CYMRU MARKETING JOURNAL

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Category: BUSINESS (Page 5 of 6)

Business

40 Ways To Get More Business.

Mon, March 15, 2021 / CMJUK / 0 Comments

40 Ways to Get More Business.

I have decided today to take a leaf out of my own book and practice what I preach.

With that said I am going to develop a directory of businesses and forums on my site where people can come and hang out. It is in the beta stage at the moment, watch this space.

There is a saying ‘If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain‘ arises from the story of Muhammad, as retold by Francis Bacon, in Essays, 1625: Mahomet called the Hill to come to him. … If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the mountain.

In other words get people to come to you, rather than you going to them, moving one stone at a time you will eventually move the mountain.

  1. Design and market a business blog. In fact, I have several and use them as part of my SEO link wheel. Once you have decided what your blog is about you need to have categories of different topics people actively search for and want help with. Tip use keywords in your categories.
  2. Guest Blog on other people’s blogs. This will create backlinks back to your default site. Ask bloggers in your LinkedIn contacts if they would be happy to publish your articles. Find Blogs similar to your niche and gust blog posts there.
  3. Write posts on groups and social media pages. It is a good idea to also have your own group and pages.
  4. For Online Social Media advertising: you can have a Video or Squeeze pages which can help increase your total number of conversions while providing you with enough information needed to nurture leads into sales. This applies to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
  5. Adwords: obviously you need a budget for this and Google often do promotional incentives for first-time users such as getting £75.00 free credit if you spend £25.00
  6. LinkedIn Ads: are similar to Google Ads the only difference is your LinkedIn ads will only be visible on LinkedIn. However, because LinkedIn is a Business Platform this is by far one of the best ways to connect and network.
  7. Offer online courses: and sell your courses on sites like UDEMY. Obviously, the best place to sell it is on your own websites and social media platforms. Put together a “how to” course and teach people a trade.
  8. Local Workshops: are a good way to network and get like-minded people together. This can be done online although pending lockdown restrictions and regulations this can also be a physical place to meet.
  9. Business Listings: if you are already registered with Google My Business you should make Google your friend, and they will track you and rank you faster.
  10. List your business with all the main business directories, like Yell, and Yelp. 192 etc.
  11. List your business on Classified websites: such as Cardiff Free Ads. Just type into Google search, Classified ads and you will get your answer through the search results.
  12. List your Business on Business Forums and Community websites.
  13. Post articles on Quora and Reddit.
  14. Post Articles on all your Social Media Pages: consistently otherwise people lose interest and the more times your brand is visible the more popular you will become.
  15. Talk At Events: If you like talking, why not speak at events, and talk about your product, brand, and story?
  16. Host a Conference: get people to come to you, and get them networking.
  17. Partner with a Competitor: that way you can help each other.
  18. Partner with a Non-Competing Business: that may benefit your skills.
  19. Go to Networking Events: Hosted by Other people, this can be online and physical.
  20. Ask for Referrals: Start with family and friends and ask them to share your business cards and social media shares with their connections, you will be surprised how many people will get to see your business. Getting referrals and utilizing your network can be a quick and easy way to score more client projects.
  21. Set Up a Suppliers Page: on your blog/website and get people to advertise. (For example if you are an electrician advertise businesses that sell electrical equipment or if you are a hair salon then haircare products).
  22. Set up an Affiliate Marketing Program: and get other people to promote your business in exchange for a commission.
  23. Start a Competition: and get people to enter their details for a chance to win a prize.
  24. Giveaways: give an ebook away about your niche in exchange for an email, everyone loves to get something for free. Give branded merchandise away.
  25. Consider Outbound Marketing: and contact people that may be interested in your product or service.
  26. Editorial Advertising: put an ad in a newspaper or periodical.
  27. Leaflet/pamphlet advertising: and post them in your neighbourhood.
  28. Notice Boards in Supermarkets and Coffee Shops: leave your business card or small leaflet. Leave your merchandise, keyfobs, pens, hand sanitisers, pin badges, balloons, and mini notebooks (This depends on your advertising budget).
  29. Wear Branded Cothing: that has your website address visible in bold, this is advertising on the go.
  30. Design a Magazine: and get businesses to advertise.
  31. Have an Advertising Banner on your Vehicle: you can get magnetic banners.
  32. Gift your Family, Friends, and Neighbours with Branded Merchandise: such as fridge magnets, pens, key fobs, mini notebooks, and branded facemasks. Give things that people will use rather than throw away.
  33. Give a Trial Offer: for your product or service. If you give something for free you are giving people the opportunity to test and trust you.
  34. Sponsor an event or auction off something using advertising, and marketing strategies.
  35. Get your Brand in the News: and get journalists to write about you.
  36. Video Marketing: you need to be professional and make your videos top-notch. I do not mean tik tok style. If it looks like you have spent money on video advertising it will look like you are successful.
  37. Vlogging: this a good way to have brand awareness, and get your staff to contribute. Have a video of the day in the life of a driving instructor or graphic designer etc. People like to have some sort of idea of how you manage a business which may give them inspiration.
  38. Influencers: are people that use social media platforms to promote, their products or other people’s products and services. Hire models and take photos and videos of them using your products or services and then share on all the platforms or get influencers to promote your products or services for you.
  39. Write a Book about your Business: or if you do not know where to start hire a writer that will write the book for you and then send it to businesses that may find your book useful. (You could have a book on the day in the life of a electrician or hairdresser…).
  40. Do a Publicity Stunt, publicity stunts are organised events designed to attract the public’s attention to the event’s organizers or their cause. Be unique and amaze your audience with a well-thought-through campaign.

Final Thoughts.

Nothing happens overnight, however, if you concentrate on social media and post banner ads eventually people will like and share and even buy. Be patient, stay focused and be consistent.

Cymru Marketing Banner AD

Contact Us For A Free SEO Audit Report & Help To Generate More Leads.

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Ecommerce Definition.

Wed, March 10, 2021 / CMJUK / 0 Comments
This domain name is no longer brokered by us and you should contact ‘Fathi Said’ Directly on his website www.ecommerce.com, using his contact form.

