All posts in Business Strategy

How To Run A Successful Event To Build A Better Business Network

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How To Run A Successful Event

Events are a powerful tool for marketers to truly engage their consumers and leverage their brand. No matter what type of event you plan to run, there are a few points you need to remember to ensure your event is a success.
A successful Event Marketing Campaign is one that:

* Meets your brand objectives.
* Delivers a meaningful message directly to the target market.
* Complements your overall marketing plan.
* Provides a talking point amongst consumers.

The Strategy

Choosing the right event strategy for your product or service requires a thorough understanding of the brand objectives. You may require an experienced event agency partner if you do not have sufficient in-house resources to help you to achieve your goals. Look for a good team of experienced and creative minds who are ready to analyse every element of your product and service and its current position to design the best possible strategy. The following points should be considered:
Event Outcome

Clarity and agreement around the issue of event outcome is imperative. Key stake holders will have different views and perspectives of what they want out of an event. Defining and agreeing the desired event outcome means that the correct approach is taken. It means that the creative development of the event and the content to all work together to produce the right results. Ask yourself the following questions.

* What is the outcome you want for this event?
* What change do you want to effect?
* What tangible changes do you want? Eg Increase in sales, lead generation?
* What is the best thing/outcome that could happen as a result of this campaign?
* When the road show is over what do you want the guests to be saying about the event over coffee to their friends?
* What would be the ultimate sign of success for the event?

Target Market

Your target group are your guests. They could be prospective or existing clients or they could be staff. Again ask yourself: Who are they? Where are they? Why do you want them to attend? What do they like to do? How do we get their attention? What do they think/know/feel about your company now? What do you want them to think/know/feel about your company post the event?

Think about what events they have experienced before either with your organisation or with your competitors. What is their age group, are they an even mix of male and female? Understanding your audience is a good first step in the event planning process.
Message

A clear message is critical to the success of any event. Knowing exactly what you want to say is imperative. Its about what you want to say rather than how you want to say it at this stage? What is the main story you want to tell? What is imperative that they know when they leave? Communication of the message needs to be clear and concise. Consistency is key and your message needs to be included in each step from the invitation to web marketing campaign, to the event, the marketing collateral and the carefully planned post event strategy.
Brand Positioning

A good understanding of your brand position is crucial in building an event strategy. Is the event about a new product or service? Is it the launch of a new variable product or service? Are there set sales objectives for the product or service? Your brand position will assist in clarifying the best type of event your company needs and the most appropriate communication vehicle to engage your audience.
Creative

The creative development of the event can vary enormously. Considering the questions above certainly points you in the right direction to as to what kind of event will provide the most powerful result. It could be a national road show with international speakers or it could be a half day relationship building experience with key clients. A golf day, seminar series, exhibition, conference, experiential marketing campaign or any other various type of event should focus on leveraging your brand and provide a forum for you to connect with your target audience. Ask yourself how do we best represent the brand? How do we support above-the-line marketing strategies? How do we make it a memorable experience?
Planning

Finding your market and connecting with them in a memorable way is more than just guess work. It is staggering how many events are run with the minimum of planning. People are willing to invest significant money putting events on but they tend to overlook the need to invest in planning and smart thinking.

Planning is crucial to any event not matter how small and intimate it may be. Critical paths, risk assessments, measurable results, budget control are essential tools when planning a successful outcome. You need to plan on maximising the number of touch points with guests. Plan on results or you can guarantee you are planing on a disaster.
Implementation

With the correct planning the implementation of an event is the easy part. Ensure that every member of your event team have a run schedule of the event from start to finish so they aware of all timings. Rehearsals are imperative and why not consider professional speak training for all staff that will be presenting. An overall risk assessment is probably in the back of everyones minds but unless it is written down you are open to disaster. A good event company will also supply you with a thorough mitigation strategy to ensure you get a good result from your event no matter what.
Outcome

And weve come full circle. The results of your event should be measurable or how do you know if you have achieved good value for your investment. Events are all about building strong long term partnerships with your prospects and clients. When all of the above factors work together they create a truly powerful experience that not only moves people but motivates them to act. Remember your customers and staff holds your future in their hands. They control your revenue, your profitability and they are the central point on which your economic performance balances. Events are a powerful opportunity to leverage your brand and promote your services to this influential group.

Got some more queries? Why not check out the team at JH Events?

JH Events, Sydney Australia

How to make Conversions with My Online Business Strategy

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My online business strategy is not just a program or an affiliate marketing campaign established by Gary Gregory. It is the result of Gary’s passion to share his success with aspiring affiliates. That is why everything he covered in this new program is a work with quality. Affiliate marketing is not far from the conventional way of marketing products. It is important that you understand the principles behind the automated system of marketing. This is further elaborated by Gary in my online business strategy.

