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For businesses that have been looking for a new ways to market their brand and generate new customers, a blog may be the perfect answer. While good writing skills and in-depth industry knowledge are the critical success factor as far as business blogging is concerned, the great news is that virtually anyone can start one of these blogs at little to no start-up costs, making it one of the most cost effective methods of advertising in the market. Reaching a Worldwide Audience Gone are the days when location mattered the most for the success of a business. Today even the most successful business can operate from a small town or a rural area, as long as connectivity to the internet is available. Although local sales are still important, many businesses score higher profits through online sales alone. While the goal of a company blog is not directly to "sell" to the customer, it is a way of sharing information about the current trends related to a product and to ul...

Are you ready to localize your company’s products and services for international customers? Most growth oriented firms recognize that the majority of their profits through the next thirty years will depend on global markets, and there’s significant strategic pressure to localize brands for lucrative, growing economies beyond national borders. Language localization differs from   translation activity   because it involves a comprehensive study of the target culture in order to correctly adapt the product to local needs. The localization process is often misunderstood and those misunderstandings can be costly in terms or blown budgets, missed launch deadlines, and loss of market share to competitors.  In this article, we’ve put together a quick five-question localization process pop quiz to test your assumptions and encourage conversation within your company about getting the localization process underway for your next global market. Test your knowledge below: ...

In today’s competitive environment, many small businesses are seeking solutions which reduce the cost of IT infrastructure, control capital expenditures, and unify business operations. Companies must accomplish this while meeting demands for higher levels of service to maintain a competitive advantage in this fast paced marketplace. The desire by companies to reduce IT costs while improving quality of service has placed many small businesses at a decision crossroad concerning whether to migrate to the cloud or maintain IT on the premises. As with any other type of business decision, there's advantages and disadvantages as well as challenges which must be taken into consideration prior to reaching a decision. Many companies that consider migrating to the cloud often discover its powerful potential to provide cost savings and reduce IT infrastructure requirements while simultaneously providing a more efficient way to deliver services to the end user. Because of the ma...

Last year I spent significant portion of my time researching web site translation and localization for a company preparing to launch international versions of their web site. Ultimately, it was my job to determine which path the company should take given the considerable confusion out there about the various ways one can go about web site translation and localization.  If you’re in the position of deciding how you should tackle your company’s next web site translation project, read on. Perhaps what I’ve learned will help you, too. What’s Localization? My first question: What’s localization? I had a pretty good grasp on the concept of web site translation, but I didn’t understand the difference between localization and translation. As it turns out, the distinction is important and goes beyond translating into your target language. Localization takes more into account than the written or verbal message in a web site translation. Localization also takes into a...

Whatever your business - whether you’ve invented the latest must-have technology or you’re providing a service to a niche market, a clear marketing strategy is essential to your success. However ground-breaking your business is, if you’re not sure which direction you want to take, you could find yourself going nowhere. Let’s look at the vital elements that businesses of any size should include in their strategic marketing plan. Create A Mission Statement The mission statement summarises the goals and values of an organisation and answers the question “ what business are we in? ” It reflects the core purpose of the business and helps staff focus on company strategy in order to attain the business’s goals. The following example from internet retailer Amazon has evolved over the years to reflect their expanding customer base, and increased business offerings; however, customer focus remains at the core of their strategy. “We seek to be Earth’s most customer-centric com...

Email marketing is the forefather of modern marketing. It's been around for years, and businesses have been incorporating email into their marketing strategies with much success. From the traditional mailbox-stamp-and-postcard days to electronic inboxes and mouse clicks, marketing has progressed along with technology. As with all new marketing technology, businesses have gone through the inevitable trial-and-error stage of email marketing. By now, many have figured out the do’s and don’ts of composing and delivering email messages. Strong Subject Line:   Subject lines are incredibly important. It’s your hook - acting as your first impression to your readers. If your subject lines are too vague, too boring, too long, too sales-y, too anything really, you lose your reader. This drastically decreases your chances of them actually opening your email to begin with!  Tip: Use as few words as possible, while also getting the subject of the email across. Try addi...

Email marketing is not dead, but at this stage in history people have a very low tolerance for marketing emails. In order to get a more positive response, you need to make your email marketing a little more targeted, and even a little more personal (if you can).  Getting a good response is no longer about having a massive email list. It is about engaging the recipient enough to get them to open the message in the first place, and then for making sure they do not delete/block your email within a few seconds of opening it. Here are some great tips for helping you to do just that. 1 - If you’re not 100% sure of their name then don’t use it Do not forget that people use fake names to open up accounts. If you cannot be sure that the recipient has not used a fake name, then do not include any name within the message. People may forget that they have had used fake names and will simply block your email for fear that it might be a poorly optimized spam. If the recipient had ear...