What is eCommerce?

eCommerce definition is a business model conducted online. The most popular example of eCommerce is online shopping, which is defined as buying and selling of goods via the internet on any device. However, eCommerce can also entail other types of activities, such as logistics, payment gateways, online auctions, online shopping, online ticketing, and internet banking.

Imagine having a website that can offer all these things and more, imagine having a site similar to Amazon, Alibaba, DHGate, Ali Express, Ebay, all under one roof. Imagine having a directory of retailers, wholesalers importers and exporters and logistic companies.

eCommerce is the fastest growing retail market and was projected to hit $4.135 trillion in sales in 2020

A new trend has also arisen through Mobile commerce, where more and more people are using their phones to buy online. This domain name could be an app aswell as a static website it could cater for mCommerce as it is known. mCommerce is gaining more momentum as a rapidly growing new avenue of eCommerce that’s mostly driven by the expanding market and influence of smartphones and millennials’ comfort with shopping online.

It has been speculated that since 2018, the mCommerce sector has increased sales by a 39.1% compared to the previous years.

Different eCommerce Business Models?

eCommerce is typically defined into three different categories, Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C), and Customer to Customer (C2C).

  1. Business to Business (B2B) is when a business sells to another business. This is typically office equipment, stationery and inventory such as food or merchandise for the hospitality sectors. Normally B2B companies provide a trade prices per unit if customers buy in bulk. This not only encourages business to buy more as an incentive to save money, it also has room to make a profit margin on resale.
  2. Business to Consumer (B2C) is the most commonly thought where merchants sell to consumers typically in the hospitally and retail sectors such as pubs, restaurants, retail shop. An example of the B2C would be supermarkets where consumers buy their shopping but would not neccessarilly buy in bulk.
  3. Consumer to Consumer (C2C) is where a person rather than a business sells to make a profit this typically is a person looks to resell an item to another consumer, through social media like Instagram and Facebook or on marketplaces like eBay and Craigslist, this can be a lucrative business for selling items that you no longer want.

Pros of eCommerce

eCommerce is an an essential way of eyeryday life and has explosive growth in the past couple of years. Businesses are taking advantage of the numerous benefits of eCommerce, the most notable of which include:

  • Global market. A global market is where a business has a physical address and physical store. This type of store has imitations if it is not online and may be limited by a geographical area it can serve. An online store on the other hand is able to serve consumers globally or in their targeted regions. Diversifying from Local to Global offers a greater advantage for the consumer. In 2018, 11.9% of global retail sales came from online purchases and this is only set to increase yearly.
  • Availability. An advantage to having an online store one does not have the same overheads as a physical store, not need to pay rent for your premises, rates and heating bills. Running an online business you can set your hours to suit you and talk with your customers using chat widgets. Your store potenially could be open 24/7/365.
  • Reduced costs. Having a business online you essentially are reducing your running costs. Obviously you have to pay for the hosting and management of a website and unless you have a warehouse you do not need to hire as many staff. You can even hore virtual assistants rather than emply people. eCommerce costs go to warehousing and product storage, however you can eliminate that by having a dropshipping business and enjoy even lower upfront investment requirements. Merchants that can save on operational costs, can offer better deals and discounts to their customers.
  • Inventory. eCommerce business providing it is done through dropshipping or fullfilment whereby an organisation such as warehouse, store, pack and ship your inventory on your behalf through automation management by using electronic tools to accelerate ordering, delivery and payment procedures. This business model is saving businesses billions in operational and inventory costs each year.
  • Geo Targeting. With access to social media platforms and PPC advertising you can set the audience you wish to target. Algorithms will track users searching for specific items and will draw attention to your offers. With a wealth of customer data and an opportunity to keep an eye on customer buying habits as well as the emerging industry trends, eCommerce businesses can stay agile and shape their marketing efforts to provide a better-tailored experience and find more new customers. Imagine fine tuning your audience by age, gender, location and interests, imagine how successful you can be selling your invontory to people that are actively lloking for what you are selling.
  • Niche markets. Running a niche brick-and-mortar business can be difficult. Imagine being in the middle of the desert how are people going to find you? Having the know how and being online you can easily implement exact march searchable kewyords and phrases in your SEO by scaling a niche product to become popular is effortful. Having a place where businesses can tap into a global marketsuch as an online directory eCommerce retailers can build a highly profitable niche business without any further investment. Businesses can save on costly website hosting and management fees by having landing pages with their inventory under one hub. Using online search capabilities, customers from any corner of the world can find and purchase your products. This is especially true if you have a large directory of categories that include niche products.
  • Internet. As long as you have a computer and internet you can work virtually anywhere in the world without worrying about running costs of a physical bricks and mortar business. Often, running an eCommerce business means that you don’t need to sit in an office from 9 to 5 or suffer through a commute day-in and day-out. A laptop and a good internet connection is all it takes to manage your business from anywhere in the world.

How to Start an eCommerce Business?

www.ecommerce.com

There are a number of ways you can set up an ecommerce business, one is to build a website which takes anything from 12 to 18 months to be ranked by search engines for get you to the first page of Google ultimately. The other way is to sign up with an already established site where they offer landing pages and subdomain pages so that one can list inventory. There also dropshipping sites that offer sub domain pages. Which ever route you choose with one being building an ecommerce store from scratch you need to dedicate time and money in order for your store to be successful. Although you can set up a an actual online relatively easily and quickly, there are many months of extensive SEO that needs to be done when launching and growing a profitable eCommerce business. SEO is very complex multi-layered process involving different strategies and it takes many months of hard work to get your store seen.

Launching

Launching a website is more complex than what people realise, simply activating and publishing a website will only make your site float in cyber space. You need to have knowledge of SEO and you need to also generate backlinks. You also need to definine your key performance indicators upfront which will help you track your progress and performance and fix any issues as they emerge. Other important things to take care of include setting up your social media profiles, getting your email marketing ready, installing Google Analytics, doing keyword research, defining your shipping strategy and finalizing the launch promotion plan.

Sourcing

Deciding what products to sell is one of the first steps to starting an online business. One needs to research what products are profitable and trending, or if you have a new invention you have do a lot of advertising and marketing. You may want to sell white label products that have your company band name or you may want to be unique and sell something that no one else is selling, either way you need to establish trust with your audience and having a brand name that people recognise is an important fact in building a successful business.

