New Research Shows Big Opportunities for Small Businesses

Today’s technology has changed the shopping experience. While many of us still enjoy trying on clothes at our favorite department store, we also relish the ability to buy specific and unique items through an e-commerce app, or research product details via our smartphone. The changing nature of retail has opened tremendous opportunities for small businesses in the past decade. According to new research, "Charting the Growth Journey: From Product to Profitable Business" from GS1 US, a not-for-profit product identification and standards organization, the most successful small businesses are those that develop diverse strategies for growth.

Specifically, small brands that demonstrate a solid understanding of retailer requirements and seek the expert advice and services of external partners are better equipped to take advantage of today’s "always open" shopping environment. There are three ways small brands are finding growth opportunities in today’s rapidly-evolving retail landscape: They focus on their product, build a complete channel strategy, and partner with professionals to accelerate success. Focusing on the product Small business owners are often driven by a passion for bringing their unique product to market. According to the study, 61 percent of respondents cite customer demand for personalized services and products as a top trend. Almost as many (58 percent) anticipate that changing customer habits – such as where they make purchases (online or in-store) – will impact their brand’s growth." Building the story, the brand, and trust, is critical. Otherwise, it’s a race to the bottom on cost," says Steve Lange, co-founder of It’s All Good, a line of clean personal care products.

Focusing on customers and their needs is important, but finding the right balance and managing diverse business challenges such as lack of time and resources, are major concerns for many of the brands that participated in the study. Building a complete channel strategy Small businesses must look beyond the immediate pressures of starting a business to position themselves with the right retail channels for their products. These can include online marketplaces, national retailers, local retailers, kiosks, craft fairs, or their own stores or websites. High-growth leaders (respondents who experienced 25 percent or more growth in the past year) know the importance of channel mix and leverage an average of 3.1 channels to sell their products, while laggards (those with revenue declines in the past 12 months) report using just 1.3 channels. Proving credibility to retailers is also a major hurdle for small brands.

The study found that 59 percent of leaders see a direct correlation between providing complete product information (such as images, product origins, and more) in their online listings with the number of products sold. Additionally, 57 percent of these same growth leaders indicated that using UPCs in their product listings helps customers more easily find their products online."Incomplete product information and UPCs show a lack of experience to potential retail partners. It’s important to understand that you need consistency from retailer to retailer," says Erik Elfstrum, founder and CEO, pureLYFT, an all-natural caffeine alternative beverage. Partnering with professionals Seeking outside business support was also identified as an important growth factor among small brands. Such partnerships help them build a more sustainable business model and offer opportunities for expansion.

The study found that more than half (55 percent) of high-growth leaders agree that partnering with a retail broker or consultant has been critical to growing the business. Specifically, 83 percent of small brands that leverage online marketplaces and national retailers say partners (such as barcode services, software providers, business consultants, and more) improve their understanding of product information and its impact on their business. For help finding the right partners to support growth, many small businesses have found credible options through the GS1 US Solution Partner Program, a network of certified solution providers that provide guidance and a range of services to support retailer requirements. Ultimately, it’s a new world for shoppers and businesses alike. The research shows that maintaining a holistic view of the opportunities available to small businesses is a major contributor to long-term growth.

Source: https://www.amazines.com/Female_Entrepreneurs/article_detail.cfm/6260623?articleid=6260623

✍️What are the four common types of blogs?

One of the blogs that are a pioneer in the blogging industry and famous among women community is personal blogs. The first type of blogging started with a personal blog in the late 90s. Personal blogs started when people penned down their own blogs by sharing their stories, advice, thoughts, and opinions. Among all other types of blogs, the most traditional form of blogs is personal blogs. The audience gets to know about the personality and traits of the blogger in their blog posts. Personal bloggers don’t follow any protocols or abuse any rules for blogging. A personal blog can be about their political views, hobbies, skills, and passions. Bloggers of this type can make blog posts related to any topic. A personal blog can be built by signing up for a domain on a particular website. You can write blog posts by publishing them on the internet. Readers get to know about their opinions, political views, passion, hobbies, or anything related to the blogger’s daily life. Readers can know more about your blog, and web traffic will increase when you share the link to your own blog post.

