Seattle Businesses – Don’t miss this brand and marketing workshop!

Maria Ross - Marketing and Brand Expert

Defining a brand strategy is essential for all businesses and a task that many small business owners find daunting.  To be successful in any economy or market, businesses need to have a defined niche and a sound strategy for how they are going to position themselves in the market place.  Regardless of how good a product or service may be, positioning and perception make all the difference.

Taking the time to define a marketing and brand strategy are a wise time and money investment that will pay off quickly.  Two of Seattle’s big brand and marketing dynamos, Maria Ross, Marketing Director for Red-Slice and Whitney Keyes of Whitney Keyes Productions, are holding a workshop to guide you through the marketing maze and help you find practical and creative ways to attract new customers  – and keep the ones you have loyal to you.  The workshop is being held February 11th, 2009, and is an excellent opportunity to get practical strategies from Seattle marketing dynamos.  For more information about the workshop, just visit: Branding Workshop.

Best,

Heather

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5 Basic Elements of Targeted Marketing

There are many styles of marketing, but only one that truly works in all applications. That one style is known as Targeted Marketing. Targeted Marketing uses information and planning to reach the right people at the right time. Below are the five basic elements to effectively and efficiently utilize this style of marketing.

1. Know Your Audience: Just like you know your products or services, you likely know who will benefit from them the most and why. What problem does your particular product solve? Are there any other problems that that same product solves? Who has these problems? Bingo, you have found your target. Now you must learn about your target market. What are there habits? Where do they shop? What media sources do they use frequently? Why do they hang out? What do they like and dislike? Knowing your audience in this way will help you to focus your marketing efforts toward them in an efficient manner. If you were trying to reach an 80 year old man you wouldn’t post an ad in Vogue would you?

2. Optimize Your Efforts: For every company this element will vary slightly, but the general emphasis here is to make sure the tools and information you have available to your clients are working for you. If you have a website, make sure the content is updated on a regular basis, the metadata is accurate and accessible including keywords and a site map. The same goes for brochures and other informational leaflets. The information needs to be accurate and honest and the appearance needs to be clean. No one likes looking at something that hurts the eyes. If there are too many bells and whistles or too many vibrant colors you are going to lose your audience. Simple is usually best!

3. Be The expert: Develop the ‘Know, Like, Trust’ effect by becoming an expert in your market. Write articles, have free information available, be honest and upfront. If you have the opportunity to share something that you know and enrich someone else’s business/life they will become a source of referrals down the road.

4. Plan Your Attack Strategy: Whit the information you now have you should be able to formulate your marketing plans. Know what you are willing to spend and where you want to spend that money. Figure out if your going to use mail marketing vs. email marketing and know where you are going to get your mailing lists from. (It is always best to use a source you can trust) Know what keywords are best for finding your information online. Figure out where you need to be so that your customers will find you instead of you having to hunt for them.

5. Befriend the media: The media is a huge source of referrals and are more than happy to learn about new inventions, new techniques, new anything. Use the media to your advantage by sharing information. Think of this as an extension of both elements 3 and 4. You are more of an expert in the public mind if the media mentions you or your business. Press releases, on air spots, and other media events should be a part of your attack strategy.

These five elements take planning and effort to be successful. Just as you wouldn’t leave the house without your keys, you don’t want to start your marketing with only one element in place. Figuring out who your marketing needs to reach, where to find them and how best to reach them makes a huge difference in any marketing plan.

How To Delegate With Authority

Have you ever heard the old expression “Rome wasn’t built in a day”? Well that expression is absolutely true. It’s also true that it wasn’t built by one person either. A team can accomplish much more than any single person ever could. It may be in some of our natures not to want to delegate. The urge to handle everything ourselves may be caused by a desire to control or it may be a trust issue. Letting someone help you can be tough, it can be even tougher when it’s your own company that’s being worked on.

Most people have the goal of expanding their companies into something bigger and more successful. The thing that they need to keep in mind is that no really big company is 100% run by one person. Companies like these are powered by teams of people, not individuals. Having a team in your company can help you too. The bigger a company becomes, the more delegating becomes important. Here are some tips that any team leader should follow.

• Make sure your team is composed of specialists. Each member should excel at something. The idea is to make your team good at everything they need to be good at. Think of a sports team. In any sports team, each position is filled with someone who excels at that position, not someone who only understands the basics of the game.