It is important that your product have healthy profit margins. Once you have decided on the product you need to find manufacturers that you can source your product from. You may decided on having a factory of your own and warehouse or you can outsource you work and have manufacturers do the work for you. You may even want to sell other peoples products and simply drop ship. There are four main methods of sourcing products and inventory are manufacturing, wholesale and dropshipping or making it yourself.

Research

With every new business you have to have a business plan and analyse your product idea and the most important areas you need to research will be your competition, pricing strategy, and your unique value proposition. A business plan will help you visualize your growth strategy and identify any potential threats or obstacles.

Branding

Key elements of branding your products and your your store is fundemetally your brand name and your domain name. Having an exact match searchable keyword domain name will get you traffic much faster than a brand name. With a brand name you have to do extensive advertising and marketing to get your audience to recognise your brand, this includes haveing a unique and memorable logo. Getting your brand spot on from the start can help accelerate the growth and conquer the hearts of potential customers. You also need to have knowledge of search engine optimisation (SEO) before turning your attention to building the store.

Selling Strategies

There are a number of ways you can sell online.

  1. You can build your own website from scratch or use web builders, which takes time to get ranked by search engines and you need to dedicate an lot time optimising the site, including advertising and marketing. Designing from scratch you need to know coding whilst the later is done for you templates.
  2. You could use off the shelf eCommerce platforms such as Shopify but you will find most website hosting companies offer online shops that you drag and drop your products and integrate dropshipping.
  3. Sell on websites that are already ranked such as directories simliar to dhgate, amazon, ebay, alibaba to name a few.
  4. You could sell on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram
  5. Marketing you store takes time and money. If you are not an expert digital marketer, getting you store off the ground and in front of a targeted audience can be difficult and you may have to hire a company to promote your store on your behalf. You should also experiment with regularly expanding or refreshing your inventory. Remember you need to put the work in to get money out. An online store can be daunting but offering an already done for you subdomain can be beneficial if your are starting out. Starting small and gradually expanding is one option to consider. Start you business on already established websites such as Amazon, Alibaba, Ali Express, DHGate and you never know even on Ecommerce.com

Final Thoughts.

For a startup www.ecommerce.com could be ideal marktetplace as a way for any business to be listed and found quickly, especially if they are a newly branded name. Most businesses need a gentle push to get more traffic, imagine being listed on a website that people would be actively be using to promote their brands or simply wanting to buy products from. This website could also list all payment gateways all under once roof helping businesses find their ideal banking system quickly and easily. There is a multitude of business models that can be developed around this domain name.

As an example Alibaba is one of the most prominent Chinese technology names around the world and has a market value of about $463 billion. So far this year, its stock price has risen about 3.6 percent with shares hitting highs in June. You could be the next Jack Ma or Jeff Bezo (Amazon).

10 biggest e-commerce companies in the world are (sorted by revenue):

  1. Amazon ($386.06 billion)
  2. JD.com ($82.2 billion)
  3. Alibaba ($56.15 billion)
  4. Suning.com ($38.06 billion)
  5. Meituan-Dianping ($13.7 billion)
  6. Rakuten ($11.6 billion)
  7. eBay ($10.8 billion)
  8. Wayfair ($9.13 billion)
  9. Zalando ($7.26 billion)
  10. Coupang ($6.23 billion)

Hence what the owner of this domain is asking for is chump change compared to the perceived equity this domain name can bring.

Owning www.ecommerce.com you can be in control of the global market and have all businesses all under one roof with the largest directory in the world. You could have a platform such as Amazon and combine it with a business model like Ebay with an auction feature. You could also be a dropshipper. Having a directory of all businesses around the world, from importers, exporter. manufacturers, warehouses, dropshipers, logistic companies where by you could charge for advertising space and make millions. This domain name could the biggest website in the world. You could also offer services such as Advertising, SEO and Marketing, ideal if a business is new and wants to be found relatively quickly.

This domain name would be ideal for:

  1. Startups, or entrepreneurs starting their own business.
  2. Domain Investors that may want to develop their own business model or established businesses that may want to secure the domain and point to their website.
  3. eCommerce Dropshipping Business (B2B) Dropshipping are packaged and distributed by the third party company, and the owner(s) of the dropshipping site never come into contact with a product, they just take a small percentage or commission from the person or business who is actually making and distributing it.
  4. eCommerce Payment Gateways, such as stripe, gocardless.com, paypal etc.
  5. eCommerce Online Store (B2C) Such a Amazon.
  6. eCommerce Wholesalers (B2B) A wholesaler acts like a middle man between a manufacturer and a retailer.
  7. eCommerce Consumer to Consumer (C2C) With consumer-to-consumer selling, there’s no business involved at all, and it’s usually a pretty casual setup. Think of a garage sale, or a platform like eBay.
  8. eCommerce Consumer to Business (C2B) This is where a consumer sells their services to a business. Freelancers are the perfect example of this.
  9. Subscription Services (B2C or B2B) Subscription boxes all work slightly differently, but basically involve signing up to receive a different type of a product that you like each month. (Typical versions of this could be wine or book clubs).
  10. Private Labeling and Manufacturing (B2B or B2C) Any business or individual doing private labeling and manufacturing is one that is basically just carrying out all the presale stages in-house. That’s to say they’re making, packaging and then selling the goods directly to the end customer.
  11. While Labeling (B2B) Companies operating on a white labeling business revenue model rebrand (or ‘label’) products purchased from a manufacturer, and sell them on as their own products.
  12. Manufacturing (B2B) is the making of goods by hand or by machine. Items used in manufacture may be raw materials or component parts of a larger product. The manufacturing usually happens in a factory on a large-scale production line of machinery and skilled labour.
  13. Rent to Loan (B2B, B2C & C2C) Rent to Loan is when the customer is only paying for use of their product or service, rather than to buy it outright. An example of B2C is car rentals.
  14. Freemium – A freemium payment model is one that you typically only see used by digital products. With a freemium business model, you can sign up to a free version of the product, which has reduced functionality. Spotify is a classic example of a business operating on a freemium revenue model.
  15. A vendor-specific website (one brand seller) is a dedicated website which only sells the goods or services of one individual, or one business. Most ecommerce websites fall into this category. For example Rolex, a high end watchmaker brand, has a dedicated website selling only Rolex Watches.
  16. Online retailers such as Harrods or Selfridgdes, Harvey Nichols, bring together products from separate vendors under one online roof. The online retailer has control over which vendors it brings together in this way.
  17. Marketplaces C2C), like Etsy and eBay are excellent places if you are a consumer starting out selling your own products to other customers.
  18. Classified Ads – Websites such as Craiglist, Cardiff Free Ads are places where you can list items for sale and may have to pay an aditional small fee to get your listing featured .
  19. Directories where Business can list their company information with options to be featured with Banner Ads at an additional cost.
  20. Marketing Agencies and Consultants that may have a directory of businesses they market.

