Great Time For Start-Ups, Says Playfish Founder
Entrepreneurs should brush aside economic doom and gloom because now is a great time to start a company or sell a young business, according to leading European entrepreneur Kristian Segerstrale.
UK-based Segerstrale, who sold social gaming company Playfish to Electronic Arts for an initial $275 million (£173 million) last November, says that those running start-ups in Europe should stop being ‘shy’ and not be afraid to take on big business.
Adds Segerstrale, ‘Almost any business today can go out and be a dinosaur slayer. That’s what we decided to do with Playfish, take a $50 billion [games] industry and turn it on its head.’
Read full article: http://www.growthbusiness.co.uk/news/business-news/1294148/great-time-for-startups-says-playfish-founder.thtml
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Best Practices in B2B Internet Marketing
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Four in 5 U.S. employees have internet connections at work. If you want to sell to these highly connected businesses, you have to have a sophisticated B2B internet marketing strategy.
There are two factors to your B2B internet marketing practice. First, you get traffic to your site. Then, you convert them to customers. Let’s start by looking at how to get people to visit your web page.
The quickest way to get visitors is to use Pay Per Click marketing. You can set up a campaign with Google’s Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, or a number of smaller ad networks within an hour and start getting visitors immediately.
In the long run, a better investment may be Search Engine Optimization. While SEO requires a heavy up front fee, the results can be long lasting. Further, people are more trusting of sites they find organically than sites they come to off of an advertisement. This trust results in higher spending. Your B2B internet marketing strategy must include a SEO component.
Another way people find your web page is to see it mentioned when they visit other sites. You can write articles for other businesses and magazines to place on their web pages or you can conduct a public relations campaign so that you are quoted as an expert. The traffic you get to your site from other sites is already pre-sold on your goods and services. Make sure you get a live link back to your site when pursuing this B2B internet marketing strategy.
Finally, do not discount the ability of getting traffic from offline promotions. Every piece of material you distribute to potential customers should have your web address on it. This includes letters, invoices, brochures, and even gifts.
Once you get someone to your site, you need to convert them into a customer. Part of this is having great content on your site. If you are selling products, you should invest in a good, online catalog with quality photographs and compelling product descriptions. If you are selling your services, having relevant articles demonstrating your expertise is important.
Just as important is making it easy for the customer to make a purchase. Remember that the internet is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and that people all over the world can access your site. It should be as easy to buy at 2:00 in the morning as it is at 2:00 in the afternoon. Have a means by which customers can contact you. If you want them to send you an email, make sure you respond within 24 hours.
Finally, not everyone who visits your web site will be in the market for your products or services right away. But that doesn’t mean they are not interested. Get them on an email list and contact them regularly with valuable information including sales, new products, upcoming speaking engagements, etc. Give them a good reason to opt in to your list. This is typically a free report, but you can also expand it to include software or a free sample product. Having a robust email list is a key ingredient in the overall B2B internet marketing picture.
B2B Internet Marketing is starting to come of age. Your customers will expect you to have a strong internet presence. It is no longer seen as “cutting edge” to have a web site. It is part of the standard practice of doing business.
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Free environmental checklist for your business
Your waste is your money. Don’t let environmental regulation cost you time or cash. With clear guidance from NetRegs.gov.uk, their free checklist provides profitable advice for keeping up to date with environmental regulations as well as best practice.
To receive the latest environmental regulations and good practice advice: http://www.businesszone.co.uk/downloads/environment-agency/oct10/31364
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Email Marketing Design Create The Best Campaign Possible
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Creating a successful email marketing design depends upon a few key points. The first key is to keep it simple. If your email contains a flashy attention-grabbing window of opportunity, but no real content, you’re not going to get the results most businesses desire. People steer clear of the gimmicks, so if your current campaign is ‘gimmicky’ you may want to consider revamping. If you make the decision to revamp consider the following.
Try a simple email newsletter. The reason for this is a recent report by Nielson Norman Group, the average e-mail user only reviews and Internet newsletter for an average of 50 seconds. Whereas, marketing campaigns boarded by e-mail only hold the reader’s attention for around four seconds. As you can see the newsletter format will hold your average readers attention 10 times more than the normal email. Which in turn brings us to the actual design of the newsletter or the e-mail.
It’s important to create a simple email marketing design that both captures the attention but also keeps the attention. The simple truth is that most consumers and e-mail users only read a fraction of the e-mails they receive. The rest of the e-mails that they actually open are merely scaned for content. Depending upon the individual, different advertising dynamics are found appealing. For this reason, you’re e-mail newsletter or advertisement should appeal to each of these demographics.
Aside from simplicity, an effective email marketing campaign will utilize ASIC principles of design. By promoting contrasting colors to draw the eye and call readers to action over the amplification of certain statements. You may also want to consider the very e-mail inboxes from standard for e-mailing sources. For example Hotmail and AOL both offer varying standards when it comes to opening e-mail. It’s a good idea to use colors and fonts that will be visually appealing in any e-mail genre.
