Generate Success

The ‘paperless office’ is no longer a future vision.  Today, companies of every size are capable of performing all their in-house functions without the need for print media. However, we are a long way from paperless marketing. In other words, when it comes to attracting and servicing customers, printed matter is a must.

There are a host of reasons for choosing to outsource your printing needs rather than printing your mail shots, flyers, leaflets and posters yourself. The factors fall into the following fairly obvious categories: cost, quality and convenience.

Firstly, even if you have invested in a good quality colour printer, it is never going to work out cheaper than having your printing done professionally. It won’t take long to calculate that in paper and printer consumables your outgoings are likely to be prohibitive when it comes to printing in even fairly modest quantities of, for example, the leaflets you require.

A key finding of one reputable trade magazine, having carried out a recent test to ascertain in-house printing costs, makes sobering reading. They found that a single A6 sized photograph cost a full 43p to print on a desktop inkjet printer.

When multiplied by the modest print-run figure of 500, the resulting figure for a batch of A6 leaflets containing full ink coverage is a staggering £215. Online printing firms will supply the same item for less than a quarter of that price. And when a greater quantity is ordered, then of course the unit cost plummets even further. This is not something that can be said for the office printer on your desk.

As far as quality is concerned, the paper stock which commercial printing can accommodate is simply not able to be handled by the desktop printer. The weight and finish of the paper is what gives the end-user that essential impression of professionalism.

But if for no other reason than the fact that few office printers can print right up to the edge of a sheet of paper, it is necessary to turn to the commercial print suppliers. Even when it comes down to cutting the finished item down to size, the professionals win hands down.

Naturally enough, when it comes to business cards, there is absolutely no alternative to using a good company with its dedicated equipment.

Finally, outsourcing to one of the many online print services, some offering a next-day service along with free shipping, frees up office space and staff time for more vital tasks. The savings made on efficiency and convenience scarcely need mentioning.

Businesses looking for ways to streamline their operations may benefit from the savings that can be made through embracing cloud computing.

What is Cloud Technology?

In a nutshell, the advantage of hitching one’s business to ‘the cloud’ (in other words, to the Internet and existing servers) is that it eliminates the need as a business owner to install and run applications on your own or on a customer’s computer. Equally, the costly burden of maintenance and support is scrapped.

The cloud is a hugely attractive option because of its on-demand nature and the fact that it functions in real time.

Many of us are already using public clouds already, even just by having our archive of instant messages logged on Skype, Google Talk or on MSN. When you access them, you are using the cloud.

In business terms, getting access to the cloud tends to take the form either of pay-per-use or of subscription.

Secondly, many opt for a private cloud, but where savings are a significant factor in the decision, a Community Cloud is possibly a better choice. This way, the workload is shared among various customers. Costs are cut because the infrastructure is owned by the provider. There is no need, therefore, for it to be purchased for on-demand computing tasks initiated by the firm’s users.

A related benefit is that with the cloud comes easy adaptation to fluctuating user demands, the upside being that you do not need to install additional hardware or software. There are time-saving advantages too, simply because cloud technology kicks in faster than its traditional counterpart. A positive spin-off is fast recovery. Best of all, your team of employees have access to work-related data from any location.

The answer, therefore, to the question ‘Can the cloud save my business?’ is as follows: If clunky outmoded technology is holding you back and incurring unnecessary expenses are a burden on your business, then, yes, embracing cloud technology could save your business both money and time.

Impressing, gaining and retaining clients have never been more important than it is today. Competition is fierce, and the clients themselves need to know that you are serious, devoted, informed and efficient. The most important discourse you have with your clients is in your meetings with them. Here are some tips on ensuring that your client meetings are the best they can be.

Demonstrate your preparation
It’s not enough to be prepared. Obviously, it is essential, but you must be able to demonstrate your understanding of your (potential) client’s issues and the more pressing matters of thehandling of their affairs. Check your information and investigate their website for more on their performance, culture and anything else you can find (for both current and potential clients).