UPDATE!

As of 04/07/21 Michael Dooner and I regrettably are no longer brokering the domain name www.ecommerce.com and you should contact ‘Fathi Said’ Directly on his website using his contact form. According the the owner ‘Fathi Said’ he has found another broker.

#ecommerce #mcommerce #amazon #alibaba #aliexpress #dhgate #shopify #onlineshopping #retailshopping #wholesalers #dropshipping #importing #exporting #ecommercedirectory #jeffbezo #jackma #dianawang #michaeldooner #doonerdomains

How To Increase Business & Followers.

Mon, February 15, 2021 / CMJUK / 0 Comments

I noticed today a post on LinkedIn from someone that was connected with me but was not an internet marketer per-se, stating “How to increase followers from 30K to 225K followers” in five minutes per day by commenting #yes

The first thing that came to mind is he has no authority to advise considering he is and what I saw was a clever click bait hack and nothing more. This is a disappointment when people are genuinely looking for answers and come across someone just looking out for him/herself, simply having people click the post for the post to go no where.

Therefore I have taken upon myself to write this post to help individuals increase followers/business. This method can be applied to all social media platforms:

1: Optimize Your Profile Pages, optimise your cover photo and also your profile picture. Make your profile picture look professionally done. Remember to be aware of your background in the photo. A picture says a thousand words. Try to get a professional head shot done at a local photographic studio (when they are open again) or get a friend to take a photo without any distractions in the backdrop.

2: Start with connecting with people, most social media platforms say only connect with the people you know, but what if you have a genuine enquiry, the best thing is to find their email addresses to write to them first before sending them a connection request, especially of you do not know them.

3: Write articles on your pages and link back to articles you have written on your blogs and share these articles with your connections.

4: Make your post intriguing only give a little away and entice the reader to click you post for more information.

5. Share photos on your social media platform pages, instagram is good for this or do infographics and add titles to your posts.

6: Be creative and publish videos, add captivating content that people will be willing to watch. Add humour, funny videos attract peoples attention.

7: Go Live. Livestreaming is not for everyone but if you are happy broadcasting an event or milestone as long as it has good content you will get people watching.

8: Advertise your brochures and share your pdf’s on your business pages.

9: Use hashtags when closing your post text.

10: Don’t forget to tag your connections and companies that may find your post useful.

11: Give your followers valuable advice. Everyone is a guru these days and some can be better at it than others but you only have one chance of being an expert in your niche and the more followers you have the more well known you will become.

12: RSS feeds are a good way of finding trending posts, create “breaking news” posts that perhaps people outside your region may not have heard of. Do not copy posts word for word as that is called plagiarism and you will be penalised by search engines. For me I always use one of my blogs to write articles which I then share with my connections and although I may read something I will scramble it into my own words, even giving my own perspective.

13: Be consistant and active everyday on all your social media platforms. I am perhaps the world worst as I only seem to hang out on LinkedIn because most of my work is B2B but recently I have been asked to do B2C hence I need to alter my mind set and concentrate on Facebook pages and groups more.

14: Create viral posts this could be something like a give away or a competition with a deadline.

15: Join groups on your social media platforms.

16: Create your own groups for your different niches.

17: Create your own business pages on all your social media platforms, keep your professional and personal pages seperate.

18: If you have an event coming up or thinking of creating one, social media is a good place to advertise and market yourself.

19: Once you have a following on your social media platforms do reach out and collaborate with your connections.

20: Set the buttons on your profiles to a “Follow” button.

21: Create a call to action in every post.

22: Promote your social media profiles everywhere, including your website, blogs and email signatures.

23: Cross promote your profile on your other social media channels. For me I have on default business card website that I point people to, this saves time typing out each social media platform I am connected to.

24: Pay per click advertising campaigns are not only good with Google & Bing but they are also is a good way of connecting with people through your social media platforms. Facebook & Instagram is a place where you can connect B2C, this is good if you are targeting a specific category or people. You can fine tune your specifications to the location, age, gender and interests.

25: Try to update your profile page frequently, a stagnant page is boring and will show your audience that you are frequesnt at updating. If you have new services, always keep them updated.

26: Always reply to comments, no matter how trivial, ignoring a comment makes the person who wrote it worthless. Obviously if you have hundreds of thousand of comments pick out the ones that stand out and thank everyone in a generic comment.

27: When people share your posts and pages, thank them.

28: Get your biggest fans to endorse you, this applies to LinkedIn more so than any other social media channel and visa versa, you will be amazed how may people who you endorse will endorse you back. The same goes with review ask your customers to write a review about your brand.

29: If you have businesses that wish you to promote them, do offer to write recommendations, this gives you exposure aswell as exposure for your client, but if the businesses wish more exposure you could offer other marketing strategies which you could potentially charge for the service. I do this free of charge by adding banner ads to all my social media pages and groups I am connected on. This is short lived advertising but for a permanent fixture on my blogs I charge a monthy/yearly fee.

30: Exact match searchable keyword and phrases are so important not only in your domain name but on your website, meta tags and social media pages. When choosing a Facebook page for example use words that people would use to search for your product or service rather than your unknown brand name. Your brand name will become popular over time and it will not be an overnight success unless you spend a lot of money on advertising, I just do not mean Google Ads I mean in publications, newspapers, radio and TV.

31: Make your social media profile searchable, make them public.

