using the categories in the database. Poorly categorised business listings will simply get lost in the mire so take the necessary time needed to find the ideal category that directly reflects 'exactly' what your business does. Don't just use the first one that comes along and think 'that'll do' - it won't do. You're wasting your time and your money.

Even if it takes a few minutes to find, those few minutes are totally worthwhile to ensure your business for sale listing is placed in the most suitable category. Some websites even allow you to list your business in multiple categories. If this option is available to you, use it! Don't overlook a perfectly good opportunity to increase your reach and your exposure. If you can add your listing to three categories, use all three. Even if you can't find any exact matches for your additional categories, find one that is as close as possible. Any extra exposure is good exposure.

3) Location, Location, Location

It's common knowledge these days that most internet users are getting wise as to how to find search results that are far more accurate and appropriate to their needs. 'Localised' searching is now the norm and anyone looking to buy a business online will use the country, location and/or general region as part of the searches. If you advertise without adding the general location or at least some form of reasonably accurate regionalised placement, you could miss out of a huge amount of interest.

If confidentiality is key, it's understandable that you don't want to declare your exact location but it's safe to assume that you can at least declare which country and state you are in. If you can add the town, do so as this will optimise your listing down to the town or city name on searches and will attract the right people in the right locations.

4) Be Descriptive, Not Lazy!

So many business for sale listings are let down by laziness when it comes to the description of the business. It amazes me how many businesses go onto the marketplace with very little information about them. What does that say about the business owner? Not a great deal I tell you! If your stats are telling you that your business for sale listing has had lots and lots of views, yet you have very few enquiries come through about the business, what does that tell you? It says your business for sale listing frankly sucks!

Don't start blaming the website owners, the economy or just plain bad luck. Review your listing and see where it can be improved. No doubt the description will probably need to be improved and rewritten. If you aren't that great at writing then get some help, but make sure you describe the business you are selling in full as buyers will without question, want to know this information. Describe everything from the product or service you offer, to your premises, your successes, accolades and achievements. Make your business as desirable as possible. Your advert is the first stages of the 'big sale' so don't let yourself down with poor writing. Take the time to get it right and you WILL get enquiries coming in.

5) Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!

Pictures tell a thousand words and it applies just as much here as it does anywhere else on the internet. Take Ebay for example. How many items have you bid on that didn't contain a picture in the listing? Very few if none I suspect. Do you honestly think someone will buy a business for several thousand dollars that has no pictures to speak of? No chance. Even if confidentiality is key, try to find a good picture that will help enhance your listing and describe the product or service you provide. Pictures help buyers to visualise the business and add a huge amount of confidence and legitimacy into the business that is for sale. Pictures really help and stats prove that users click far more on search results that contain pictures over those that don't. Try it out and you'll see a massive difference.

6) Honesty In Your Facts

Any discerning business buyer will scrutinise over every little detail. No matter how desperate you are to sell, always be honest in your details, especially financial figures. If you are unsure as to how to prepare up any figures for a business for sale advert, then seek the assistance of a professional such as a business broker or an accountant. They will know who to draft up accurate figures for submission such as your turnover (sales), profit and loss.

7) Realistic Asking Price

Another common stumbling block and mistake that sellers make is their asking price. Go too high and you could put people off. Go too low and you could sell a prized asset for pittance. Calculating a reasonably accurate asking price for a business is a specialist skill and unless you are familiar with the workings of these kinds of calculations then you would be wise to seek the assistance of your accountant or a professional broker. Either way, you don't want to be short changed or priced out of the market. As the golden rule states, your price can always comes down but going back up is never an option.

Users tend to search for businesses within a certain price range so consider this point when pricing up your business. You ideally want to fit within these boundaries so that potential buyers find your listing based on asking price alone.