• Communication is key! If you have a great team, but there is no communication, all of their skills are wasted. Everyone will be working, but there won’t be any unity. This defeats the entire concept of teamwork. Any team that lacks communication is just a group of individuals and will not work as a team.

• A great team requires great leadership. Any team needs a leader who can motivate the group, foresee problems and take corrective actions when needed. A leader can’t just sit back and expect the team to be self regulating.

Best,

Kristi

Heather Nelson featured in Seattle Times Career Section

Heather Nelson featured in Seattle Times

I think everyone remembers their first job – whether it was the low pay, long hours or seemingly menial work.  From humble beginnings we emerge!  My first job was at Nordstrom as a cashier hired to work the busy seasonal sales and holidays.  It was quite a lot to take on, and I learned and adapted as quickly as I could.  I suppose we never know in the beginning where our lives and careers will lead us, and it’s always interesting to take a mental look back at the path we’ve followed.

The Seattle Times actually featured my story in their My First Job Career Section column.  Over the years I’ve transition from cashier to sales and marketing staff to project management at some the world’s largest IT companies.  Today, I’m a happy business owner and virtual assistant.  It’s great to remember those days and think about how far I’ve come along the journey!

Please share your experiences with me, too!  I’d like to know what you went through in your first job!

Best,

Heather

The Intricacies of Selling in Japan

The Japanese are very forgiving of foreigners especially when it comes to not fully understanding all of their customs and cultures.  They prefer not to have one-on-one meetings and will wait until there can be multiple people at the business meeting.  It is important to be respectful because if you make a bad reputation for yourself, it will take a long time to change the bad image that you have made for yourself.  Through building of relationships, a company can obtain many referrals, since it is all based on trust.  Selling online to Japan is a market that is really taken off and that companies should jump on.  There are requirements to being successful in this arena.  The customer service must be impeccable.  This includes understanding what Japanese consumers want and need from their products and services.  Quality is a top priority in their decision making.  However it is also important to understand the language, so if someone speaks Japanese that would be much better.  What would be considered a harmless product in the United States could be perceived as offensive in Japanese culture, so this is something an American company must tread lightly on.  An example of this is, on Valentine’s Day chocolates and presents are given from the female to their boyfriends, husbands, etc.  But the male counterpart must wait a month until it is White Day to reciprocate the presents.  If a company fails to understand this, it could be detrimental.  Also, the different age groups can vary among how to target those markets and the customs that they hold dear.

A great resource for this topic is Market to Japan.  They provide marketing consulting to firms exploring into Japan.  Check out their website at: http://www.markettojapan.com/

Doing Business in Japan – Intimidating and Challenging!

Doing business in Japan can be intimidating to foreigners who do not understand their culture or their business habits. This is not a barrier to doing business in Japan though. There are just a few things that a foreign business person needs to know before they travel to Japan for business. First and foremost, depending on who you are dealing with, the entire meeting may be spoken in Japanese. This may be the case, especially if you are dealing with a smaller domestic company. However, if you are in a meeting with a large company, the people you speak to will likely be fluent in English. Understanding Japanese or at least having an interpreter is definitely a plus when doing business in Japan The meetings will be very formal and there will be very little small talk as there are in American or European meetings. Sometimes these meetings can appear cold to foreign business people. The Japanese executives will politely exchange business cards, listen to your presentation while taking notes, ask some questions and leave. This has nothing to do with their interest, it’s just how they conduct meetings. One thing that can be said about Japanese culture is that it is very polite. During the meeting you will be treated in the most polite and respectful manner, so it is important that you do the same. Outside of a meeting room, the Japanese will continue their tradition of politeness by entertaining their business guests. They will often take foreign executives out to dinner even if they have no intention of doing business with them. Sometimes this can happen several times in a row and give the foreign executive the wrong impression that their Japanese hosts are interested when they are not. One aspect of the Japanese business culture that makes it more favorable than others is their sense of loyalty. If you are a trusted business partner or associate of a Japanese company, you can expect them to stand by you through good times and bad. They have a strong sense of loyalty in both their business and personal lives that is very admirable.