32: When commenting on other peoples posts, do not get personal and do not get into trolling arguments if someone does not see the value of your comment. Be professional and do not sell things on peoples posts. You could add a backlink to your company as a signature or hashtag but thats it, don’ be the pushy sales person.

33: Give incententives to get people to share your posts. This could be a free e-book or a discount voucher.

35: Become an influencer.

36. Become a public speaker.

37: Create educational webinars, podcasts, tutorials, use youtube and share your content on all social media platforms.

38. Create a SEO link wheel, of your websites, blogs and social media platforms.

39. Start a blog and add RSS feeds so that in engages people’s interests.

40. Have a subscribe widget or pop up so that you can capture peoples emails and then send them updates or newsletters. Do not install the popup until a person is about to exit your site and not before. I believe it is off putting to have a subscribe popup the moment you attempt to access a site. You need to earn my trust and loyalty before I give my email away.

41. Integrate a chat widget into your websites and blogs so that when visitors visit your sites you can engage with them.

42: Guest blog on other notable websites.

43: Become a podcast interviewer. Invite people to join you in a discussion.

44. Write a book about you and your niche and publish your services and products.

45. Leave business cards on noticeboards in supermarkets, cafes (when they open again).

46. Make flyers and post them through peoples doors.

47. Consider giving out freebies, such as buy one get one free.

48. Start a competition.

49. Consider getting people to market you using affiliate links. https://rakutenadvertising.com/en-uk/

50. Advertise in Magazines and in Newspapers.

51. Offer to do something for free, this could be free web hosting in my case or free marketing or promotion.

52. Wear promotional clothing.

53. Give away promotional merchandise.

54. Word of mouth advertising get all your family and friends to promote you and get their family and friends and before you know it you have a network of connections.

55. Do outbound marketing, like picking up the phone and calling or writing snail mail letters.

56. Enlist the help of other advocates in your industry, find a mentor.

57. As your employees to engage in your social media pages, make them contributors.

58. Post your articles at ceratin times of the day. I find that during working hours people are busy getting on with business. So you have to pick times that appeal to your network browsing times, otherwise you posts may not get a look in. However according to LinkedIn’s their busiest hours are in the morning and midday from Monday to Friday. This will ensure your post to get maximum reach.

59. Add multiple admins to you pages and ask your colleagues to help you.

60. Join all the social media platforms and follow companies and people of interest.

Amazon Business

Thu, February 04, 2021 / CMJUK / 0 Comments

What is Amazon Business?

Amazon Business is changing the way companies buy supplies. For most small businesses, buying supplies can be time-consuming and frustrating. Finding the best product at the best price with the most convenient payment terms can be a challenge, especially when they have other tasks that need to be completed. Amazon Business is the solution and brings big benefits to businesses of all sizes and industries.

How does Amazon Business work?

Amazon Business is a business-to-business marketplace that combines selection, convenience and the value customers around the world have come to know and love from Amazon, with additional business-specific features including bulk pricing, Pay by Invoice*, downloadable VAT invoices and spend management tools. In this marketplace, multiple sellers compete for purchases on common stock keeping units (SKUs) on the most favorable terms for customers. It’s like a “reverse auction” where customers save time, money and hassle in the process.

Choice, value and convenience: Amazon Business simplifies the entire purchasing process for businesses by helping them find, compare and order exactly what they need with fast, reliable shipping and flexible payment options. It’s a shopping experience Amazon customers will instantly recognise and understand.


Helpful purchasing tools: Amazon Business gives users access to helpful purchasing controls that can ensure that only authorised purchases are made, together with tools to integrate with their existing purchasing system and provide detailed purchasing analytics.


Free accounts: Unlike warehouse clubs or subscription-based online retailers, Amazon Business accounts are free, even for companies with multiple authorised purchasers. Once registered, those with accounts are able to search hundreds of millions of products in the Amazon Business inventory, where multiple sellers can compete for their purchase.

Who is eligible for an Amazon Business account?

Business Accounts and business user accounts are intended for businesses and business-related organisations and may be used solely for business purposes. To create a business user account, users must use a valid email address.

Amazon.co.uk may use the business name, address, VAT number or business identification number and any other information a customer provides about their organisation or users or that we may request or determine is necessary to verify accuracy and eligibility for Amazon Business. Amazon may make, directly or through third parties, inquiries to validate information provided to us. Amazon may accept or refuse use of Amazon Business at their discretion.

Having a Business acount you have the flexibility of buying and selling whilst using a trusted logistics company known world wide.



*Subject to satisfactory credit checks and credit limit

Sending Emails to CEO’s

Mon, February 01, 2021 / CMJUK / 0 Comments

Sending emails to ceo’s.

My Pet Peeve is that I have emailed some CEO’s directly of late and have other people email me back, not the CEO themselves.

If I have taken the trouble to seek a CEO’s email out, as some are difficult to get hold of, you would think they would have the decency to reply. Instead I get emails from other people underneath them.

If I wanted the opinion of another person I would no doubt have seeked them out also.

If I get emails directly, I do not portray myself to be “so very important” that I cannot answer my own emails. I most certainly would not employ someone to open my emails and filter what is worth me reading, I would somehow use the money paying someone instead to go use.

Yes I hear you, the CEO has created a job for someone, I will no doubt agree but surely making an employee more proactive and getting them to find more business is better than someone just responding to emails all day.

Why do CEO’s act like they are from another planet. Nearly all started out the same way as most of us and only a few were born with silver spoons in their mouths.

I am not talking about A-Lister Celebrities, who potentially have millions of fans emailing them, in which they may need help answering all the fan mail, I am talking about owners of companies, who also think they are untouchable and think because they have risen above the clouds they are essentially no longer human and have minions doing the work for them, whilst they sit back and reap the rewards.

To employ someone to respond to emails is basically lazy and pretentious, which I certainly I am not.

By getting someone else to respond on your behalf it like saying “Look at me, I am SO VERY IMPORTANT AND BUSY and you are an insignificant person to me, in which I will not respond directly and will get someone else to respond on my behalf”.

Obviously I have enough common sense to filter out what is in need of my attention and what is not. If on the other hand I had an email that may need investigating and I was too busy to do the work myself I would get someone to do the work and then write it out but I would still send it from my inbox as courtesy.