8) Contact Details

If there is the opportunity to submit your contact details such as telephone or cell number and your email address, publish them and ensure you make yourself as readily available as possible. You'll find that you will get quite a few enquires via telephone however email is an ever popular way to contact sellers as it leaves a certain level of anonymity. If you are asked to submit your email address to any directories or business for sale market places, ensure their systems strictly use forms instead of publishing your email address as text. You don't want to encourage spam being sent to your inbox and by having your email address published, this is the quickest and fastest way to getting your email address adding to spam lists which is a nuisance and waste of your time - no doubt you'll start to get countless emails trying to sell you Viagra! Having to trawl though messages to find ones that are actually useful to you is time consuming and annoying.

9) Preparation

Before diving in head first and going off to the numerous websites and directories to submit your business for sale advert, get all of your material ready in the first place. That includes all of your figures, images and most importantly your business description. By preparing your material first, you can have it checked and read by friends to get the opinion first, allowing you time to perfect your work. Then once your text is all written and spell checked, all you have to do is copy and paste it into the forms at the websites you decide to use for advertising your business for sale.

Most of the mistakes highlighted here in this list are made by those who don't prepare their work beforehand. By simply heading off to the websites to get started, they feel rushed and so end up submitting a short and nondescript listing which is poor in quality and lacking in any real quality. There's no prize for getting your listing online fast so take your time and get it right beforehand.

10) Link Building

Inbound links and link building is the key to how the internet works. Without them, search engines wouldn't be half as effective as they are today. If possible, add links to and from your various listings and if you can why not try to place links back to your business for sale listing on places such as the social networks, forums and bulletin boards? Using tools such as these will help to spread the word faster. Sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are extremely powerful tools so if you have the means to use them, start submitting links on them. They're free after all!

It goes without saying that the more exposure you have, the better chances you have of more interest and a quicker sale. So decide where and how you want to advertise your business for sale and try to get into onto as many websites, directories and portals as you can. If you want to optimise your chances, this is the single best thing you can do to get maximum exposure and ultimately, a sale.

Market and Grow Rich - 3 Simple Marketing Tips That Could Earn You a Fortune

By Reynor Buenaflor

job, jobs, career

One of the greatest skills that an entrepreneur could learn is how to market his own products or services. Most businesses failed because they have it backward. They spend 80% of the time managing the business and 20% of the time marketing their business.

Marketing is the lifeblood of the business. No sales means not having any income at all.

However, it is not only about the quantity of hours spent doing marketing that is the issue. It is about how effective is your marketing process.
Here are 3 useful guidelines that can guide you in marketing your products or services.

1) People hate to be sold but they love to buy. 

How many times have you reprimanded and turned down a sales person who keeps on bugging you with their products or services. They call you, stalk you and hound you as if there is no more tomorrow. Begging, stubbornly selling and bullying customers will not work long-term.

One of the best techniques in making a sale in the 21st century is by educating your customers about their needs, presenting them different solution and allowing them to make the purchase decision.

In the process, you become experts in their eyes. Your customers will ultimately reward you as they see your product as one of the best possible solutions available in the marketplace.

2) Appeal to emotions before appealing to reasons.

Buying is an emotional decision. Why do you buy another set of coats when you have 10 of them in your closet? Why do you buy another BMW when your garage is full of 7 other cars? The reason is simple. It feels good. Logically speaking one car is enough.

Your marketing message should appeal to the heart and not to the head. Your marketing message should trigger some emotional response. I am not talking of outrageous claims or creating hypes.

Appealing to the heart is an art. It means helping your customer to picture out the benefits of buying your products. It means helping them to visualize how your products or services can make their life better as a result of their purchase.

Always make your marketing campaigns appealing to the buyer's heart and emotion.

3) Use the Magic of Relationship.

Referral is like a magic thread. As long as you keep on following this thread, it can open doors of business opportunities. It can bring in new accounts.

I strike a business deal with a profitable restaurant owner whose manager is a friend of one of my employees.

We normally want to buy from friends and not from strangers and referral can do wonders.

Reynor Buenaflor is an engineer, an entrepreneur, business mentor and a writer.
His passion for business draws back in his formative years under the guidance of his entrepreneur parents. For the past 10 years, He has successfully launched several startup businesses.

He enjoys spending time with his family on his free time.