Perfecting business naming doesn’t happen overnight, yet it has happened in some strange ways.  Some inventors have launched major labels after they’ve finalized the finished product; others have simply taken two common words and slammed them into one odd sounding phrase.  What worked for others may fail for you, meaning you’ll probably need days of brainstorming to perfect your corporate name.  Add marketability issues into your naming process, and the whole enchilada gets harder.  Let’s explore some interesting ways small businesses, individual entities or large corporations could name themselves, or avoid error, while keeping future marketing at the forefront of their final decision. Avoid Social Hotness Basing small business or large company name ideas solely off what everyone is talking about would be your first mistake.  Since today’s trends are tomorrow’s archives, having your entire existence built off what millions love today wouldn’t ...

It goes without saying that it costs more to train new personnel than to maintain productive employees. In order to preserve an effective workforce, training and coaching needs to become an integral part of a business. In fact, The American Society for Training and Development generally recommends a minimum of at least 40 hours of some form of training for each employee every year.  Below are some of the reasons why having a training and development program in place so heavily influences securing an effective workforce. Purpose of Training There are many types of training programs that businesses can regularly use to ensure that their staff is up to speed on company work policies, production methods and other important corporate level strategies. For instance, training might involve everything from orientation to learning about more specific and unique business processes. Purpose of Coaching Business coaching is usually a slightly more intimate process in th...

Until recently email marketing has been pretty static; a campaign would be designed and sent off, then analysts had to wait for their targets to open the mail and interact with it before any usable data on the campaign’s success could be generated. The process paled in comparison with the fluid nature of social media campaigns, until now. Movable Ink, a small start-up company launched by Vivek Sharma, is radically changing the nature of email marketing. Think live content, agility, context and social feeds. Should Sharma’s current success continue, we’re all entering into a brave new world. Agile Email Marketing In an increasingly interconnected digital world were Social Media, Virtual Desktops and Google Glasses are becoming commonplace, email marketing hearkens to the stone ages of advertising.  Movable Ink is working hard to change this with its innovative approach, as Sharma explained to TechCrunch: “Most email campaigns are run on a cycle of two to three mo...

The Red Bull Stratos mission which saw Felix Baumgartner jump room over 24 miles above the earth's surface on 14th October 2012, not only broke the world records for the highest jump from a capsule, the longest distance covered in freefall, and the maximum velocity achieved by any man in freefall, but was also the largest ever digital event on record. The mission raised the bar on how brands can activate sponsorships through social media.  Some of the marketing milestones achieved include: * Over 9 million YouTube live streams, the highest number in the history of the media sharing site. In total, over 30 million people have now viewed various videos related to the jump on Red Bull's official YouTube channel. * Over 3.4 million tweets posted with jump related hashtags on the day of the jump. This catapulted almost half of twitter's global trending topics. * Jump related posts on Red Bull Stratos official page generated close to 1 million interactions. These incl...

Social media is an integral part of marketing for pretty much any business these days. Whether your aim is to increase internet traffic to your website, influence brand perception, research your market or deal with customer complaints, you cannot get away from Facebook and Twitter. The question for marketing teams is not whether to use social media tools, but which ones to use, and how. These days, it's not enough to post the occasional witty comment or update on your company's Facebook page. Even a respectable following on Twitter no longer impresses social marketing teams in itself. In fact, a poorly moderated or un-moderated internet forum can work against your business by being irrelevant at best (people creating conversations unrelated to your product or service) and actively damaging at worst (nothing travels as quickly as unattended customer complaints). And then there's the tricky issue of whether even a successful social media presence actually boosts...

Small-business owners are often surprised at how quickly their businesses grow. Keep on top of everything with these tips on how to smoothly run your business. Cloud Storage This is one thing that every modern business should invest in. Keeping your documents, media, records and accounts stored on the cloud is a great way to ensure that you never lose anything.  Not only does cloud server hosting make your business more secure, it also makes your life easier should you ever want to upgrade your hardware. Another upside to using cloud storage is that if you have to work remotely — say while on the move via an iPad or from your home computer — you can still have access to all those important files and documents. Syncing Getting your machines and devices to sync is a great way of keeping on top of everything. By syncing devices like your PC, laptop, smartphone and your tablet together, you ensure that you have access to updated data, no matter where yo...