It really gets to me, the biggger the company the less they care about their customers and its all about how much money they make rather than seeing a customer happy.

“Without customers, followers and connections you would not be living in your fancy houses driving your fancy cars”.

I know enough that even if my emails have not been read by the CEO’s I always have my platform to fall back on if I get a lame response from someone underneath them. Never judge a book by its cover or underestimate anyone.

“No matter how successful you are, remember where you came from and the strugggles and sacrifices you made getting where you are today”.

No matter how important you may be and even if you are one of the fortune 500 it is always good to show empathy to your followers, connections and customers, otherwise you have the misfortune of alienating yourself from the rest of the world. Showing people that you care will only entice more worshippers.

When contacting CEO’s evaluate is your email worthy of a response as CEO’s are busy people and although I made light of it earlier, they do not all sit in swanky restaurants sipping cocktails all day, they actually do work and jolly hard too, so you need to ask yourself does your email warrant a response.

I personally have eleven inboxes open on my phone and every few hours scroll and mark the ones that need my attention.

Finally, if all CEO’s thought they were untouchable we would not have LinkedIn and the ones that do and do not connect with you after you send them a message may find they have missed out on an opprtunity to get more business and added exposure and as I see it, thats their loss not mine.

Royal Mail VS Courier

Sat, January 16, 2021 / CMJUK / 0 Comments

Royal Mail Poor and Costly Service.

As my readers are aware by now I own several blogs and today I posted on: https://disabledentrepreneur.uk/royal-mail-vs-courier

I am a marketing influencer consultant with a following of nearly 10K people on LinkedIn.

My concerns are that my daughter who suffers with Multiple Sclerosis is on the verge of a replase because of Royal Mail due to unnecassary anxiety and stress.

Now I have reached out to the CEO Stuart Simpson regarding the problem my daughter is faced with for comment.

The post should be titled “Royal Mail VS Carrier Pigeon”.

Hopefully we will be able to resolve this issue quickly without any fuss.

I will be updating this post at the bottom of this page as soon as I get a response.

My concerns are not only about the value of the parcel and deadline but also by far the most important my daughters health. Obviously the parcel is worth a lot of money for my daughter to be up in arms worrying.

If a company has a laid back attitude and says they will respond within 10 -35 days, that is simply not good enough.

If you have a problem fix it thats all I can say, employ more staff if you have to….

There are plenty competitors out there including possible startups so it would be worth evaluating logistic strategies to stay ahead of the competion.

Regarding cost.

If you are sending letters, then Royal Mail is an option, but email is far easier, quickerm cheaper and more secure. However, if you want to send parcels that are larger and heavier, a courier is without a doubt the most cost-effective option every time.

I remember sending parcels abroad that cost more than the content I was shipping using Royal Mail.

Royal Mail vs Couriers – Which One Works for your Business?

Chat Widget.

Even I have a chat widget on all my sites, it is not hard to implement and it gives confidence to the user that their question will be answered, without trudging through countless web pages. I personally detest when a company does not tell you straight but points you to a tutorials or web pages and has no chat widget.

Standard of Care.

When a company enters into a contract between the consumer and service provider they have to duty of standard care which may be expressed in the contract or be implied by statute.

The contract may impose an absolute obligation on the entity to perform. However, in the case of giving advice or providing some other professional service, the implied duty of reasonable care and skill is likely to apply (Section 13 SGSA 1982).

For example, when acting on behalf of a client in litigation, the solicitor is not guaranteeing success. The duty on the solicitor is to act with the care and skill that the client is entitled to expect from a professional. Similarly, when supervising the construction of a building, the surveyor is under a duty to act with the requisite care and skill. An additional absolute duty may be placed on the professional (for example, a surveyor may have contractually undertaken to spend a set number of hours each day at the site). The nature of any contractual obligation needs to be examined in each case.

Obviously the care expected between the consumer and the service provider is to ensure that the service is met and in the case of Royal Mail logistics are delivered from A to B., failing to do this, the consumer is entitled to monetary compensation.

https://www.humphreys.co.uk/personal/negligence-general/

FINAL THOUGHTS!

I understand the sheer volume of letters and parcels sent everyday can be overwhelming to comprehend and my daughter and I am are a drop in the ocean as far as Royal Mail are concerned. But if Amazon who I am an affiliate are on the ball there should be no excuse for Royal Mail.

Here is the compensation page it mentions nothing about if someone falls ill because of a direct consequence (Domino Effect) of Royal Mail’s actions.

UPDATE

19/01/21

I had a response back from the CEO of Royal Mail who said they would look into this for me. This does not solve the problem that even though I received the email 24 hours ago no one has bothered contacting my daughter and I.

Out of frustracion my daughter phoned Royal Mail today and was put on hold for an hour and ten minutes.

People should not have to wait this long to be put through to have a person on the other end obviously over worked and very stressed, having a tone in her voice and then saying that they are aware there is a backlog of deliveries in Cardiff Sorting Office (UK).

This news is no good to the customer who has a deadline to return a package.

What Is Royal Mail Doing?

Even a carrier pigeon can deliver faster than what they are doing right now.

They should never make excuses as with every obstacle there is always a solution.

Tell me something if there are so many people out of work because of lockdown surely they can employ people or use online virtual assistants to answer calls and message with online chat. They would not have to physically employ staff just hire a service provider that can alleviate the problem of answering calls.

As for the backlog of deliveries what is wrong with their logistics again they could outsource the work to other couriers.

Obviously I do not know how a sorting office runs as the closest I have been to one was to collect parcels but again there is always a solution to every problem.

I would like to know what Royal Mail will offer my daughter for all the stress and worry she has endured which is detrimental to her health?

Will I be promoting Royal Mail in future?, who knows we will have to wait and see in another update. I still have not shared this post on my social media pages as I am still waiting on a soultion to this problem, although the clock is ticking.

https://www.royalmail.com/retail-compensation-policy-loss

Making Waves – Public Relations.

Wed, January 06, 2021 / CMJUK / 0 Comments

Making Waves – Public Relations.

I was told today by a company that shall remain nameless as well as their industry that I should not be making waves, meaning i should not be writing news articles about a partiular topic.

My answer to that is, this is my job, I announce to the world what is on my mind, fact check everything and make companies more aware the latest news, reviews and regulations.

