Four Ways to Market Your Business During the Holidays

Not all business owners are happy during the holiday season. Since people are busy gathering together and leaving work behind, certain businesses experience a slump in sales or leads. Is your business one of them? Yes? Fret not. All you need to do is to try out some marketing tactics that can help you pull through this 'off-peak' or 'lean' season.

Availability is Key

Most business are off during the holidays. This is a great opportunity you to be noticed by your target market and make the most out of a significant income opportunity. In your website, let your clients know that your available on holidays with longer customer service hours. You will never lose your clients to your competition if they can reach when they need your product or service.

Offer Huge Discounts

Consumers are always looking for great deals during the holidays because they are out to shop for gifts for their loved ones. Plan your finances and product prices or service fees ahead of time so that you can go with the holiday marketing trend and win new clients by providing huge discounts.

Reach Out to the Community

Are you running an online business? Apart from social media marketing, reaching out to people in  your community or locality during the holidays is also an effective way to promote your brand. If you don't know how to do it or where to start, consider becoming an affiliate of business groups and non-profit organizations that are experienced in creating holiday events.

Promote Giving

People generally feel obliged to give during the holidays. Take advantage of this holiday spirit to promote your business in a purposeful and subtle manner. You can advertise that a part of your client's purchase or spending will be sent out as a donation to a specific charity based institution.

Five Reasons Why Entrepreneurs Need to Hire Accountants

Most entrepreneurs refrain from hiring accountants because of the added cost it entails. Despite the cost, it is still important to consult a pro as far as the financial health of their businesses is concerned. Accountants can provide them with the information they need to manage their assets and save money for business success. Here are some insights that explain why entrepreneurs need to hire accountants.

Tax law knowledge – Accountants are updated with the tax law and system. Consequently, they are able to help entrepreneurs avoid tax violations that can cost them more expenses in the future. Moreover, accountants can advise entrepreneurs about various taxation breaks with the best value claim rewards.

Technical accounting knowledge – Accountants know the best software to use when it comes to creating financial statements and reports. They can help entrepreneurs achieve an organized accounting system for quick access to pertinent information.

Business asset management – Accountants are familiar with the effective handling of business assets. They can compute credits, debits, profits and losses with accuracy. Moreover, they can advise about the exact financial positioning of the businesses they handle.

Networking – Accountants are prominent professionals in the business community. More often than not, accountants have entrepreneur clients who belong to similar industries. Therefore, they have contacts who they can refer to the entrepreneurs they work with. A reliable referral system can help every entrepreneur build a very strong network of potential clients.

Sound business advice – Apart from accurate computations, accountants can also provide accurate assessments of the businesses they handle. Such reviews help entrepreneurs decide clearly about their succeeding business decisions and movements. Also, accountants can predict potential gains and losses upon which planning for business success must be based.

Top Ways to Promote Your Business

Promoting your business is not an easy task. Besides being time-consuming, it is also expensive. If you are budget-poor and time-poor, follow the tips below that can get you at par against your competitors.

Talk to your current clients - Make use the client base you have today. Talk to your clients and ask them value-based questions. This is best performed by someone not related to your company so that it will be easier for your clients to answer questions truthfully. Compose questions related to customer satisfaction. Ask for referrals too.

Practice creative marketing strategies  - Do you own a local diner? Instead of sending out promotional leaflets, send a creatively packaged brochure with a small gift like utensils with a tag saying 'dine with us'. Creative packaging is already in itself outstanding marketing.

Send out a press release - Search online and you'll see that most PR news wires offer their services for free. If you doubt your PR writing skills, don't fret. There are templates online which you can follow with ease. Also, you can check how the other press releases online are written. If you don't get it right the first time, you will probably get it the second or third time.

Engage in email marketing - Email marketing comes with a cost but it's not that expensive. Moreover, it's very flexible and capable of reaching out to a diverse and huge audience. Just make sure that your tracking options are carefully set so that you can measure monthly results effectively.

