Gone are the days of having to place expensive ads in newspapers with the slim hopes that the right kind of people find and read the ads. Wireless advertising has grown in leaps and bounds the past couple of years and the response rate to this type of advertising is thought to be as high as 50%. There is simply no other medium that provides this type of return. Sweetening the deal is the fact that  text advertising is also very easy to track.  You can measure the results to determine your exact ROI (return on investment) for every single promotion campaign you run.

In Europe and Asia, cell phones have been widely used for promotion and this trend is gradually catching on in the United States as well. The reason that it has not been done much in the U.S. earlier  is due to the fact that it was often impossible to send text messages from one cell phone carrier subscriber to another user who had a different carrier.  Thankfully, this technicality has been remedied and business all across the U.S. are finding new and creative ways to effectively grow their brand and increase sales, traffic and customer loyalty through the use of mobile marketing.

With cell phone marketing, you can send coupons to your customers or other promotions you run. You can keep you customers informed of new products and services, and as a result, you should enjoy an increase in business and sales.

Mobile marketing is effective for any type of business that wishes to attract more customers or extend the reach of where their information can go. Since over 90% of all cell phone messages are actually read, you have the assurance knowing that your message is received and read promptly. You can then take it a step further by offering incentive discounts if the offer is acted on in a specified period of time.

If you are experiencing a lack of sales and wish to take your marketing efforts to a whole new level, then by all means consider jumping into the mobile marketing arena. It is the new  trend of the future, so the quicker you jump on board the quicker you can gain a strong foothold in your particular field of business.

Any thoughts or comments, feel free to drop me a line.

Stephen C Campbell

After all, business strategies help us ensure that our business is running well, and that they are the best they can be. Business strategies help us maximize the profit, while helping us with the budgeting and give us tips on how to set up a business and as well as how to maintain it.

This article will focus on business strategies for small businesses, that’s because, they are pretty common.

• One of the more effective business strategies, for small and even big businesses, is be creative. Do not just stick with the common small business located in your area. Be creative. Think of a business that you can start with a small budget, but you can gradually upgrade and will be profitable. Typing jobs are okay. You can also set-up a printing shop.
• Be wary of your surroundings. Take note of the other small business located in your area. Write all of them down, and see which are the most common, which have the most customers and hence, most profit, and which are the least common. This list will help you on what kind of small business that you should set up.
• Be courteous, kind and friendly with your customers. If you have already setup your small business, doing all these three things I’ve mentioned will make sure that your customers will be coming back to you because of your pleasing personality. It also helps to always interact with your customers.
• Do more than what is expected. Give your all. Give it your 110%. This is because doing more than what is expected will make sure that your customers will be pleased with your works. This is important in printing shops, typing jobs and even small business related to food.

Taking note of these seemingly simple action points will serve you well as you look to take your business forward.

The fact is that making the desired end user customers aware of the products and services that the organisation has to offer is key in the first step for a successful business, to do this appropriate markerting channels need to the made use of.

Assuming the targets decide to purchase – the necessary and most efficient sales channels will then need to be employed to enable the marketplace to be able to purchase as many of the organisation’s products and services as possible.

Above are some of the necessities of ensuring the success of organisations and why the best marketing consultants are always in demand. As companies spend their time executing previously devised plans – there is often not the time and urgency to focus on developing key go to market strategies that will at times take the company in different directions.

It is for the reason above that it will continue to make sense for companies to seek outside help that can bring a much needed perspective that will act as :-

• a catalyst for change
• business growth
• increeased revenues
• better customer understanding

The bullets points above are some of the benefits that skilled business marketing strategy consultants can bring to any company.

Depending where your business stands today in its development, it may be that you can do your business a huge favour by making use of the services of a marketing consultant, work with them for a few months which can results in many millions of benefit in the long run.

Of course, as this is my profession – you could say that I am biased, however – the facts are there to speak for themselves. Sometime – "we don’t know what we don’t know" that of course goes for any area in life but for the purpose of this discussion; the application to the development of business is the main point.

Any questions ? don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Best,

-Stephen C Campbell

• Research And Development
• Sales
• Marketing
• Human Resource Management
• Finance
• Manufacturing
• Logistics
• Facilties

.. and we could go on adding to the list. Now if we are to ask the question as to what most important functions are, we would most likely get different responses depending on who we posed the question to.

As the reason for the existence of any organisation is to provide its products and services to specific end user customers and; no matter how fantastic the research development engineers are, how streamlined the manufacturing department has become, how well the employees are looked after – if not enough attention is put into the Sales and Marketing functions; there will of course not be enough clients who are purchasing from the corporation.