If a company goes to me and says do not make waves and argues with me that I should not be writing certain articles even though it does not directly involve them, means they either are afraid of something, have something to hide or do not like being told they are wrong.

The name of the game of business you have to listen and you have to learn.

I make it my job to know the facts and the law and hope that the information I write is useful.

Should a person not take my advice, that is there problem not mine.

When a company tells me I cannot do my job or question my motives I have to ask why?, there is also freedom of speech and anyone can write anything as long as it is not fake news.

Making waves allows people to notice what you have to say, as long as it is for the right reasons and done properly, you should not be stirring up a hornets nest if you do not want to get stung, as there is an element it can backfire. But providing you have all the evidence to back up your claim there is no reason to let your ideas, thoughts and comments be not known.

Are you a Spineless Jellyfish.

If you are a Spineless Jellyfish a person who is hard working, works by the book, but is underappreciated because they don’t speak up, then they will never get noticed.

Are you a Tuna.


However a Tuna Fish in the ocean of businesses may have the ability to stand up for themselves, may have a good network of friends and colleagues but won’t stand out from the school of fish as much as you would desire. In this case they need to brush up your public relations skills.

Are you a Shark.


Finally are you are a shark – like me and are one fearless fish in the sea! You have a presence that is well known however you want to to make a ripple in the waters, not create a crushing tidal wave.

So for the company that told me not to make waves they have missed the boat because i was going to give them a free marketing boost, especially seeing I found they have been in business for many years and are still not on the first page of Google organically. The other things is they have a hyphenated domain name, which is a no no in the world of SEO and have no cookie banner.

Always remember you do not who you are dealing with and where people make assumptions, this is wrong as the next nerdy person you speak to could be a Fortune 100 CEO of a Big Tech Company.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

PR is the act of story telling.  It spreads awareness of the brand, the product or service. PR is trying to influence an audience, to trust your brand, product or service and help to promote your idea and get the end user to purchase your product, support your position, or recognize your accomplishments. The Public Relations Society of America PRSA say “Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” Public relations is a communication strategy that builds public awareness and mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and the consumer.”

Advertising is paid media, public relations is earned media.

Our Fees.

Hourly Fee – £300.

Half Day Fee – £1,100.00

Full Day – £2000.00

20% Discount the more days you do.

***(Pricing excludes printing costs, distribution of materials and advertising costs).

We can commit to anywhere between 5 and 10 days each and every month for each campaign.

We believe having a large network of journalists, bloggers, influencers aswell as Fortune 100 Billionaires, Millionaires, Royalty and Law Makers, our news articles will spread awareness and will get noticed.

***We offer a free 30 minute consultation and ask our clients to point out their failures and their weaknesses so that we can construct a solid platform to work from. Knowing what the core problem is will help deliver strategic plans to put a company back on the right path.

PR Role is:

  1. To build strong relationships and networks with colleagues, clients and the media and answer enquiries from the media and other organisations.
  2. Monitor the media, including newspapers, magazines, journals, broadcasts, newswires, social media sites and blogs, for opportunities for clients.
  3. Research, write and distribute press releases to targeted media collate and analyse media coverage.
  4. Write and edit in-house magazines, case studies, speeches, articles and annual reports.
  5. Prepare and supervise the production of publicity brochures, handouts, direct mail leaflets, promotional videos, photographs, films and multimedia programmes.
  6. Undertake photo opportunities and coordinate studio or location photography.
  7. Organise events (such as press conferences, exhibitions, open days and press tours), source speakers and seek out sponsorship opportunities.
  8. Maintain and update information on the organisation’s website.
  9. Manage and update information and engage with users on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
  10. Prepare regular client reports and attend client meetings.
  11. Commission market research.
  12. Undertake research for new business proposals and present them to potential new clients.
  13. Foster good community relations through events such as open days and through involvement in community initiatives.
  14. Manage the PR aspect of a potential crisis situation.

Final Thoughts.

I try to help people as much as I can, but if they do not want to be helped then its up to them.

The tradesperson that I dealt with today and was representing the company basically ruined any chances the company could have had for free marketing, because of his dictatorship, aswell as not knowing exactly my job role.

Never assume anything and do take into account when you speak with someone you may not always know who you are talking to.

Always take an opportunity when it comes knocking on your door because like the company today they missed the boat even though I was not selling them anything, just giving them free advice, I was going to suggest helping them, but the dialogue did not happen and never will.

Also never judge a book by its cover!

Working With Amazon as an Affiliate or Seller.

Sun, January 03, 2021 / CMJUK / 0 Comments

Working With Amazon as an Affiliate or Seller.

If you are thinking of starting a side hustle I will go through something I do and then go into selling directly on Amazon.

I am an Amazon Assoicate, what this means is I get a commission for every product that is bought through my links within 24 hours of a click. Amazon Associates have a 24 hour cookie that they place on a visitors computer so that when the visitor clicks and returns within 24 hours no matter what they buy you will get a commission.

The Amazon Associates Affilate Program is one of the largest affiliate networks in the world that helps content creators, publishers, and website owners monetize their traffic. I prefer to use my blogs and websites and share my posts to my large following on LinkedIn. To monetize your website or blog takes time and you will not be an overningt success.

To be honest you need a lot of traffic to begin with, as the click through ratio is only 1-3 percent, so out of a hundred clicks you will have 1 – 3 visitors that will convert into a commission, so if a click is worth £10 for example you will get £10 to £30.

The beauty about Amazon affiliate marketing is you do not need a website or blog as you can share you links directly via email or social media platforms like Facebook which is less effort.

One also has to take into account the commission rates on a product, not all product commissions are equal.

Why waste your efforts promoting something that is low in commissions when you can devote your time doing the same thing with higher commission rates.

On the other hand instead of being an affiliate you could directly sell on Amazon, you do not neccessarily have to have any inventory, website or blog you can dropship or use Amazon FBA program. However what do you sell that is popular on Amazon? Here is a link to a list that changes every hour of products that are popular on Amazon and any given time:

AMAZON BEST SELLERS

You do need to consider your marketing strategies and some people as well as selling on Amazon sell their products via online stores that they have created themselves or had designed for them. Remember you need to do a lot of SEO to get your website blog on the first page of a search engines and you need exact match searchable keywords and phrases domain names.

