Wednesday 4 December 2013

3 Most Successful Entrepreneurial Marketing Strategies that can Change your Business



Marketing strategies are becoming more aggressive, innovative, inexpensive, intuitive and proactive. Innovative marketing is redefining business as entrepreneurs adopt new strategies to product promotion. Innovative entrepreneurs create unique identity for their businesses and as well promote their products.

Entrepreneurial Marketing is marketing with an entrepreneurial spirit. It is a type of marketing strategy that is innovative, risky and proactive. It focuses on opportunities and can be performed with less resource.

Here are the 3 best known and most successful Entrepreneurial Marketing strategies
·         
     Guerrilla Marketing
This is a ‘crazy’, low cost, high impact and a one-time (rarely repeated) marketing technique that springs surprises and that ‘wow effect’ about your business. E.g. The TV drama series ‘Vampire Diaries 2’ was promoted with ‘Blood-like liquid’ dispenser at strategic locations.
·      
            Buzz Marketing
It is a form of word-of-mouth communication which uses internet, e-mail, or BBM to generate a buzz around your business or product. Get opinion leaders in social networks to help disseminate information about your business. Buzz marketing strives on credibility, else it will be counterproductive.
·    
            Viral Marketing
This is about a customer spreading marketing messages or rumors about a product to create brand awareness. The best form is to create messages that appeal to individuals who can forward the message. 

No matter the form your marketing strategies take, a little creativity can get you ahead of others.

Friday 15 November 2013

Being an Entrepreneur is not a Title

Entrepreneurship is not a style, and it’s no joke. It is not a wish, and it’s not in having a great idea, and it is not about having a complimentary card or a business name. Being an entrepreneur is about sweating out your idea, and making it tangible enough for various stakeholders to buy into it. Having the title ‘an entrepreneur’ is not an accomplishment, what makes you an entrepreneur is what you have accomplished through innovation and creativity.  

There are 2 critical roles entrepreneurs play in the life of consumers

The role of a Father
Fathers anticipate the needs of their children. Through experience, they know what needs the children may have as they grow, so they prepare for it, and provide it. Successful entrepreneurs are those that anticipate needs and sometimes even create one and eventually solve it. Consumers sometimes don’t know what they really need; it is the responsibility of the entrepreneur to anticipate such need, and figure out how to satisfy it.

The role of a Leader
Leaders lead their followers towards a desired destination. For entrepreneurs, it is not enough to anticipate needs, they have to guide consumers towards satisfaction. Consumers love entrepreneurs that have the capacity to lead them to satisfaction. If you anticipate need and you can’t create a solution that is so innovative and creative that consumers are willing to leave their current solution and move on with you, you are not yet an entrepreneur. Steve Jobs provided a direction with the iPhone and iPad; he created a new path that consumers and competitors willingly followed. That is what entrepreneurs do.  

Entrepreneurship is a duty, an obligation for which you hold yourself accountable for meeting a particular need of the society. You have the duty not just to identify a need, but to innovatively transform that need into a solution that people will be willing to pay for. Every activity an entrepreneur engages in is done with a level of responsibility to the consumers, and it is this responsibility that makes one an entrepreneur.

Tuesday 25 June 2013

How Small Businesses can Recover, Grow and Succeed

Small businesses have had their own share of the recent economic crisis that rock the world. While many have absorbed the shook and moved on, others are still struggling with the effects of the recession.

Recently, D&B an organisation that provides insights and actionable information to support small business growth offered some tips on how small businesses can recover, grow and succeed during challenges. These principles include

  1. Make use of data: The big businesses are not the only ones who need data to make decisions, small businesses should also take advantage of it to improve on their business decisions.
  2. Be transparent with your business: Small businesses that share information on themselves are more likely to get access to capita.
  3. Get personal with your customers: Small businesses stand a chance of developing a one-on-one relationship with their customers more than big businesses. Make use of all the channels possible to keep the interaction going on with them.
  4. Don't be restricted: Explore new markets, seek for new opportunities, and develop new strategies.
  5. Make resilience the norm: Adaptive and agile small businesses are responsive and ready for change 

Quotes on Personal Development

It is only the very wisest and the very stupidest who
cannot change.

     --  Confucius



We are either progressing or retrograding all the while;
there is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life.

     --  James Freeman Clarke
 


To conquer oneself is the best and noblest victory; to be
vanquished by one's own nature is the worst and most
ignoble defeat.

      --  Plato
 


Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.
      --  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 


The happiest life is that which constantly exercises and educates what is best in us.
      --  Hamerton