I’d like to make the statement that Sales and Marketing is the Heart and Soul of every business and the failure to pay significant attention to this part of the business will ultimately end in the failure of the organisation.

To illustrate the point – let’s talk about my favourite company at this point in time when I am looking to illustrate excellence in the Sales and Marketing function – that company is Apple. To learn more about Apple’s latest and fantastic release I suggest you read apple ipad reviews by following the link. In recent years we have seen changes in Apple’s distribution strategies and walking into any Apple store will enable anyone to see what every company looks for – Raving Fanatics – who are passionate about the organisation’s products and services.

During my business radion program when going through the Marketing Mix – I posed the questions :-

• Were there smart phones before the iPhone
• Was there downloadable music before iTunes
• Were there MP3 players before the iPod

and …

• Were there Tablet PCs before the iPad ?

… the answer to all are Yes and yet Apple, through excellence is Sales and Marketing Strategies dominate in each specific Marketing Category. Time will tell as the iPad starts to sell internationally. At the time of writing – the iPad is yet to be release here in the UK and I for one cannot wait to get mine !!

To summarise – never fall so much in love with the products and services of the organisation so that you lose focus in constantly engaging with the targetted end user clients – they at the end of the day are the ones who must be depended upon to make consistent purchases from the organisation in order to keep the company in business.

The constant ongoing refinement and development [and execution] of the Sales and Marketing Strategies of the company – from large corporate to Small and Medium Enterprise, right down to the Solo Preneur will ensure the success of the business endeavour.

Any thoughts / comments.

Let me know,

Stephen C Campbell

activities. For businesses of all sizes, Small and Medium Enterprises as well as large Corporates – we can see that those companies that did not rest on their laurels are the ones that surge forward.

One of the key trends was that of the increase in Asia companies such as :

• China’s high speed bullet trains
• China’s wind turbines
• South Korea’s Hyundai
• South Korea’s LG Electronics

Having worked with Far Eastern companies for many years and having experienced the privilege of residing and managing in the region for a few years I have witnessed first hand the high levels of intelligence and dedication that is to be found in such countries. Rapidly learning from the best practices found in the west and adding where appropriate in order to develop and grown their own brand into global powerhouses.

Herein is the key learning from this post – keep reading, studying, learning and applying new ideas to your business. This applies to managers from large corporates to the small SME and the location in the world that one is operating in does not matter.

HTC were a contract manufacturer for many years for …

• Microsoft
• Google
• Verizon
• NTT Docomo
• T Mobile
• Sprint Nextel

… and learnt from their experiences where we now see the HTC brand standing alone as a quality, sought after brand with a specific message.

To end with this theme of innovation, the question I’d like you to consider is – what are you doing different in your business from what you were doing three months ago ?? Are you implementing specific key innovation strategies, making use of the new technologies and trying new things to reach your clients and to establish exactly what your message is in the crowded marketplace that we can see all around us.

We can all innovate starting by making a list of where we are today, where we want to get to and determining how we are going to get there. To close – I would like you to never underestimate the power of outside consulting expertise to help to get where you wish to get to in as fast as time as possible.

We will speak more about innovation in another posting – for now, don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any comments or would like to talk about business consulting in general.

Best,

-Stephen C Campbell

The case in point is that when many corporations look to make use of the new technologies – there is very often confusion and overwhelment in terms of which direction to follow; which tools to use, how often etc. Shal they use :-

• Blogs
• Search Engines
• News Engines
• Other Websites
• Micro Blogging
• Peer Reviews
• Feeds

            …. and the list could go on and on. It is unfortunate that at times the key message and brand communication of the corporation is thrown out as companies dive into making use of social media for business.

The key lesson, learning or take away point is to put critical focus on the organisation’s message from this strategic approach you should be able to determine which of the hundreds of platforms are most suitable for you to both communicate your message and to [most importantly] listen to what current and prospective clients have to say.

As we roll out our strategic seminars that focus on combining the new technologies with ‘traditional existing business marketing strategies – do get in touch if you’d like us to deliver at your venue [no matter where you are in the world] or work remotely to help you shape your strategies.

Thanks for reading,

Stephen C Campbell

• Technology
• Frequently Manufactured Consumer Goods
• Beauty
• Health and Wellness

                                      … and have to come up with developing and taking apart and putting back together Business Marketing Strategies and Tactics that corporations make use of to take their business to the next level. In essence I take all the lessons that I have learnt from working in over twenty countries throughout the world and working with companies such as …

• Fujitsu
• NEC
• JC Decaux
• Proctor and Gamble
• Amazing Harmony
• Hewlett Packard
• British Telecommunications

                                   …. and conducting business with these companies in countries including …

• United States
• France
• Germany
• United Kingdom
• Switzerland
• Japan
• South Korea
• Hong Kong
• Taiwan

                                    … as well as – reading, reading, reading, reading. I read business books all the time and take from the best Business Marketing Strategies and add to my own personal internal library. The combination and education and experience enable me to comment on the spot and develop strategies for topics such as …

• Channel Marketing
• Ideal Client Profiling
• Marketing Segmentation
• Pricing Strategies

                            …. and so much more. So there you go, I read and study A LOT with a view to being excellent as an Internet Business Marketing Strategy consultant and; here  is a list of ten books that I recommend that you can take and devour to improve your Marketing Strategy skills.