Listen
With the abovementioned point, it is easy to get carried away with the all little tidbits you’ve investigated – so keep it relevant. Most importantly, make sure that you listen attentively, and that you ask the right questions in order to entice the client to divulge their most serious concerns, problems and desires. Suggest solutions and attempt to give the client insights that they perhaps haven’t considered before and finally, link their problems with the specific services you offer.

Expertise and Experience
You need to illustrate your knowledge and track-record in order to impress your clients, both potential and current. Be prepared with statistics and reports, and don’t be afraid to namedrop; what is undesirable in a social context can be both acceptable and impressive in a business one.

Be on time
Nothing exemplifies a lack of professionalism like tardiness. If you need to travel across the country for a meeting, or have the budget to fly your client in, there are increasing numbers of cheap flights available, which are becoming increasingly specialized to cater to business needs.

Be Persistent
If you don’t close the deal on the day, don’t worry, and more importantly don’t pout. Maintain a professional and relaxed demeanor, and after a few days, make follow-up calls – many businesses abandon potential clients if the meeting went cold. This is the perfect opportunity to expostulate your commitment, diligence and professionalism.

How often have you had a client say “why don’t we meet face-to-face and settle this once and for all” even though you will be required to maybe fly and stay overnight. You are faced with the position of going out to meet the client or possibly losing the account if you don’t bother.

It does raise a number of questions though. Will the client expect this every time there is a problem? Shouldn’t you be encouraging your customers use the phone and e-mail to save time and money?

There are lots of people nowadays who shy away from face-to-face meetings and prefer to use the phone, but, equally, there are others who relish the opportunity of meeting a decision maker in person. The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. Don’t reject personal meetings outright but be smart about the ones that you choose.

Develop a process for screening the prospects by asking a few simple questions:

• Do you have a budget for the project?
  

If the person you are talking to does not have the approval for the expenditure, there is a good chance that you are wasting your time. Ask if you can develop a proposal and then meet after the budget has been decided.

• Will you be the decision maker on the project?

If you are not, will I get a chance to meet the decision maker on this visit?

• Have you developed the specific requirements that I will be required to fulfill?

You would be surprised how often the project has not been crystallized. Offer to help develop the project by e-mail and over the phone book before a final meeting.

• What is the timeframe for the execution?

If the project is three months away from starting, surely it is sufficient to meet three of four weeks before the start date.

You can now decide how to proceed.

Remember to travel smart and check out cheap flights so that you get value for money.

For many businesses, communicating with customers via mail is a time-consuming process. Phil Hutchison, Tactical Marketing Director at mail and messaging technology firm Pitney Bowes, explains how Royal Mail’s latest postage rate change could lead to significant cost-savings for businesses that automate their mailings.

On April 6th, Royal Mail’s rate change will mean that users of franking machine technology can save up to 7p on every mailed item (5p on first-class items) compared with using stamps. For small businesses, there has never been a bigger incentive to reassess mailing practices.

When it comes to communicating, many small businesses still adopt time-consuming methods that occupy staff time inefficiently. Consider, for example, the time spent buying stamps, folding documents, even licking and sealing envelopes. In smaller businesses, such tasks are often carried out by senior management whose time could undoubtedly be better focused elsewhere.

Technology is available to automate every step of the mailing cycle – from folding and inserting the document, to automatically adding postage through to accurately printing addresses. Aside from freeing-up staff to focus on their jobs, automating these mailing processes can deliver savings of at least 12% on postage costs – a compelling figure for any business.

Today’s businesses face a very real challenge to capture the attention of the recipient. Franking technology enables users to create their own advertising slogans and to print these onto the envelope exterior. This on-envelope advertising means that brand values and key messages can be conveyed before the communication is even opened.

Recent surveys suggest that mail is an optimal medium for driving visitors to websites. This means that the timing of mail communications is critical if businesses want to use mail to drive recipients to the web. Automating the process makes it far easier for businesses to guarantee that mail-outs will be ready to despatch at the required moment.

Royal Mail’s April rate change should serve as a major incentive for businesses not already automating the mail function to do so. The cost-savings alone are compelling – 5p for every first-class mailpiece, 7p if sent second-class. But the benefits of mailing automation extend far beyond.

