Sunday, December 19, 2010

How to Brand Your Small Business?

Of course, increasing name recognition is only one aspect of the branding puzzle, but an important one. It is particularly perplexing to a Small Business well known in a certain market, (perhaps where the Small Business originated), but disappointed at the lack of carry over in name recognition upon entering a new geographical area.
So, what can a Small Business do to increase name recognition? Here are some tips & ways you can begin branding your Small Business and increase the name recognition of your firm.
1. Hire a branding Small Business to bring your image and message under a brand. Develop all collateral and image materials (web, stationery, logo, tagline, mission statement, cards, postcards, brochures, elevator pitch, newsletters, letters, project sheets, resumes, bios, firm description, etc.) to coincide with the brand and your message.
2. Develop a mission statement that shows your reason for being and the value you provide to your customers.
3. Develop a memorable tagline that expresses who you are and what you do.
4. Make a matrix of all those you’d like to reach in the next year and the potential influencers on those people. Develop a timetable and calendar of outreach.
5. Regularly write and issue press releases to the media.
6. Regularly write and post press releases to your website.
7. Regularly write and post press releases directly onto the internet.
8. Regularly write articles and do all three of the above.
9. Regularly write and pitch feature story ideas to the media.
10. Diversify all marketing, PR and media to reach the markets where your clients are to be found (as opposed to marketing within your own service industry).
11. Participate (attend, speak, host, present, show) in at least two national and local industry conferences.
12. Create and issue an online or direct mail newsletter to the others for your Small Business.
13. Get known for niche expertise or specific industry knowledge. (speak, write, present, teach).
14. Participate in professional internship programs for your Small Business.
15. Participate and sponsor local charitable efforts; get your name in the program the charitable cause distributes; get your name in the press surrounding the event.

What Will Do a Well-Prepared Business Plan for You

1) It will help you develop a thorough understanding of who your competition may be with your business and if there is a market out there that needs the service or product you would like to offer. This step is what solidifies that you are considering a viable business that will meet your goals and the requirements of financers if you need them.
2) Understand the numbers and expenses of starting up a business. There are so many elements out there that you do not always think about right away. A well rounded, accurate business plan needs to consider the following:
a. Slow times
b. Marketing
c. Insurance
d. Monthly overhead
e. Credit lines
f. Rate of return on investment
g. If additional employees are needed
h. Accounting methods and procedures
3) The preparation of the business plan itself is quite time intensive. If you are not able to put the thought, detail, and vision of your business idea down in a thorough plan it is a warning sign. Owning a small business does require the owner to wear many hats (at first anyways). You need to pay attention to the details to have success. Keep in mind, that doesn’t mean that you have to create an absolutely polished professional business plan. You need to show that you’ve acknowledged all the facets of being a business owner in that plan though.
4) A well thought out and prepared business plan will allow you to show other people your vision. The people who see the plan will most likely play a role in your business in one of two ways. You may want them to invest in it or you may want them to participate in it. The well prepared business plan is a great indicator of solid leadership.
5) You will be able to clearly see if the business you want is a viable one that is worth the time and financial investment. If you need unrealistic results just to break even you need to re-evaluate. If you still want to do the business that is fine but your incentive cannot be financial freedom because it may not happen. When businesses do not pan out with a strong financial return people often do them as a hobby or small supplement to their income.

Article , Thanks - http://b2bhelps.com/business-plan/what-will-do-a-well-prepared-business-plan-for-you/

7 Legitimate Internet Businesses You Can Do, Without Quitting Your Jobs

What would you do if i could show you legitimate businesses that could fetch you millions would you be interested?
I ended the article by suggesting seven legitimate internet businesses you start without quitting your job. If you take your time to study how these businesses works and you are determined to make it, you will soon be generating the type of income that will make you want to quit your job without thinking twice about it.
Those seven businesses are:
• Affiliate Marketing
• Information Marketing
• Online Freelance Writing Business
• Website Design Business
• Domain Registration And Hosting Business
• Blogging Plus Pay Per Click Business
• Resell Right Business

Now let’s start dealing with each one of them. So we start with Affiliate Marketing.
Affiliate Marketing: this is simply getting commissions from promoting other people’s product through a unique URL or Banner. This is done by placing the unique URL on an article or displaying the banner on your website or blog.

The good thing about affiliate marketing is that:
• The product has already been made, so you done need to cracking your head on what to write, all you need to do is to find a product that has high demand and promote it.
• A system that take orders from prospect and deliver the product to buyers automatically are in place. You don’t need worry about issues concerning sales and after sales issues.
• The sales page has been written by professionals and design to ensure sales

However, in other to successfully promote an affiliate product, you will need to drive traffic (traffic means you need lots of people to visit your website) to the product’s sales page.
The more specific traffic you invite to your product sale page, the higher your chances of making more sales. You cannot make sales or be successful in affiliate marketing if you don’t expose your affiliate product to potential buyers.
This is to say that for you to make money on affiliate marketing, you need to drive traffic to your affiliate product sales page.

Article, Thanks - http://achievement.im/10/7-legitimate-internet-businesses-you-can-do-without-quitting-your-jobs/