A great resource for this topic is Market to Japan. They provide marketing consulting to firms exploring into Japan. Check out their website at: http://www.markettojapan.com/

Thai Culture and the Intricacies of International Business

International Business in Thailand

There are many factors that a person doing business in Thailand must pay attention to. One of the most important aspects is how you present yourself, both in appearance and behavior. They appreciate calm people and are taken off guard by people that come across as emotional. Gender is also important. You must always shake the man’s hand and just smile at a women. According to Professional Travel Guide “The traditional Thai greeting is called the wai. It consists of placing the palms together in a prayer-like position at the chest and gracefully bowing the head.” This is a critical aspect of their culture and must be only used at certain times. It is very much a hierarchical culture. A way to get an advantage to other businesses is to have a business card that has both English and Thai languages on it. Body language can tell a lot about someone. For example crossing legs in front of a high ranking person is considered rude. Another sacred part of the body is the head and should never be touched. Many people in the business world speak English in Thailand. However they will be impressed if you now a few Thai words. It is perfectly okay to talk about family, as long as it is not demeaning or negative.

It is best to get an intermediary when conducting business in Thailand, to help with all the details of your visit. Most initial meetings will be over a meal or drinks. Just keep in mind that business will not be conducted at this meeting. This is not a fast paced business environment but they are very good business people. When attending a business meal, it is important to read up on all the rules of these meetings. There are many etiquette rules that they follow and understanding them is essential to having a good meeting where you do not offend their culture.

Have you had an international business experience that could have gone better if you had researched the culture? Do you have experience conducting business in Thailand?

Selling in China, The Growing Trend!

International trade resource

According to the Boston Consulting Group there are “One Billion, Three Hundred Million Customers”. This is a market that so many businesses want to tap into. It is essential that businesses must learn how to target these consumers. There is a vast difference of income levels among these consumers, so this is something that must be understood. There is an economic boom that has been occurring for the past 25 years. There has been a squeeze on many of the Chinese’s budgets, so a company must offer products and services that are perceived as practical. This is not to say that they won’t look for products and services that may increase their status among their peers. This tends to happen more often in families that do not have a child. When selling in China, businesses must study the behaviors of their consumers to effectively target them. There are truly two segmented markets: consumers that are looking for low-cost valuable products and consumers that are searching for the premium products. There are many differences among the various areas in China. This means that consumer preferences and demographics are immensely different. So I say again that it is in any businesses best interest to thoroughly research their target market before selling in China. Many of these consumers are on the Internet.

A good source of information for delving into this venture is www.usccc.org/

Have you started selling in China? Are you thinking of selling in China? Let me know what your experiences were with this.

Affiliate Program Basics

Champion Assistant Virtual Business Team

An affiliate program is one website paying another website to send traffic their way. The referring website will make a commission of the sale, click or lead. Depending on how the company structures their commission will depend how the referrer is paid. Some are structured so that they pay based on a percentage or dollar amount of the sale. Others are paid based on how many people use that affiliate link or are actual leads from that link. It is a way of rewarding that person for referring business to them. This is also considered online marketing.

You are probably wondering how this all works. It is quite simple really. Once someone chooses to be an affiliate, they simply contact the company, get their affiliate button and/or site link to place on their website, and wait for the button to start being used. Of course the more traffic to your website, the more people that might click on that affiliate button.

The best way to find an affiliate program that you might be interested in adding to your website is to either look at websites that you have a genuine interest in or you can look at directories of affiliate programs. One great affiliate directory is Commission Junction. This affiliate directory allows you to link up to many different affiliate programs and Commission Junction does all the work. This way you can be an affiliate of many websites without putting a lot of time and effort into it or clutter up your website with a lot of links and buttons.

Why Use A Shopping Cart?

Here are some important questions you need to ask yourself when considering adding an online shopping cart to your website:

· Do I have products that I am currently selling to my customers or do I want to be selling products online to my customers? If so, what are you using currently for your customers to purchase that product?

· How streamlined is my process for ordering my products online? Do your customers have to wait till you go in and send a follow up e-mail? Does the customer have to jump through hoops to order the product?

· Do I want to spend less time on the ordering process and more time on my business? Do you have the extra time to be spending on the ordering process or could you be spending it on more important tasks and projects?

These are just some of the questions you should be asking yourself. An online shopping cart can help you to streamline the order process and your customer will be more inclined to purchase from you. A shopping cart will also allow you to set an auto responder with any message you want your customers to have. This could be a thank you after a purchase, a note about an upcoming sale, information about the product or how to download a virtual product.

It is also important to remember that we are all very busy in our businesses and any tool that we can use to streamline processes, we should take advantage of. An online shopping cart will help you to be more productive and your customers will be much happier with their buying experience.