Building Your Startup Business

What is the key to most successful businesses? Marketing. After all, you can have the best product in the world, but if no one hears about it, it is not going to matter. Unfortunately, not everyone can afford to put a 30 second spot on the Super Bowl. That is where commercial color printing comes in to play.

A brand is a business’s identity. It establishes credibility, and a quick walk through the supermarket will confirm that people are willing to pay more for brands. The first step in developing a brand for your business is to know who you are. Are you an upscale restaurant or a dollar store?

When you pick a name the two things to look at are how memorable it is and how easy it is to spell. Some companies pay up to $35 000 to research the correct name. Choose wisely--remember that this name is going to be on everything from business cards to radio ads.

Next, you are going to want a logo, something simple and memorable. Think of a popular restaurant and odds are the first thing that pops into your head is the logo. If you see two golden arches, you assume that a McDonalds is there.

So, you have a name and a logo, now you’re going to want to decide which colors to use. There are different advantages to each color and you should not pick your favorites. For example, red and orange are both known to stimulate appetite. How many fast food restaurants do you know that have at least one of those colors? Almost every single one. That is not a coincidence, nor should your use of color be.

When you are building a new business one of the keys to survival is knowing your competition. Many would-be successful businesses take this too lightly. You should know everything you can about anyone in the area who provides anything remotely similar to what your business does. You need to know about more than their product though. You should know what they are doing for advertising, how long they have been in business, what worked for them when they were starting out--essentially anything, you can find.

Building a business is not easy, and it never will be. Most businesses fail, usually because someone looked over a small detail. Maybe the market was poorly evaluated, maybe the product was rushed--do not let those be your excuses. Understand your market, and use the information you have gathered to attack it. That is the key to building a business.

Kaye Z. Marks

How to Break through Your Customer’s Doubts

Expert marketers and sales people know that product resistance is often part and parcel of selling your products and services. It may be because of a particular concern on the product that’s preventing your prospective customers to buy from you. Or it may also be that they’re hesitant on how effective it can be to their situation.

Most of the time, your target audience will be able to express it verbally. But when resistance is non-verbal – meaning, your target audience’s face reflects confusion – you just need to read between the lines, and interpret the body language and expression.

While managing your target client’s hesitance to your sales speech, it would indeed be very difficult for you to do that. Nevertheless, experienced marketers would tell you that such reaction is actually a good thing. It means that even with an objection, your target clients are actually considering your product if not for a few concerns they have. These then should be properly addressed in order for you to turn then into buying customers.

Trained sales agents know this. And as a business owner you should too. Most often than not, the concerns brought up by your target audience may not be the actual issue they’re concerned with. In fact, it may just be that they’re not sure of how they should convey what they need to know from your products and services. This then makes it difficult for your target clients to agree to what you are offering. Unless you understand and overcome the issues pertaining to their objection, you as a business owner will never be able to get your target customers to agree to buy your product or avail of your service.

This is what is important when handling customer resistance to your product. Your prospects are simply unwilling to make a commitment to buy from you. This is certainly the hardest part in any selling process. When you ask your prospect to agree to a sale, yet the prospect hesitates, or worse, responds with a resounding ‘no’, you should be able to overcome that. Most successful business owners can vouch that when you are able to rise above the rejections, you’ll more likely to get customers who are not only one-time buyers, but repeat business clients as well.

What you need then is communicating with target clients in order to convince them to consider your prodcuts and services despite the issues. You can do this by requesting a commercial color printing company to produce marketing tools that would best clear up the issues in the client’s minds. It’s all about providing assistance so that your prospect can finally make a decision – which is hopefully to your advantage.

The good news though is that not every customer can resist your offer. There were many times those buyers close a sale even without you convincing them to do so. Since they are convinced that the product is good for them, you don’t even have to introduce or say your sales speech. All you got to do is to point them to the right direction and you’re on your way to being successful in your marketing campaign.

Kaye Z. Marks

Sending a Great First Impression to Customers

If you are a salesperson, you are always seeking ways to sell more. If you are a businessperson, then you are a salesperson, no matter what your business is. You are selling your product or service, and so you should always be seeking ways to sell more.