Things to Consider When Hiring a Marketing Consultant

Not all business owners are skilled in marketing their products or services. That is a fact. Some might be able to do so but there could only be a handful of them. If you're one of the unfortunate many, you'll need to hire a marketing consultant who can help you achieve your goals. Be guided by the following tips to find a trustworthy professional in your locality.

Know your business status and needs - When you know everything about your business and the path it is treading, it will be easier for your prospect consultants to help you.

Ask for referrals - Got colleagues who have their own marketing consultants? Ask them whom to refer. If they trust a specific consultant enough, it means you can trust the same person too.

Get connected - Perhaps, you stumbled upon the name of reliable marketing consultant during your online search. Contact her or him right away before it's too late.

Schedule an interview and ask for proof - Never hire someone whom you haven't interviewed and talked with in length. While interviewing your prospects, don't be ashamed to ask for proof or credentials. Ask about marketing specifics as well because every business's marketing needs vary. If you're not satisfied with the proof you have hand, contact your prospects' past and current clients and ask about their experiences of doing business with these professionals.

Why Traditional Marketing is Not Yet Dead

Many say that traditional marketing is already dead come the dawn of digital age. While some may agree to this, there is still a substantial proof in the industries today which shows otherwise. For one, traditional marketing makes use of traditional media which is preferred by the young and the old in so many ways.

For most businesses, traditional media it continues to serve as an important part of an overall marketing strategy. This is regardless the businesses' nature and target audience. Television and print ads are still two of the effective tools for raising brand awareness and business promotion at the local, national and even international levels. Both allow entrepreneurs and marketers to connect with broad demographic and psychographic profiles. They can communicate a marketing message to an audience who is older, not tech savvy and not social media dependent at all.

The traditional media will co-exist with digital media and the same goes with the marketing type each  of the two has produced. Some may say that the latter has totally changed the former but the truth is consumer behaviour has changed over the years. And this change brought about the rise of digital media and the somewhat dying state of traditional media. In conclusion, traditional media and marketing will remain in the years to come because not all consumers are hooked to the online space no matter how rampant its use is.

Effective Business Promotion Through Videos

Although promotional videos are great advertising tools for all types of businesses, its efficiency depend mainly on the content they hold. Every advertising film you produce must offer relevant information to your target viewers. Thus, you must know your audience's interests and needs. Plain advertisement of your brand or business won’t work.  Take in consideration the fact that viewers always ask how your video ad can affect them even though its sole objective is business promotion.

Create video ads that are educational or informative in nature. Through tutorial videos, you can teach your audience to do something on their own. Besides helping them, you’re positioning yourself as an expert this way. If you want to present yourself more of an authority, create review videos about certain products and services without directly comparing them to the product or service you offer. Back up your review with facts and figures to silence any doubts on the credibility of your videos.

Promotional video production is not all about getting the attention of your viewers. Once you have gained their interest, do something that will make them want what you are offering them. Utilise customer testimonials and case studies. Identify the problem of your target market. Next, show how your product or service can be a solution to it. Then, provide proof on how your customers have improved their current situation after patronizing your product or service.

Twitter Marketing and Your Business

Twitter is one of the latest marketing platforms that you can use to promote your business today. It is easy to use. Using it effectively is quite tricky though.

Take note that using Twitter is like engaging to a real conversation with people whom you personally know and with acquaintances. This means that apart from telling people about your business, you must also focus on creating and fostering genuine relationships by listening to them. To build your brand effectively, you must listen to your followers and make them fell important.

Tweet regularly but not too often. Nothing can be more annoying than seeing multiple, posted tweets from the same business every minute. Who would want to listen to someone who seems to be so self-centered, right? Of course, there’s no such thing as a perfect number. You can’t really use a one-size-fits-all method. Your tweeting frequency must be dictated by what you have to say, who are following you, and how frequent people re-tweet your posts. Streams move rapidly so it’s OK to tweet regularly but not too often.