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Hub You - Profitable Marketing Programs (Part 1)
True differentiation continues to elude many service businesses today. The competition, given enough motivation, can duplicate or worse, beat the price, terms or features you offer. The bottom line is that your products and services seldom create lasting distinction in the marketplace.The one factor your competition can’t easily duplicate is your employees. Referred to as “Cultural Capital” by leading management experts, a service firm’s employees represent vast untapped potential and the strongest variable to achieving impressive financial performance long term. Here are three
Making Assumptions
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Marketing products and services through the Internet is unquestionably easier and more rewarding compared to traditional marketing methods. With the millions of people worldwide getting online each day, there’s an enormous possibility for a merchant to sell his products and generate huge income.However, merchandisers are not the only ones who can benefit from online marketing. A booming industry nowadays, provides great opportunity as well to individuals as affiliate marketers. In affiliate marketing, an affiliate marketer doesn’t need to have his own products and services to sell.
The full benefits gained from a marketing program are not directly and immediately measurable. Many benefits happen over time. Advertising; brand building and awareness; Web site improvements; and other types of programs may be profitable in the long run but costly in the short term. Often, the best approach for these programs is to first set aside a budget, then spend your budget on the program(s) with the most potential for long term success.
Investments in improvements -- such as a redesign of your Web site -- may seem unprofitable at first, but are nonetheless the right thing to do. Many of these programs are beneficial because they keep you from losing business to your competitors over time. For these types of projects, the correct question to ask is "What happens if I do this versus if I do not?" Know how much your business must grow over time to make the improvement worthwhile and compare this to your potential business growth. If the cost is not reasonable compared to the potential, then look for other solutions.
Another reason the benefits of a marketing program may not be directly measurable is because new customers gained as a result of the program may, over time, buy from you more than once (i.e. have a lifetime value that is greater than the profit from a single purchase). Also, happy customers tend to refer additional customers by spreading the word about your goods and services. Both of these factors indirectly increase a marketing program's overall profit.
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1. The most difficult part about writing a business plan is knowing where to start. If you have lots of thoughts floating around in your head, brain dump all of these onto a piece of paper. Once you’ve done this, it’s much easier to start organising your thoughts into categories i.e. finance, how the business will work, marketing etc.2. Don’t be tempted to write all of your business plan at once. Work on a section for a little while and then after about 30 minutes, stop. Have a break for a little while and come back to it. Most of the really good business plans I’ve seen have been w
Investments in improvements -- such as a redesign of your Web site -- may seem unprofitable at first, but are nonetheless the right thing to do. Many of these programs are beneficial because they keep you from losing business to your competitors over time. For these types of projects, the correct question to ask is "What happens if I do this versus if I do not?" Know how much your business must grow over time to make the improvement worthwhile and compare this to your potential business growth. If the cost is not reasonable compared to the potential, then look for other solutions.
Another reason the benefits of a marketing program may not be directly measurable is because new customers gained as a result of the program may, over time, buy from you more than once (i.e. have a lifetime value that is greater than the profit from a single purchase). Also, happy customers tend to refer additional customers by spreading the word about your goods and services. Both of these factors indirectly increase a marketing program's overall profit.
Making Assumptions
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In the modern age where the business environment is fast growing, companies need more security and accuracy. Biometric time clocks are convenient devices that offer these features. A biometric time clock is the electronic version of the timecard-punching machine. It uses human body parts as identification markers for employees.Biometric time clock parts include a main terminal with a cable, a serial port adapter, user memory, transaction memory, time clock motor, stamp handle, drive cam, and battery. Other parts include timecard racks, timecards, and time clock ribbon and cartridg
Investments in improvements -- such as a redesign of your Web site -- may seem unprofitable at first, but are nonetheless the right thing to do. Many of these programs are beneficial because they keep you from losing business to your competitors over time. For these types of projects, the correct question to ask is "What happens if I do this versus if I do not?" Know how much your business must grow over time to make the improvement worthwhile and compare this to your potential business growth. If the cost is not reasonable compared to the potential, then look for other solutions.
Another reason the benefits of a marketing program may not be directly measurable is because new customers gained as a result of the program may, over time, buy from you more than once (i.e. have a lifetime value that is greater than the profit from a single purchase). Also, happy customers tend to refer additional customers by spreading the word about your goods and services. Both of these factors indirectly increase a marketing program's overall profit.
Making Assumptions
Predict
As a business owner and coach, I come across the issue of building integrity and reputation on a daily basis. It is something I feel strongly about, as who can build a business without integrity and a good reputation. As business owners, we know that if we want repeat business and referrals (both of which are the foundation of growing our business) then we need to include integrity and reputation in everything we do. Now, this may sound like common sense, but sometimes business owners forget these 2 important key concepts and make a mistake. That one mistake, let’s call it a step forwa
Another reason the benefits of a marketing program may not be directly measurable is because new customers gained as a result of the program may, over time, buy from you more than once (i.e. have a lifetime value that is greater than the profit from a single purchase). Also, happy customers tend to refer additional customers by spreading the word about your goods and services. Both of these factors indirectly increase a marketing program's overall profit.
Making Assumptions
Predict
Come on, don’t deny it; we’ve all said that at one time or another (yes, under your breath still counts). We know that our job is to get things done – not to do them ourselves. So why do we often end up frustrated when we think something hasn’t been done properly?The easy answer is that we have employees who don’t have the initiative, skills or experience to do anything except follow instructions. (OK when we’re starting out, not when we’re growing quickly.) But - what about the ones who are giving the instructions (that would be us)? How well do we hold up our end of
Making Assumptions
Predicting profitability can be a series of "best guesses" based on assumptions. In fact, you could probably manipulate your assumptions to make a program as profitable (or unprofitable) as you wish. A more successful approach, however, is to try to legitimately forecast profit. Be as reasonable as you can with assumptions, and then decrease your expected revenue by 20% - 25%. Often, results (either costs or revenue) come in worse than reasonably expected for a variety of unforeseen reasons.
Figuring Break Even Point
For promotional programs, you can decide how much to spend on the program by figuring out your break even point. One way to do this - while also taking into account longer term profits - is by basing the break even analysis on the amount of profit you expect to earn from new customers gained through the promotion, both now and in the future. To figure the break even point in this way, you should know:
1) the program’s expected response rate,
2) the program’s expected conversion rate, and
3) the lifetime value of a new customer.
Here, the response rate is defined as the percentage of those exposed to your program that you expect will take you up on your call to action.
For the formulas in Part 2 of this article, express the response rate as a decimal (Examples: 1%=.01. One-half percent=.005)
Conversion rate definition is the percentage of responders you expect to become customers. For the formulas in
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Developing a Marketing Strategy
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