With conventional methods or offline business, products should be visible to the general public. Regardless if people have the intention to make a purchase or not, products sold in stores should be displayed to generate possible patrons and make a sale. Usually it is ideal for any product to be shown where people can see it in their path. This basic method is highly effective, even persons who may not have plans of buying will be persuaded by impulse.

Online business is somewhat similar, and the essence of making money online is in observing the right methods of online marketing. Theoretically the principles are similar between online and offline marketing. Practically however things are different, because with the internet you do not just display your product, you need informative articles published in various article directories and direct it in your site. The more articles you submit to high ranking article directories, the more chances you will have in making conversions.

Traffic is of the essence, before making any conversions or a sale you need to have people browsing through your site; which means you have to pull traffic in your site, and in doing this you need to have good quality contents in your web and article directories. Before you think about keyword density, ensure that your content is readable and interesting to possible audiences who may have interest in your niche.

When you say quality it has to be well written and well researched. You have to be an expert in your chosen subject. It is not possible to promote something that you aren’t aware of, or lack knowledge with. The key in everything before you make or commit to promote a product of a merchant is passion. The process of making a profitable affiliate marketing campaign can be convenient with my online business strategy.

Your first priority is to do things right and to do things well. There should be inspiration in everything that you intend to do. Do not think of profits yet, conversions will come and will flow expediently when you have complied passionately with each step in my online business strategy. It will be great if you don’t rush. Rushing would make you anticipate things and often would lead you to misunderstand some methods.

Generally, before you can make conversions the things that you have to consider are first your website, then its contents, next would be your traffic and how to pull them to your site. Then and only then will you wait for your conversions to be realized. All of which are covered within the methods presented by my online business strategy.

The Academy Of Business Strategy – The Closely Guarded Recruitment Secret

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The recruitment industry has always been reactive by nature. This is not intended to be a criticism in any way, it is just considered to be convention within the industry. An employer advertises a vacancy, a candidate advertises their CV. Prospective candidates are forwarded onto the employer and prospective vacancies are similarly forwarded onto the candidate. This will invariably result in thousands of candidates applying for each individual vacancy and success is ultimately determined by the efficiency of each individual employer’s recruitment procedure. Candidates are always powerless throughout this process. The introduction of online job boards through the internet has only served to exasperate this problem. They tend to identify success in terms of quantity rather than quality. They will proudly advertise that they have thousands or even millions of candidates registered with them. They will also have hundreds or thousands of vacancies listed too. The implication being of course that if they serve this many customers then they must be good. Having said this, online job boards do provide an important service now within the recruitment industry. They provide portals where both candidates and employers can be introduced to each-other and the service which they provide is far more cost-effective than traditional offline advertising and in most cases they provide a more efficient service too. Unfortunately it does not really do very much to help candidates gain better employment and it is still rather like looking for a needle in a haystack. This is because the service which they provide merely ensures that more and more applicants apply to each individual vacancy. It is also widely accepted within the recruitment industry that any vacancy which we may see advertised is always a peripheral vacancy. What is meant by this is that they tend to be general vacancies which arise from prescriptive change such as expansion, or a merger or acquisition. The very fact that the organization does not have anyone in mind for this vacancy who could be promoted from within tells you that the vacancy is probably a peripheral one. Core vacancies are never advertised. The organization will already have internal candidates in mind for these positions and they are too important to risk employing a candidate who is considered to be an unknown quantity. Consequently core vacancies are always the ones we should be targeting. They are the vacancies which constitute power, influence and life-changing personal benefits. A senior manager or partner at a major financial institution, retail organization or manufacturing company will earn an annual salary amounting to several hundred thousand dollars for their services. A senior Director or Executive Officer at the same company will earn an annual salary amounting to several million dollars for their services. How many jobs do you actually see advertised with annual salaries that exceed 250,000.00 USD? There are traditional recruitment companies who practise what is commonly known as head-hunting, but these still tend to be for peripheral positions. The reality is that anyone who achieves a core vacancy within a major global organization will have developed and implemented a successful career management strategy over a sustainable period of time. It is quite literally the difference between success and failure. Recruitment companies and online job boards alike are already thinking of innovative ways in which they can provide better services. Improving online technology is to some extent gradually enabling them to do this. There are growing improvements in terms of the search engines that are used to pre-qualify candidates for employers and conversely to pre-qualify employers for candidates. However the more recruitment companies or online job boards which choose to move in this direction the more they will have to charge candidates and employers for the services they provide, whereas registration, particularly for candidates has been largely free of charge and candidates have grown accustomed to this of course. It is already clear that those recruitment companies who are starting to charge candidates for the service that they provide, tend to provide much better services. The old adage that “you always get for what you pay” tends to apply here. Ultimately these changes while providing some improvement in the professionalism of recruitment companies and online job boards over time will not change anything at all concerning the type of vacancies advertised. Advertised vacancies will always be peripheral. Candidates who have the most successful careers are always those who are proficient at managing their own career management strategy. It is true that we cannot all aspire to be the CEO of Microsoft, General Motors, HSBC Bank, or Mittal. But we can still ensure that we at least have the opportunity to achieve as much as we can with our careers and we will not achieve this if we are reactive by nature and if we do not take personal responsibility at some point for our own career development. After all an individual’s career development surely constitutes a core activity, not a peripheral one!

