How to write better case studies https://entrepidinc.news/write-great-case-studies #sales
Case studies help at every stage of the buyer’s journey. Articulate Marketing reveals the secrets of better case studies in this must-read how-to guide.
By Mark Wayshak
—Entrepreneur Magazine
Brevity, solutions, stories, but above all listening, will see you closing more, larger deals.
You know that feeling you get when you absolutely crush a sale? You connect with a prospect who’s excited about your offering — and then you close a larger deal than you ever expected to. If these big successes feel random and unpredictable, it’s time to focus on a reliable sales presentation strategy that can help you crush more sales than ever before. https://entrepidinc.news/5simplesteps #business
Understanding Color Psychology Key to Digital Marketing, Brand Loyalty
—WWD
By: Lauren Olsen
The colors a brand chooses to don online are not just essential to branding identity — they can even result in boosted sales.
From the orange at Hermès to the red coating of Christian Louboutin shoe soles, brands have often distinguished themselves by incorporating emblematic colors into their products. Read more
10 Ways to Increase Your Small Business Sales https://entrepidinc.news/small-business-sales-tips #sales
Want to make more sales for your small business in 2017? There are many different paths you can take to increase your business’s sales. And members of our small business community have lots of great experience to share when it comes to those selling techniques. Here are ten tips for increasing sales.
A recent trend happening on Facebook right now is the debut of Facebook polls. As a small business owner this is a great opportunity to add this to your social media marketing arsenal should be using this new tool to reach out to your followers and see what their hot buttons are. You can then show them the value of the services your business specializes in and how it relates to the areas that are important to them.
What kind of questions should you ask? Try to refrain from asking yes or no questions. Instead, ask questions that users would actually answer and that pertain to their everyday lives. For example, if you are in the chiropractic business, you can have a poll such as:
My latest chiropractic experience was:
- Awful, I’m still in pain and I’m still paying for the bill
- Alright, but not great – I’m looking for a new chiropractor
- Average, I have no complaints but it doesn’t stand out in my mind
- Amazing, I have already booked my next appointment
- Other (explain)
The main component I look for at my chiropractor is:
- Friendly staff that care about my treatment
- Fast service, short wait times
- Clean environment, including the waiting room
- Complimentary services, including coffee, massage chairs and my choice of music
- All of the above
Once you have your poll out in the blogosphere for a while, you are then able to view the results. You will get a list of the participants who answered your poll question and ranking of all of the answers. This should help your business narrow down any issues your customers are currently having as well as find out what is important to potential customers.
Some quick tips:
- Put a hard deadline on your poll to increase traffic “Answer by the end of the week!”
- Make sure your poll question(s) relates to your business so that you can use the results to improve your business
- Don’t overload your Facebook followers with polls. One per week is enough.
Thanks to the internet-focused age we live in, small business owners have been slowly making the switch from time consuming, costly outbound marketing to effective, efficient inbound marketing. The new focus on inbound marketing has allowed small businesses to get found by the customers who need them and ultimately get more clients, without trying to outspend the competition.
As a small business owner, you can market your small business using social media marketing by making effective use of free online tools. These tools allow you to interact with your prospects on your social media networks and check to see how many of them share or retweet the information you provide to them. A few of the free tools also offer reports that let you know if your social media efforts have had an impact on your clients.
To effectively market your business, you need to be active online and in social media. But just having a Facebook page or a Twitter account is not enough anymore. To reach more people and get more clients you need to make sure you are getting a return out of the time and work you are putting into your social media networking. Is it truly growing your online footprint?
For better management of your social media accounts, here are two social media marketing tools that help you manage all of your accounts in one place and provide some free reporting tools:
Hootsuite is a social media client (still known as Twitter clients, but do so much more) that allows you to build custom social analytics reports, update multiple networks in one step including, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook (profiles and pages) and Foursquare, compose and converse on the go with mobile apps for iPhone, Android and Blackberry; track results review success with click-through analytics in real-time; manage multiple contributors with team collaboration, share data and access without sharing your passwords; optimize delivery by choosing the best time and date to deliver your message to your audience. Hootsuite allows you to schedule messages in bulk and have your posts made when it makes the most sense for your business.
TweetDeck is another client that is has a very similar function as Hootsuite. It boils down to your preference and which one provides the simplest user experience for you. Just now that once you begin to market you small business using social media marketing, having a tool that monitors, tracks and allows you to see what is working best for your business, is a must.
To read more about what each social media client has to offer check out TweetDeck VS HootSuite: The “Twitter Client” Showdown.
One of the main objections that health and fitness professionals have toward blogging is “I don’t have time to blog.” the other is, “I hate to write.”
Creating content for a blog doesn’t have to come in written form. Engage your target market in the way that’s most authentic to you. If writing a blog isn’t fun for you, it certainly won’t be fun for the reader.
Add Value Any Way You See Fit.
Your blog can be in whatever format you want it to be. As long as you’re sharing valuable and relevant content, no one really cares if you write it, speak it or act it out. Just make it interesting, fun and useful.
As health and fitness professionals, you can have fun interacting with your target market in a variety of ways:
- Tape a demonstration and embed it on your website.
- Record client testimonials and share them as monthly success stories.
- Host a YouTube cooking show as a way to share nutrition tips.
- Interview another industry expert and share the transcript and video.
- Create a “how-to” video series on a new technique every week.
Your blog is another channel that you can use to reach out and help the people you were meant to help. It’s a simple way to influence those who you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting, but can still provide useful information to. Don’t limit yourself and don’t turn it into a chore.
Consider your blog as a 24 hour extension of yourself, a digital version of you that never gets tired and is always available. Think of the value you can add to your client’s lives.
Download this Blogging Planner template to help you plan your next blog.