Business blogs 

Business blogs are oriented specifically towards business-related purposes. Business bloggers write about their work and earn their living by writing the topic on these blogs. The main reason for a business blog is to generate more leads for gaining more business profit. This blog helps to make more customers. Business blogs are professional as compared to personal blogs. These blogs contain writings that follow industrial trends and promote their particular business. The business blog posts are aligned to the industry standards strictly. For instance, an e-commerce business blog can start with how to increase sales in e-commerce. The main aim of business bloggers is to generate leads and then store them from the audience. Business bloggers prefer writing engaging posts in their blogs to promote their business. You get a potential lead when a visitor signs up on your mailing list and makes a successful business transaction.

Niche blogs 

In niche-based blogs, particular topics are covered rather than targeting different topics. These blogs include content marketing blogs, movie blogs, basketball blogs, car racing blogs, music blogs, Java blogs, health and fitness blogs, food blogs, etc. If you want to begin your career by becoming a professional blogger, start your journey by making a niche blog. This blog type is built around a specific area of interest or passion. With time these blogs get better, and you start gaining more revenue. To make a successful niche blog, you need to discover what niche you’re passionate about and define your targeted audience. It is done based on likes, age groups, gender, demographics, dislikes, etc. The next step is creating niche content and then promoting your niche blog post to the audience. This will fetch you more success than personal or business blogs.

Affiliate blogs 

To generate income through affiliate marketing, blogs are built known as affiliate blogs. If you generate a portion of the sale amount, then you’ll get a small percentage of the sale amount. Affiliate bloggers write product reviews, which makes readers buy those specific products via affiliate links. You can get a small kickback if you make a transaction. Affiliate blogging holds a significant value in the blogging community, and around 81% of brands make affiliate programs for improving marketing. 84% of bloggers make affiliate marketing posts to grow more customers.

Women community is the most important part of blogging community and they favor personal blogs and niche blogs to get their point across.

Source: https://www.amazines.com/Internet/article_detail.cfm/6262985?articleid=6262985

 

What Does Competitive Intelligence do For Your Business?

What does Competitive Intelligence do for your business?

What does Competitive Intelligence do for your business? At first glance, it looks like a simple question. And it is often seen asked on search engines. So we thought it would be a good idea to answer it. Want to know the secret of Competitive Intelligence? Take a look below.

At its heart, Competitive Intelligence is all about understanding the competition. What products or services do they offer? How are they priced, and how are they marketed? What are their strengths and weaknesses, and what is their competitive edge?

Competitive Intelligence can give you a leg up on the competition. By helping you understand what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. It can help you find new opportunities, threats and develop strategies to stay ahead.

Make better decisions

Competitive Intelligence can also help you make better business decisions. What Competitive Intelligence does is provide insights into the market and industry trends. And customer needs and preferences.

Competitive Intelligence starts with identifying competitors. Who are they, and what do they offer? And how are they positioning themselves in the market? Start by Googling their websites. Look at the news and industry magazines to identify who they are and what they do. Speak to your customers and explore Linkedin.

Go a little deeper, and it. asks questions like what business are they really in. Who are their customers, and what are their goals? And then what do their customers need or what do their customers want to buy? These answers might not be what you think it is. What are your customers’ needs and wants? Are they buying for one reason only, or are they doing it because something else is?

Know who your competitors really are, and you can identify their strengths and weaknesses. And when you do that, you’ll be better able to understand what they are doing and how they are doing it.

Competitive Intelligence gives you more confidence

So what does Competitive Intelligence do? A good Competitive Intelligence process will give you more confidence in:

What you are doing Where you are going How you are going to get there Done right; it gives you more certainty, assurance and confidence that you’re on the right track. Or, indeed, going off down the wrong road. Both realisations should be equally valuable to you.

What Competitive Intelligence does is help you think. Think in a structured way. Competitive Intelligence allows you to make decisions based on something more. So much more than gut feeling, your experience of how it was next week and guesswork.

So boiling the question, what does Competitive Intelligence do.

Competitive Intelligence provides more certainty and insight to gain a competitive advantage. And the secret of Competitive Intelligence is? Simplicity. Create simple questions to give you straightforward answers. Simple answers to provide you with simple options and tasks. Rember, there are no simple answers when you talk to experts. So take what they say on board, but remember always to keep it simple.

What does Competitive Intelligence do for your business?

What does Competitive Intelligence do for your business? Our article attempts to answer what looks like a simple question. There are many answers to this question. The deeper you go, the more clever you can be. Some of the stuff you can do and find with Competitive Intelligence is more often than not amazing. It’s can also be pretty dull and disappointing, especially if you give up too early. Or think a piece of Competitive software is the answer. It’s an answer, not the answer.