Document Shredding, A Wise Business Strategy

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The stakes are always high when you’re in business. Aside from the constant need to dominate your competitors, you’re also prone to a lot of stress and hassles in the working environment. Time counts, and one can’t afford to waste a single minute. Even a simple task such as document shredding tends to consume the productivity of an employee.

Whether you’re part of a business conglomerate or a simple franchise, you’re going to encounter sensitive information vital to the business. Confidential data tend to accumulate over time, and in order to not encounter problems in the future, these data need to be kept under lock and key or completely destroyed.

Most business owners find it wise to outsource paper shredding services from other companies. Although storing documents is good, it doesn’t give business moguls the assurance that they’ll be kept safe from rivals. Sensitive business information can cause serious threats as well as damage to the business if it gets in the wrong hands. Opting for shredding services will assure businesses that there will be no traces of sensitive company information spreading about, and it also gives them the following benefits:

Security

This is the ultimate benefit of having a shredding service. Data management agencies assure clients that there will be no vital pieces of information breaching across competitors or nosy people. In addition, shredding also reduces the business’ risk of falling victim to identity theft, and mishandling money due to unnecessary document storage costs.

Cost-efficient

Clients are assured that data management agencies such as Los Angeles shredding service providers aren’t costly. In fact, it’s very affordable – even a small franchise business can obtain hire them. Shredding agencies use superior facilities to help them with the shredding process; these machines are so modern that it only requires very little time to shred large amounts of documents. There’s no need for the business to hire a regular staff member to perform the job.

Efficiency

The minutes spent on shredding could’ve been used for performing a productive task resulting to profit. Efficiency is what Los Angeles shredding agencies are always aiming for. Shredding of vital documents can be done in minutes when a professional handles the job instead of the employee, making the business more productive.

Save on Storage Space

Stored documents tend to eat office space. It’s best to get rid of them by obtaining Los Angeles shredding services since office rents have escalated. Businesses these days can’t afford to waste a single space for storing documents. Visit theshreddingservices.com for more information.

Knowledge Management Strategy Beyond Change Management

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Knowledge Management (KM) is a relatively young concept, having been introduced less than 30 years ago. For many business management practitioners, KM is evolving into a proven strategy for their organizational success. But there are still many leaders out there that are struggling to understand the power of KM.

In order to clarify this ongoing struggle, it’s important to define what KM means in today’s business setting. An extremely important question is: What is Knowledge Management and how can it help my organization?

There are many definitions for knowledge management, including Wikipedia’s that states KM comprises of a range of practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of insights and experiences. I’m partial to a definition I found in a thesis paper written by Dr. Michael Kull that simply defines KM as a business model for which companies can move from an industrial age of running a business into the information age. I don’t know which one of Dr Kull’s interviewees stated this definition, but for me, it sums up my feelings on how KM is changing the way businesses ought to be run today and into the future.

KM is a relatively new model and has only been around since the mid 1980s. There have been may pioneers who have written and spoken about KM, and Peter Drucker,a business management expert and author, has been on of the most influential and prolific thinkers about the KM movement.

The pioneers describe KM as having three phases from its inception. The approximate phase dates reflect the first phase occurring from 1985 to 1994. This phase was centered on collaboration and information sharing. The second phase, from 1994 to 2002, centered on information management and software advancements. The third phase, from 2002 to the present, centers knowledge innovation and the management of intellectual capital and intellectual assets as the primary business strategy.

Phase three will continue to impact how leaders conduct business processes such as customer management, marketing management, information management and performance management. For example, with the advancement of Web 2.0 technologies, workers are able to communicate and share in multiple formats like the popular social media sites or in company blogs, wikis or private web portals known as intranets.

The KM movement is shifting from the old school process of team meetings and water cooler discussions to the online world of instant messaging, emails, twitter (a micro blogging platform), Facebook and online virtual meetings. It is a larger model than just implementing change management initiatives seen during the total quality movement and six sigma days.

As workers and business processes continue to evolve with these technology enablers,leaders are being challenged to re-tool how they lead knowledge workers. The old management process of building organization charts in a hierarchy fashion is being enveloped by empowered workers who don’t want to be controlled, but rather allowed to be innovative and creative to build customer value. The 20th century business leadership curriculum is in conflict with how 21st century workers expect to be lead. KM is at the heart of this leadership evolution being witnessed today. KM as a management strategy is definitely gaining traction and is here to stay.