Businesses can begin to produce customer communications that look sharp and professional, that carry the brand or core message on the envelope, and which are produced accurately and effortlessly to encourage greater response and to work in harmony with email and web messaging.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) have voted in favour of national action which will cause large scale disruption for all business sectors across the UK and may already be causing delays to posted items in some areas already.

The Royal Mail is including daily news on service information for customers.

The Royal Mail has lost business to other companies delivering parcels and also due to the increased use of emails over letters. As part of a cost-cutting process I always recommend a business review how it can save money in postage by simply using email to send such things as invoices and make electronic payments instead of sending cheques.

Once you have paid your internet service provider (ISP) and broadband services, emails are free to use, more environmentally-friendly and for the period of postal workers industrial action, will be, more than ever before, a better way to do business.

So, it goes without saying, during the forthcoming postal strike you will be able to generate success and manage your business more effectively if you can avoid relying on the Royal Mail to send and deliver your letters or parcels.

Here is a list of things to consider while the Royal Mail postal service suffers disruption:

• Use email or telephone rather than sending letters

• Use other companies to deliver parcels

• Where possible, pay bills online or at banks, building societies and Post Offices as late payment due to mail being undelivered may result in charges

• Where possible do not rely on receiving post & let your customers know how the industrial action may affect your service or payment.

• Keep communication channels open with all your customers & let them know of any possible delays

To help generate business success, use this latest disruption in the postal service to consider ways in which you can cut costs and be less affected by further industrial action and postal disputes in the future.

There is money to be saved by switching from one utility provider to another; and the best way to compare the latest offers is via comparison websites, such as MoneySupermarket.  Changing gas, electricity and other utility providers helps thousands of account holders in the UK to save millions on their household bills.

Now MoneySupermarket.com want to know where people are spending the money they have saved and have launched a free to enter competition challenging customers to make a short video showing how they spent the savings they have made by using the website.

As an example this is how one customer used the money that she had saved to buy her dog Benson a Batman outfit!

You can see more video entries and register to take part at ‘Let’s Have The Savings‘ here. The funniest and most viewed video will win the cash prize of £500.

So if you think you can come up with an amusing video check out the site now for full details and register your chance to win the cash!

The dream of becoming self-employed or the boss of your own small business can leave the entrepreneur in us all not always addressing the issues that a well written business plan should.

The problem I found is that my several years of experience gave me the confidence to know I could deliver the services I offered, and my general ability to ‘get the job done’ assured me I could manage my own time.  But what I didn’t cater for is my lack of experience and knowledge of how to run small business and to use my business plan as a guide and management tool.

I pretty much learnt the hard way, and spent more time and energy on writing and rewriting my business plan than I had intended. Seeking expert advice would have allowed for me to have a well-oiled business plan in much less time.

In the current economic climate, though there have been UK Government statements to the contrary, the majority of banks and investors are still more reluctant to lend money to small businesses than they were 24 months ago.  So if you are looking to setup a new company or your business needs to move to the next level of growth, then I recommend getting professional advice to help with your business plan.

There are hundreds of companies offering help to UK businesses right now, and you will be able to get a good price for a quality service.  Remember, they’re in a recession too!

What you require is a custom business plan written by or with business experts who understand your individual requirements.

You may consider writing a good business plan is something you can undertake yourself, and you may be right.  But in business, time is money; and in many cases the cost of employing someone else’s time works out cheaper when you take into consideration your own hourly rate.  Something many self-employed business people tend not to do!

Writing a good business plan, one that is written in such a way to appeal to investors and banks, as much as be a monthly guide for you to follow, is a specialist area.  But remember, a good business plan is for life.   Once you have a business plan for the next 12 months or so, you need to continually update it.  So many small businesses start in business with a well thought out, well written business plan for the next 12 – 36 months, only to find they haven’t considered it to be a rolling business plan.  And when they reach the end of their initial business plan they are faced with a blank page!

So, consider your business plan to be a plan for life and if you’re serious about generating online business success, consult with business plan experts and use their time to allow you to concentrate on the business success.

The newest successful social networking kid on the block is Twitter; and if you haven’t already started using this social networking tool to gain new business leads, nows the time to start.