Stephen C Campbell

Given that marketing [and the resultant sales] are the life and soul of every company I am continually baffled at how little time business owners pay to marketing. The title of this article is ’small business marketing ideas’ but when talking to executives from corporates I see a tendency to continue doing what has been done in the past.

That, of course will guarantee past results ! So – what are some of ideas that business owners can start to think about in order to effect change in their organisations ? Without looking at the details of the business of the reader, I would like encourage taking a look at the field of …

• Channel Marketing

… that it to say; stop and think about the various routes ‘Marketing Channels’ that you are currently using to …

• a) Get your message out to prospective clients
• b) Deliver your products and services to the end user

Take for example; some of the large supermarkets – here in the UK we have bit ‘T’, ‘S’ and ‘A’. They present their messages to us via the television, via the internet, newspapers, radio, billboards, flyers and the list can go on. In addition to this we can purchase the goods that they have on offer via the internet, via the TV or we can of course go into the store. We have described various Channels To Market that the supermarkets use to ultimately get us to purchase their goods.

Now, one of the lessons that we can learn from this is that there are / can be / should be various means / methods / techniques in use at any point in time as part of our ongoing marketing strategies. This is of course an ongoing process and something that will be developed / strategised and worked out during any business strategy consultation.

Marketing is a skill and discipline that many business owners who are experts at their particular business field often fail to appreciate – this is not something is done when it comes to Accounting and Finance and Manufacturing, the expert is normally called in to perform these functions. Marketing is the most important part of your business – do not leave it to chance, get expert help that can help you develop an ongoing coherent strategy from which to work from.

If you have any questions about this and would like to discuss personal consulting and coaching with me Stephen C Campbell, do not hesitate to get in touch ….

Whilst Small and Medium Enterprises and Large Corporates by definition will be using some form of distribution channel through which to deliver their products, services and messages – very often we see that they are all but doing more of the same. The recent intensive corporate training seminar that I wrote and ran for Marcus Evans Professional Training was focussed on Enhancing Channel Management Strategies to Maximise Sales Through Distributors. In essence companies face to major decision when it comes to dealing with their distribution channels :-

• The Design of the Distribution Channel
• The Management of the distribution Channel

… as we see that when new employees join an organisation they normally end up sitting with someone who knows how things operate within that company. They learn how things ‘have been done’ and are often judged and measured on how well they measure up to that which they have been taught. However when we look at some of the great business breakthroughs – take for example Dell migrating away from a …

• Direct Only Distribution Channel

…. to that of one where customer can purchase their products via retail and even the television. We see that challenging the norm when it comes to dealing with distribution channels is the same as with everything else in life i.e…. Keep doing the same things and you will get the same results !!! As an Business Strategy Consultant I always aim to look if there is another way as well as looking at what is working and methods for improving on that. It is often said that one cannot change distribution channels easily or taking on new partners is fraught with danger as the existing partners will object, resist and damage the ongoing business relationship. It looks as though many companies are in fact modifying their distribution channel strategies as well as looking to manage exisiting partners and relationships more effectively. As you look to get more out of your business could it be that taking some time out to examine your current distribution channel makeup and management should be the very thing to concentrate on ?? Get in touch if you’d like some outside perspective to help you on your way in your business endeavours. Best, Stephen C Campbell [distribution channel management trainer]

….. company’s business strategy. All corporations and small businesses know that they need to have a website and that leads to the topic of this post. No matter how great the graphics may be or how well designed any website may be, it is of little use if the people who the information contained therein never ever come across the site. This is where the ever moving and rather complicated matter of how to get website visitors come into play so that when searching for specific subject matters users come across the website to meet their needs.

Many are confused over this matter and that is one of the reasons behind the launching of InternetAdvertisingTechniques.com [click the hyperlink above]. The amazing recently developed technology will enable anyone to drive targetted traffic to their website. If you are reading this and you have a blog, social networking page, small business website or an information product – you are strongly advised to go to InternetAdvertisingTechniques.com to see how you can start to generate website traffic today.

Best of all – you can get the information you require – FOR FREE.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

To your internet success,

-Stephen C Campbell