How do you make customers feel at ease with you, and your product, enough to make the sale? Obviously, there is no one right answer, or else every salesperson and businessperson in the world would be employing it. But there are some guidelines that you can follow which will put you on the right path.

If you did not already realize this, now is a good time to make you aware: perception is reality. This is especially true in the world of sales. If the customer perceives you to be a swindler, or a less-than-reliable person, then that is what you are. If the customer perceives your product to be of poor quality, then it is. You have to make the customer feel at ease, and convince him that you (and your product) are legit.

Often, the first representation of your business that a customer will see is your advertising output. The flyers, posters, and brochures that you have created will give the customer his first impression of you and your company, which, as we noted, is vital to your success. You absolutely must project positively from your ads.

Therefore, it is worth your while to invest in quality commercial printing for your advertising campaign. Do not try to save money by doing it yourself. And certainly do not try to save money by printing less-than-stellar materials. Go to a reputable company, such as PrintPlace.com, and get full color materials printed. These things will look so good, and give customers such a good image of your business, that you will quickly make up the money you spent in getting them printed.

Nothing tells a customer that you are a professional – that you know what you are doing – that you care about your product – better than attractive, colorful ads and flyers. If there is one guideline that I can give you that will help you with your customer relations, it is what I have been stressing throughout this article: never, ever skimp on your advertising budget. Make a company like PrintPlace your friend, and use their services often.
If you do, chances are customers will perceive you as being of high quality, which means that is exactly what you are!
Kaye Z. Marks

How to Create Culturally Appealing Ads

Culture is the beliefs, social norms and traits of a group. Culture affects everyone in everything they do. From personal relationships to the business culture at work, the way we conduct ourselves is defined. Culture helps us understand each other.

When you are creating your advertising strategy, you need to think about your target audience and the cultures that define them. Cross-cultural communication tries to lessen the negative impact of clashing cultural differences by assembling common frameworks for people of different cultures to interact in. In the business world, cross cultural communication is used in areas such as negotiations, human resources, Web site design, and of course, advertising.

Products are generally designed and marketed at a domestic audience. When companies want to take their business international, they generally take their advertising campaign with them. However, the advertising campaign used domestically will rarely work internationally. Different perceptions and values exist abroad, which leaves the original advertising campaign obsolete. Therefore, it is vital to any cross-cultural campaign to understand the cultures you are going to advertise to.

Here are a few things to consider when launching a cross-cultural advertising campaign. Language. Okay, duh. You know that there could be language barriers or nuances that need to be worked out to get your message across. You should consult with a native speaker, if possible, to check that none of your language is offensive and means what you think it means.

Even the big guys make this kind of mistake. For instance, Ford marketed the Pinto in Brazil. Sales were falling rapidly and they did not know why until someone told them that Brazilians did not want to drive a car whose name means ‘tiny male genitals’ in their language.

In addition, the ideas behind the language used needs to be suited for many cultures. Mainly religious cultures disapprove of one game manufacturer’s slogan to “Challenge Everything.” Religious cultures do not challenge their religious leaders and their gods.

The way you communicate. How you present information can make cultures cringe or accept your message with open arms. For example, you can communicate explicitly or implicitly. Explicit advertising communication assumes the customer does not know any background information or anything related to the product. The United States uses explicit communication. Implicit advertising communication assumes the customer is well informed about the product and related topics, and that the customers will understand the message from what is implied. Japan uses implicit communication.

Colors, numbers and images. Just like colors can mean something to gangs, in different cultures, colors have meanings. For instance, in China, red is considered a lucky color. In Japan, black is considered unlucky. If you use color printing, or even if you do not by using the standard black and white motif, be careful where you use these colors.

Numbers can also be considered unlucky or lucky. In the United States, the number 13 is considered unlucky and is not usually used in advertising. In Japan, the numbers four and nine are considered unlucky because of their pronunciation.

Images or photos can also offend cultural norms. Women in bathing suits on billboards are common in the United States, but infuriate people in the Middle East.

Consider cultural values. If a culture values its religion, it is best not to poke fun at any religious leader or image. For example, if you want to advertise in Asia, it is not a good idea to poke fun at Buddha. If a culture relies on and values family, do not downplay family values or promote individuality.
Kaye Z. Marks