In essence, Twitter is a quick and simple way of keeping in touch with others by letting them know with short messages what you are doing right now.

“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”

But like other social networking tools, it can add value to your business, too.

The downside with all social networking is that there is no quick ‘n easy way to gain quality leads or business.  It is time consuming.  The more time you put in, the more likely you are to reap a reward.

Therefore, the main piece of advice I can give you, is to use your time wisely. Keep a focus on your goals.  Don’t get distracted or you will be several hours down before you know it, with the word ‘fun‘ replacing ‘business opportunities‘.

How can a Twitter account help your business?

By posting regular short messages on what you are doing, other twitters will ‘follow‘ you.  That means they will be notified whenever you ‘twitter’.

If you are willing to interact, answer questions, give free advice etc, your twitter will become popular; and with the odd link to your products and services, as long as it is in context and clearly not a blatant attempt to simply drive traffic to your website and leads to your business, you can find, like with all social networking tools, that Twitter will reward your business with new customers.

How do I start with Twitter?

You can get started by setting up an account and following a few simple instructions at www.Twitter.com.  But I recently found a very good free Mastering Twitter eBook which will give you all you need to know about how to Twitter.

Twitter is going to continue growing this year, so get started now.

Setting up a Pay per Click (PPC) campaign with Google AdWords is relatively simple.  But setting up a successful campaign that will earn you money and not cost you a fortune, is less simple.

Here are five tips to help a small business to set up a successful Google Pay per Click (PPC) campaign.

1. Don’t only use broad match keywords
Google offer three ways in which your PPC advert can be included in a search listing – broad match, phrase match and exact match.  By default the keywords use a broad search.  This will give you the most traffic, but it will be unqualified and result in quantity not quality leads.

Broad match catches all searches looking for one or more of the keywords you have listed; whereby a phrase match will only include your campaign if all the keywords are included in the search.

An exact search will only list your PPC campaign if the search exactly matches your keywords.

Read How to be successful with PPC for a more detailed explanation.

2. Mistyping the URL or Landing Page address will cost you
Be very careful when adding the PPC campaign destination URL or what’s known as a Landing Page.  If you mistype your website landing page address you will pay for the traffic being sent to a non-existent page.

Google will take some time to report this problem.  So always test your links from within the Google AdWords admin.  That way you can be confident the link is working and will not be charged for testing the link.

3. Google’s Content Network isn’t good with a small budget
By default, your new campaign will not only show on relevant Google searches, it will also be included throughout Google’s Content Network.  This means your advert will show on blogs, websites, other search engines and web directories.

Google’s Content Network can work depending on the campaigns, but the traffic will be less focused and therefore more quantity than quality.  Therefore, this is best avoided for campaigns with a small budget or low profit margins.

4. Separate your PPC keywords list & setup smaller campaigns
Setting up one campaign with a long list of keywords is another way of throwing money away.  You need to divide keywords into small associated lists and create several smaller campaigns.

Your campaigns can then focus on a few specific keywords and use those keywords in the title and body of the relevant PPC campaign.

Google will reward your campaigns for relevancy.  More keyword-targeted campaigns will also receive a stronger CTR (Click through Rate); meaning your campaigns will receive a higher percentage of quality traffic.  All of which will increase your campaign ranking.

In many cases where I have been asked to turnaround a badly setup PPC campaign I see one generic campaign with a list of hundreds of keywords using broad match.  In many cases the PPC campaign has been setup using automated PPC software.

5. Target your PPC campaigns by using negative keywords
Once you have created smaller, more focused PPC campaigns with specific keywords you will also need to add a list of ‘negative keywords.’

A negative keyword is a way of further concentrating a search with any keyword matching.  For example, if you were a finance company offering a factoring service, and your keyword list including the word factor, you would want to exclude any searches for, say X Factor or Max Factor.

To add negative keywords to your keywords list you need to add a hyphen before each keyword:
-x factor
-max factor

Negative keywords, along with an effective keyword matching strategy will allow you to focus your PPC campaigns which in turn will offer you much greater success with Google AdWords.