Pierre Eau Business Strategy

Manufacturers of great products are struggling right now due to the potential threat of a recession, a slow down in sales this year and uncertain political and economic times.

The holiday season is the most important time of year for the retail industry. Some 50%+ of revenue is earned during the last 3 months of the year. Many retailers and manufactures had a tough 3rd quarter and need to recover from the strain. It is critical to have a strong 4th quarter to close out the year. To do so, manufactures must engage with their current customers, seek out new ones in effective and efficient ways and incorporate new strategies to do so.

There are several successful, inexpensive marketing and sales tactics worth investigating. These strategies are ideal for manufactures in the retail and e-tail business. Here are 5 doable strategies to increase sales:

1) Grass roots marketing. Pay attention to the bloggers out there who write to your target audience. Mommy Communities, beauty blogs or other product specific Blogs are great resources to get free exposure for your products.

2) Increase online advertising dollars. Margins are higher for manufacturers who e-tail. GoogleAdwords is an easy, do-it-yourself tool to help you with online advertising. Well written pay per click advertising campaigns can rapidly increase your ROI.

3) E-Newsletters. Your happy customers are your best source of advertising. Strive to build a community with your customers. Write to them, send an e-blast, and keep them connected to your business, products and future.

4) Re-purpose or market your product as a gift or a utility item. Both are always in need. Mom’s and women are still buying products, especially for the holidays, but they are evaluating the value of the product prior to spending money. Consumers buy gifts and utility items year round.

5) Give back to your loyal customers. Everyone is struggling now. Do what you can to give back. Create POS materials for your retailers, try to get press in markets which will help your retailers, or give small discounts to your customers. We all appreciate the notion that we “are in this together.”

These are year round strategies to help increase sales not just marketing approaches for the 4th quarter. Implementing basic, predictable and inexpensive marketing tactics will help you have a successful holiday season and will prepare you for the upcoming challenges in the year ahead.

A real home based Internet business has to comply with the same legal regulations as an Internet business from any other location. Here are the basic legal issues with which a real home based Internet business owner must be familiar.

The first issue, and a real concern for any home based Internet business is the restriction based on age. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) follows the regulations spelled out in COPPA, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and requires that children under the age of 13 cannot disclose their personal information unless a parent consents to it. Children under the age of 18 cannot be allowed to view adult content on the Internet, nor can they enter into any contract.

Real time occurrences on the Web, such as chats, must be controlled by the home based Internet business owner. Bulletin boards would have the same control issues. The rules of using each should solicit and retain the consent of each online user to refrain from posting pornography, defamatory material or anything that infringes on others’ rights. Your company should also clearly state on its site that you are not liable for other users that commit to following your policies and guidelines but subsequently violating them.

To make real your ownership of all property and content on your home based business Internet site you’ll need a copyright notice on the site’s footer. The notice should have the date and your name and the statement “All rights reserved.” A real copy of your home based business Internet site should be field with the U.S. copyright office. This will effectively record ownership of the contents of the site, as well as its look and its feel.

Your site’s domain name is an important part of the branding and marketing for your Internet business. It is best to tie that domain name as closely as possible to your logo, your brand and your business name. Carefully choose a domain name that clearly conveys the products or services of your real home based Internet business. Register your domain name as a trademark and you can retain ownership should it be challenged by another business.

If your site is on the World Wide Web then you must comply with export regulations. If you sell goods over the Internet to these global consumers then you are exporting items for sale and entering into international countries. If your site is encrypted then you are exporting to other countries U.S. Department of Commerce and Defense technology. There are many U.S. federal agencies that have regulations in force for doing business with other countries, and the times and circumstances that require a firm to get an export license to send information, technology or goods abroad.

There are countries with whom business transactions are limited severely for U.S. firms. These countries are Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Yugoslavia. The best decision about the real problems you might encounter for your home based Internet business doing business with these countries and/ or its residents should be made with your attorney.

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/ebusiness/operations/article60918.html

Recent surveys involving 300 marketers have shown that the vast majority of in-house marketing teams used online PR campaigns. The survey teams looked at the return on investment of online PR more than any other type of online marketing.

With astute businesses wanting to see real time measurable results the survey showed that although it is possible to track online activities such as the amount of web traffic many marketers remain cautious and dubious with regards to the value of online PR.

Measurability is seen by marketers as a key factor in using online public relations in order to see a return for their investment. The importance of digital PR should be embraced by companies as a tangible way to track performance particularly during the current economic crisis, when each and every potential consumer it reaches can mean the difference between increased sales and profitability or to becoming another statistic in failing businesses.

With online tools available to help track activities and measure success of online public relations it is advised to take a compressive campaign approach.

Digital PR or ePR is seen as an effective way of building and managing brand and service reputation online. In order for digital PR to be successful companies are engaging the expertise of PR companies who have embraced digital public relations as a positive way forward for many companies. More importantly the reputable and well established PR companies have not abandoned the more traditional public relations methods, but skilfully combine the two to ensure maximum expose is made to consumers.

The PR companies include a variety of different online public relations tactics and strategies which are all tangible and measurable such as communication through the use of blogs, Facebook and Twitter as a way of engaging and sustaining public interest.

Other strategies involve using new media such as pod casts, publishing information online on a Wiki and tailored media campaigning targeting online titles and journalism as a separate entity to main print paper.

Is Digital PR important?

Companies who want to stay ahead of the game and have a real edge over their competitors will need to utilise all of the traditional public relations methods and embrace new marketing and digital PR strategies to keep their brand name in the forefront of consumer’s minds. Competition had never been fiercer as companies small and large try to ride out the economic crisis and stay in business any way they can.

Companies with astute business minds are realising that although they may have to be making some pretty severe cut backs, public relations is this last area which they should be axing altogether. Those who believe that online public relations is not an effective way to promote their business may well face a fall in consumer interest over the next few months and beyond. Companies should be aware that consumers are very fickle, once ‘lost’ it will take a lot of enticing and potentially expensive marketing and traditional and digital PR work to win their business back.