Art by Mike Dorner

Source: https://www.amazines.com/Business/article_detail.cfm/6263199?articleid=6263199

✍️4 tips to Make Money with Email Marketing

Over 90% of the population use email on a daily basis, and it is an opportunity for making money. Email is the connective tissue of the modern e-commerce landscape and building a robust emailing list is a way of building stronger relationships with your subscribers and through the provision of additional value, you can make a handsome residual income.

The modern subscriber wants to buy, without being pushed into making the buying decision and so many subscribers do not open many of the emails. In this article, we look at four ways you can make money with email marketing.

Choose Your Niche

The niche you choose can either make you or break you, so it is important that you make an informed decision. Relationships, health, and wealth are some of the top niches that continue to make money. The next bit is to choose a sub-category, which is your niche. Choose a popular niche that is exciting and vibrant for the markets today. Also, choose a niche with high competition, which is also digital friendly people are willing to pay for information.

Single Page Website

According to online stats a single page website can make as much money as those with multiple page sites. The page should be an OPT-IN page, which entices people to subscribe by giving their email addresses. This OPT-IN page is at the heart of your email marketing, and the more responsive people you have on your lists, the more money you can make.

Choose a Winning Affiliate Offer

Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways you can use your emailing list to make money. This takes a similar course as when you are choosing the right niche. Research widely on the best affiliate networks; review their marketing by acting as a customer at first, subscribe to their emails then read reviews of their products. Some affiliate products sell easily, and some can take weeks or months to sell a single product. Only consider the offers that will add value to your subscribers, and you will be able to create a genuine and lasting rapport with the people on your list. A good place to research your niche is clickbank, sign up for a free account, login and learn from their online University-Spark.

Create an Awesome Gift

By now, you know that collecting email addresses for an effective email marketing campaign is not a walk in the park. You will need to offer something valuable to your potential subscribers in exchange for their email address. You get better conversion rates when you offer gifts, and your list will grow exponentially. Popular gifts include workbooks, eBooks, or reports all in PDF formats as well as videos or sound files.

Always keep in touch with the individuals on your emailing list. It takes a considerable amount of time and resources to make at least $1 per month from each subscriber. You will have to develop an email strategy to increase the amount of money you make from each of your subscribers. Start with a fail proof subject headline. Spark

Source: https://www.amazines.com/Internet__Marketing/article_detail.cfm/6262913?articleid=6262913

I wasn't expecting to see this in my inbox

Yesterday evening I was looking through my inbox and got an email from someone whom I had never heard of before.

When I opened it, I was surprised to see what it was about.

But first, some back story.

A little over two years ago, and a month or two before I officially started my copywriting journey, I decided to test the waters a bit.

I was in college at the time, and one of the biggest problems college students have is that they’re always stressed out about landing internships and job opportunities.

So, I came up with an idea to offer resume and cover letter help. But it was more so to put my copywriting skills to the test (And my very first ad) rather than to help students. Not that I didn’t care about helping the students, but it just wasn’t my main goal.

Long story short, I “ran” the ad for about a month, and I got a total of 10 inquiries. Out of the 10, three of them turned into clients.

And that’s what last night’s email was about.

After two years, a student reached out to me and asked for help, which I found to be mind blowing.

I thought one of my previous clients told him about me, but that wasn’t the case. Turns out, one of my flyers still existed somewhere inside the college campus and he found it.

That’s what happens when you put yourself out there in any way, shape, or form. Whether it be through written content, videos, podcasts, or networking, word will spread and will eventually reach someone who will be interested in talking to you.

Especially when it comes to digital content, when you put them out there, they exist practically forever, that is, until the Internet dies. Eventually, that content will make its way into the hands of your next potential client or customer.

And of course, one of my favorite forms of digital content is email, which you can learn more about how to write in my book.

The link to it is below.

https://EllisenWang.com/email-titan-sample

About the author:

Ellisen Wang is an email copywriter and the author of “How to Become an Email Titan.” You can read the sample chapters of the book and learn how to write email copy that your subscribers will never get enough of and will make them want to buy from you by opting in at EllisenWang.com. When you opt in, you’ll also get daily copywriting, email marketing, and business tips sent straight to your inbox. If you don't want to optin, you can also read through the blog and listen to the audios for more marketing content and training.

Source: https://www.amazines.com/Internet__Marketing/article_detail.cfm/6262932?articleid=6262932