To start selling on Amazon you first need to set up a sellers account: https://sell.amazon.com/sell.html

If you want some free advice please message using the online form. Do not spend thousands of $$$ on online courses, just message us instead for free.

Reasons Why You Will Never Be Rich.

Sun, January 03, 2021 / CMJUK / 0 Comments

This Is Why Most People Will Never Be Rich

  1. You are too complacent and too set in your ways to make changes. You like to play it safe.
  2. You have no ambition.
  3. Your attitude to money is wrong *What ever will be will be”.
  4. You believe high brand items and fancy cars will make you look rich, hence you give a false perception of yourself so that people think you are rich.
  5. You are very materialistic, you spend more than you earn because you want the best of the best and you want to look your best even though you cannot afford it.
  6. You do not respect money, you will squander money on trivial things.
  7. You value going to the pub over education (entertainment instead of learning something new).
  8. You’re afraid to take risks.
  9. You don’t have a plan of action. You do not know how to execute an idea.
  10. You have not set any goals.
  11. You spend more than you make.
  12. You do not have a budget.
  13. You do not save money, save 10% of your earnings.
  14. You do not invest.
  15. You do not consilidate your debts and eliminate them entirely.
  16. You do not perservere.
  17. You give up to easilly.
  18. You think investing is risky but fail to realise that not investing is the biggest risk of all.
  19. You put your eggs in one basket, meaning you do not have several income streams.
  20. You complain about not having enough money rather than doing something about it.
  21. You live for today & and have no plans for tomorrow.
  22. You believe money will just fall into your lap.
  23. You don’t think you have what it takes to succeed.
  24. You think you need to be lucky to have money including gambling or expecting to win the lottery.
  25. You’re scared of failure.
  26. You don’t have access investment strategies & high quality mentors.
  27. You want to get paid based on your time rather than on your value.
  28. You’re surrounding yourself with the wrong people.
  29. You want to get rich quick rather than doing any work.
  30. You don’t understand the fundamentals of a budget – spend less than you earn.
  31. You think money is the route of all evil.
  32. You take things to heart and not not do well with criticism.
  33. You do not have a passion and do not love what you do.
  34. You do not know how to solve problems, people need help with problem solving, you do not know how to get over obstacles or mistakes.
  35. You do not have patience, you expect to get rich quick.
  36. You do not have a mentor.
  37. You do not have a network of like minded people.
  38. You do not test your product or service with consumers.
  39. You do not take care of your mental or physical self.
  40. You work for a company but you do not own shares.

FINAL THOUGHTS.

How To Become Rich.

  1. You need to able to persuade, negotiate and sell.
  2. You need to be able to read people, know which people to trust.
  3. You need to share your knowledge, if people can see how you make money they are more likely to invest in you.
  4. Rich people master leverage, know how to delegate and crowd source.
  5. Grow a Network with like minded people and get a mentor.
  6. Master Energy Management. Sleep well, take care of your mind and your body.
  7. Learn to probem solve not only for yourself but for other people.
  8. Critical Time Path (CTP), know how to delagate your time management productively.
  9. Know how and when to take risks and manage money, including budgeting and investments.
  10. Be assertive, confident, focused and determned.
  11. Learn something new every day and share it with others.
  12. Retrain your brain.

How To Treat Your Customers With Respect.

Mon, December 28, 2020 / CMJUK / 0 Comments
Customers

How NOT to Treat Customers Like They Do NOT Matter!

  1. Do NOT IGNORE Your Customers
  2. Do NOT LIE to Your Customers
  3. Do NOT FAIL TO HONOUR a Promotional Price or Goodwill Gesture
  4. Do NOT EMPLOY Staff Members that are rude or have attitude.
  5. Do NOT TREAT Customers Like Numbers
  6. Do NOT IGNORE Feedback
  7. DO NOT ARGUE with customer complaints
  8. DO NOT FAIL to Seek Clarification
  9. DO NOT WITHHOLD Empathy
  10. DO NOT AVOID Taking Responsibility
  11. DO NOT MAKE Promises You Can’t Keep
  12. DO NOT FORGET to Follow Up
  13. DO NOT MAKE Your Customers Feel Stupid
  14. DO NOT ASSUME That You Have Resolved Problems
  15. DO NOT FAIL to Set Expectations
  16. DO NOT RUSH the Support Process
  17. DO NOT AVOID Putting in Extra Effort
  18. DO NOT TAKE Your Customers for Granted
  19. DO NOT LIMIT Your Support to a Single Channel
  20. DO NOT BE Indifferent

“A happy customer will tell 10 people about their experience but an unhappy customer will tell the world”.

Failing to do good customer service do you no favors and only gives you a bad name.

If a company like Argos which caused me no end of problems over the Christmas Period, fail to keep to their end of the bargain to send a £75 e-voucher as a way to say sorry, then all I can say is companies such as Amazon will eventually swallow up their business as most manufacturers and retailers are already using Amazon to sell their products.

As it so happens I am an Amazon Assoiciate Affiliate.

What a company should not do is upset the wrong people in fact they should upset anyone at all, but unfortunately they do.

When a company shows that they are willing to say sorry the customer is more likely to tell people what the company has done to make amends.

Promising a goodwill gesture, then retracting it, and also ignoring the customer’s emails does not say much about the company.

With businesses closing their doors for good because of the current economic crisis, you would think that smaller companies to Amazon would go above and beyond their call of duty.

Being honorable, transparent, and courteous gives people a reason to trust and in turn, the customer will recommend your products and your services. Doing one or more of the things listed above does not show you as a company in good light.

“Respect each and every customer as if they were your only customer”.

“Not only am I an Amazon Associate I am also an Amazon Customer and have opted to use Amazon Prime which cost £7.99 per month, this gets you free deliveries and Amazon Video two services for the price of one”.

My next big purchase is going to be a tabletop dishwasher. I find standing and washing dishes by hand not only tedious but it affects my back and I end up in agony.

Argos Saga: https://www.cymrumarketing.com/argos_appliances_disclaimer_and_hot_zones/

#customerloyalty customerrespect #leadership #brandcredibility

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