5 Easy Steps to Achieve Your New Year’s Business Goals

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Direct_West_Media_Group_ResolutionsBusiness goals are always in the forefront of every business owner’s thoughts. Without them a business can remain stagnant and slowly fade into oblivion from lack of focus. While the small business can’t set unreasonable expectations that the large corporation can, it’s still possible to record ideas and stick to them. It’s a new year and 2016 is the perfect time to start thinking about where to take your business. Most business owners want to achieve greater profits, and that means a heavier hand on the marketing end. While you can tell your business colleagues all about your plans, many new year’s resolutions get pushed to the side before the month of January even ends.

Here are five easy steps to help you to achieve your New Year’s business goals.

  1. You don’t have time for marketing, so don’t add these tasks to your calendar. Chances are you’re already too busy with the other intricate operations of your business. Do you really have time to take on the added task of marketing to new and existing customers? Don’t set yourself up for failure.
  2. 
Let a marketing expert tackle your marketing needs. When you hire a business to handle your marketing it’s 100% guaranteed to get done, because A) You’ve paid someone to deliver, and B) They’re experienced and knowledgeable about how to market your business to the masses— including effective techniques and software to use and how to schedule these tasks into the day for the best response.
  3. Liaise with your marketing partner. Don’t just pass the entire project off to them and hope for the best. If you begin to see results, let them know what it was, and when it happened. Likewise if you see no results at all, perhaps it’s time to shift to a new direction. This enables them to adjust their efforts where needed. They also want to work with you, as they want you to succeed too.
  4. Focus focus focus. Don’t just announce that you plan on increasing quarterly business revenues by 20%. Decide how you will do it. Do you wish to focus on your business foundation, whether it’s retail, service, or wholesale, or do you want to create value added services?
  5. Your business marketer should be hitting on several key times throughout the week. Most likely you’ve been steadily posting once or twice a week on Facebook or Twitter, but that’s not really enough to meet the needs of your customers or clients who are browsing social media sites on a regular basis. You don’t want them to catch a post from your competition because “you didn’t have time” to post at regular intervals throughout the day.

If you’re finding that you have no time to spend on marketing and your employees never have time to do it either, contact Direct West Media Group to find out how we can help you to achieve your business goals in 2016.

How to Extend Your Reach

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Business owners may be under the delusion that they should only advertise or market their business with one form of media. Perhaps you advertise your company in your local newspaper. You have a basic website and Twitter account set up. But the more avenues you use, the wider the reach to your audience.

What are some different methods to advertise or market your business? Wading through the options can take some time. Most businesses have a website but you’d be surprised at how many don’t. With today’s tech savvy shoppers, if you’re not online, you’re likely not going to get a visit.

Today, a savvy shopper will do their research before deciding if your business is worth a visit. They’ll check Yelp and Google Reviews to see your rating. They’ll visit your business’s website to see the range of services and products you provide. Can they order products online? How about ordering services? Can they order a meal online for takeout? If you run a restaurant, the menu should be posted online.

Customer testimonials posted to your website are a great way to advertise. Reading favorable reviews can draw someone to your business. You can place comment cards on your counter and offer a prize draw at the end of the month, to people who filled out the comments form.

Many small business owners refuse to use social media, claiming it’s a waste of time. But if you’re a business owner, and you ignore the value of social media, you’re missing out on a whole different consumer market. There’s thousands of social media sites, but Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google +, and Tumblr are holding steady for being the most popular.

Each social media site draws their own niche crowd. Social media can be used to promote your business. Once you’re set up, accounts should be updated daily. If you have coupons or specials, they can be posted online. If you have a shopping club card, you could talk about it. You may want to post photos of merchandise. Social media accounts don’t need to constantly promote your business. You can provide some fun articles and photos here too. For example, if you run a catering company, you could have a blog with party ideas. That way you’re not tiring your audience with constant chatter about coming in for a visit.

Video killed the radio star may be true, but podcasting is in, particularly with the younger crowd. Listening to radio and audio over the net has been steadily growing. There are many popular podcasts to listen to. And, advertising on a podcast is one of the options to advertise your business. It can be a whole lot cheaper than advertising on your local radio station too. So, give this a consideration.

Large format visual display billboards are often overlooked by small business owners. They are a highly effective way to reach that part of your audience who doesn’t have time to be online. They’ll effectively advertise your business on billboards near popular transit flows.

Television ads don’t have to be expensive. Most cities have a local cable channel where they run local programming. You can have an affordable 30 second spot and your message will directly reach your target market.

You can see that there are several different advertising and marketing models for you to choose from. Please contact Direct West Media Group Inc. and they’ll help you organize the best marketing plan for your business.