Most e-mail forums have moved on to the concept that design segment should not contain more than 200 to 300 pixels. This means that your e-mail design should not be disproportionate. Try to ensure that you’re marketing design has a smooth flow and is distributed evenly for the entirety of the content.
There have been countless studies on how most Internet users read e-mail and various documents throughout the web. Your desire should be to gain reader attention and you can be sure to do this by using an e-mail marketing design. The most effective design is constructed around a five second view of any page. That means any information put on your page should be readable/scannibal within a five second time constraint.
It’s a good idea to use your knowledge. When it comes to marketing and media, to ensure that your message takes up less real estate than standard e-mail advertisements. If your e-mail add takes up too much space or comes across too spammy, most ISPs will automatically filter it out as junk. The imagery you placed inside your e-mail should convey a rapid message, don’t make the mistake of using photos and logos for mere beautification. To make the most of your marketing campaign ensure that your pictures says something besides “I’m pretty”.
E-mail marketing is a rapid response industry. This means you must be certain to give your potential clients every opportunity to make contact with you. You can be easily contacted via contact information placeed within your messages. Be sure to include links to your site, your address information, your phone numbers, your fax number and any other information that can be used to contact you on a daily basis, in every e-mail that you send to potential clients.
Let’s face it! Without the proper email marketing design your email camapaign may well be predestined to fail. Knowledge is power! Use what you have learned here and from other resources well and your email campaign will stand a much better chance of adding profit to your bottom line.
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Government invests £200m in technology centre
In a speech to the CBI, PM David Cameron has announced that more than £200m will be invested by the government in a network of elite Technology and Innovation Centres to drive growth in the UK’s most high-tech industries.
The centres will bridge the gap between universities and businesses, helping to commercialise the outputs of Britain’s world-class research base.
“We need to do more to ensure the UK benefits from its world-class research,” comments Business secretary Vince Cable. “These centres will help take ideas from the drawing board to the market place. They will play a key role in helping firms develop new products and processes so they can grow and prosper”.
Read full article: http://realbusiness.co.uk/business_technology/government_invests_200m_in_technology_centres
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Creating Your Own Internet Marketing Plan
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If you have a small business that you are attempting to promote and are having trouble, it may be because you have not first created an internet marketing plan.
Internet marketing is extremely complicated and is much more difficult than simply putting some keywords in the text of your site. An internet marketing plan consists of 8 basic steps: strategic planning, situation analysis, customer analysis, market and product focus, product positioning, pricing strategy, product distribution, and internet promotion.
Step Number 1: Strategic Planning…
When promoting your business online, you need to keep some things in mind. Ask yourself the question, “what am I good at?” You need to discover how your business is different from the rest by discovering the advantages that you have over your competitors.
Step Number 2: Situation Analysis…
This is basically learning about the market that you are in. This can be achieved though various studies such as SWOT analysis, conducting an industry analysis, and analyzing your competition. The more you know about the industry you are in and how you can succeed in it, the better.
Step Number 3: Customer Analysis…
Simply put, this step involves learning about your customers. How you are going to effectively market to someone that you know nothing about? You need to know their likes, dislikes, hobbies, jobs, family life, etc if you are going to market to them effectively. In fact, some businesses do invent personalities that act as the target customer and develop a plan of marketing to them.
Step Number 4: Market and Product focus…
This step involves segmenting your market and making your company different from your competitors. This is often times referred to as the “Unique Selling Point” or “USP”.
Step Number 5: Product positioning…
Simply put, when a person hears a company name, certain thoughts come to mind. When somebody says your company name, what thoughts should come to mind? This is something you need to think about. You need to know how to position your business in your customer’s mind. If you haven’t learned about them yet, acquaint yourself with the 4 Ps of marketing: product, position, promotion, and price.
Step Number 6: Pricing Strategy…
This is also one of the 4 Ps of marketing. You need to know how to effectively price your goods or services. A good way is to take a look at what the competition is charging. If you are new to the business, you will need to undercut their prices.
Step number 7: Product Distribution…
This is the second P in the 4 P’s of marketing, also known as position. This is the physical location where your product or service is offered. And yes, if you have an internet business then you position is the internet.
Step Number 8: Internet Promotion
This is how you are going to advertise your business on the internet. There are plenty of different methods at your disposal including newsletters, search engines, article marketing and pay per click advertising. Experiment with each of them and try to find what best suits your business.
Hopefully, you can make use of this information to create your own internet marketing plan.
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Manufacturing sector targets growth
The manufacturing sector has set out a new plan for growth which will help to create a more sustainable and balanced economy in the UK.
According to EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation, workers in the industry, including those in sales recruitmentposts, have welcomed the “greater clarity” that the government has provided on its tax and spending plans and on how it will play a smaller role in the economy.
Read full article: http://www.thesalesengineer.co.uk/news-800155009-Manufacturing-sector-targets-growth.aspx
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The Ugly Truth About Free Marketing Leads
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A marketing lead is the identity of a person or company who might be interested in purchasing goods or services. It’s the first stage of the selling process. The lead may have a business associated with them. Free marketing leads often come from trade shows, advertising, or even rude, aggressive techniques like cold-calling numbers from your local phone book. Cold calls, incidentally, aren’t very effective.
Think about it—you don’t know who these people are, what they need or want, and they aren’t at all aware of your product or service.
Contact information doesn’t become a marketing lead unless and until the person behind the contact information has some specific reason why they’d be more interested in your product or service than the man on the street. In other words, you have to know something about them. What they like, and more importantly what they need, especially if what they need has something to do with what you do or sell.
If you drop the words “free marketing leads” in your search engine, chances are it will generate page after page of hits. Chances, are almost all of these hits will be pretty dodgy, ranging from Multi-Level-Marketing schemes (that’s the polite name for pyramid scams) to ‘companies’ whose sole purpose is to rip you off by selling you lists of free leads. Wait a minute—if they’re selling you leads, then the leads aren’t free, right? You’d think. But apparently there truly is a sucker born every minute.
Another kind of “free marketing lead”—one of those kinds that at some point in the chain, you’ll probably be expected to cough up some cash for—is lists of emails. Often the seller of the list claims that these emails are pre-filtered to be relevant to exactly what you are selling. Often enough, this same seller sells the same list to every would-be marketer, regardless of what that would-be marketer is actually trying to market.
In other words, these leads have the proverbial snowball’s chance in a well-known, hot, unpleasant place of ever generating sales. They’re basically a way of cold calling. In other words, if you’ve always dreamed of becoming a spammer, this is the way to go.
Sales leads are, obviously, leads that can lead directly to sales. Marketing leads are slightly different. These are targeted leads that are brand-specific rather than product specific. What makes your brand special? Do people know what you do? How you do it? Who you are? Think about who needs what you do. This is the first step in generating genuine marketing leads.
Perhaps the best, most honest, most dignified source of free marketing leads is your own website. People who visit your website do so for a reason. If they visit more than once, they’re genuinely interested in what you do, who you are, and how you do what you do. These are genuine free marketing leads, and about as precisely targeted as you could hope for. Are you going to follow up, or are you going to let them slip away?
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Free UK Internet Payroll – HMRC approved
Payroo payroll is probably the easiest and simple to use payroll in town.
It has an intuitive driven menu and guided steps that help you to manage your payroll with ease over the Internet. As secure as Internet banking Payroo is available 24 x 7 for you to process up to 50 employees at any time for FREE.
The advertisements in this FREE payroll will not in any way interrupt your normal usage. Payroo is accredited by HMRC and is fully in compliant with all the e-filing and statutory requirements.
For more Info : www.Payroo.com
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Proven Online Product Marketing Tip
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It is not necessary to recreate the wheel every time you want to start a campaign to market your products or services. Instead, you can look to the best practices of what other online businesses have done in the past for proven online product marketing tips. You can learn both from the mistakes and successes of other businesses, so long as you effectively incorporate those ideas into your own marketing strategy.
An important marketing tip to follow is to remember the needs of your potential clients as your primary focus. Another important tip to follow is to study the competition and learn as much as possible from what you observe. Finally, it is so important that you are the absolute expert in your field, so that you can market yourself in the most effective methods possible.
How well do you know your potential clients? You first need to understand that no matter how valuable the products and services that you offer, they will not appeal to everyone. Instead of trying to market your products to entities who will never be interested, you should instead set your sights on those individuals who will actually be interested in what you have to offer.
Forget about segments of the marketplace that are yet untapped. You may be able to go back later and find ways to reach out that will be effective to your overall marketing strategy. But until you’ve achieved success with your target customer groups, you cannot spend time looking at clients that are a long shot.
What do your competitors do well? What do they do not so well? You should constantly be observing how your competitors deal with their businesses. You can rely heavily upon your own observations.
In addition, you can ask trusted friends or current clients to look at the offerings and practices of your competition to find ways to emulate their successes or change practices to avoid the ways in which they have not been as successful. Proven online product marketing tips can come from nearly any observation you make about the businesses of your competition.
Finally, you must be an absolute expert in the field in which you do business. How else can you expect your customers and clients to trust you, if you do not know more about what you have to offer than any of your competitors?
Learn about your products and services inside out. If they are products and services that you have developed on your own, you should carefully document every piece of knowledge possible about them. If they are third party products or services, you should read all documentation that is provided, test out the products and services so that you know how to use them inside and out. When you don’t know the answer you need to know how to find the appropriate experts of whom to ask questions whenever they may arise.
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