S3 Blog

For any business to succeed and be able to compete alongside other businesses that offer similar products and services it is a good idea to generate strategic partnerships with others. Strategic partnerships are a formal alliance that is normally between two commercial businesses with a contract involved. Such partnerships however are not legal partnerships as neither party wants to internally develop the other and vice versa.

Instead these partnerships are formed when each side has an asset or more that will assist the other, a good example of this is the relationship between a manufacturer and a developer. Typically the manufacturer would be a larger company and they would provide the product, capital needed for growth, marketing and distribution and the developer will provide the technical knowledge and expertise to enhance the product.

Another example of a strategic partnership is that between a supplier / manufacturer and the distributer. By creating a close relationship between the two separate and very different businesses enables them both to share the marketing, development, branding and so on of a service or product.
It is essential that strategic partnerships are formed as there are few business that are large enough and wealthy enough to be able to complete the entire cycle for a product or service alone. There are of course many who think that they can and this overestimation of capabilities is one of the reasons that a lot of businesses fail – they do not have strategic partnerships.

So how does a business go about generating strategic partnerships? One way is to look at your competitors and see if they can do something that your business can’t, then see what your business can bring to the table and get in touch with them. Speaking to competitors in this way can sometimes help to build a strategic partnership which can be mutually beneficial to both sides.

Are you involved in a business to business industry? If so you might already have relationships with other businesses, so why not see if a strategic partnership between yourselves and them might be in the interests of both sides? That way both businesses could drive customers to each other and reap the benefits. Say you sell gardening supplies and you form a strategic partnership with a business that sells electronic gardening equipment, a simple link to each other’s sites can provide huge traffic to each other that would not necessarily have been there otherwise.

To generate successful strategic partnerships it is also worth noting that all transactions between the two businesses need to be open and honest – as without these fundamentals trust will quickly be lost and this can be difficult to repair, if not impossible. So when generating these partnerships make sure that everything is out in the open as this is the only way in which partnerships like these will work. So follow these hints and start to make positives steps to creating and generating strategic partnerships that will benefit your business and raise your revenue quickly.

Blogs are a type of online journal (blog is short for web-log) which is written periodically and can be about any topic under the sun, some people write them about their lives and this type of blog is more likened to a journal, some people write them on a particular topic and some are written for businesses. If you want to increase the traffic to your business’s website having a blog is a good way to attract people. On it you can put new developments, ideas and so on all that relate to either your business or the area of business that you are in. Blogs are such a good idea as they are easy to update, are to the point and hold the interest of readers as each blog entry is not too long.

Maybe you are wondering about starting a blog for your own business and don’t know where to start. If this is the case here are some aspects about starting a blog that you might like to bear in mind;
1. What is your blog about? This is the most important aspect of your blog as this is the basis of all the content placed on it. If it is about your business make this clear in the title so that readers are aware of the topics covered.

2. Where are you going to place your blog? Many people will put their blog on their business website so that customers can access it easily. You could decide to have your blog hosted on a dedicated blogging site, this is a good idea if you want to place links back to your site on the blog. There are plenty of different blogging sites that you can choose from but two of the most popular are Blogger and Wordpress, however it is up to you to choose which one you would prefer to use.

3. Put some features on your blog to make it more interactive – how about the option for guests to leave feedback, or include some images or even imoods.

4. Write a few posts to test what your blog looks like and publish them, then if you don’t like the style you can easily change it so that your blog looks exactly how you would like it to.
Visit other blogs and see if you can leave your link on them – in exchange for placing a link to other blogs on your site. This is an effective method of driving traffic to your blog and one which the majority of bloggers will use.

5. Send the URL of your blog to as many people as possible and make sure that you place a link to it on your business and personal websites, you could also place a link to it on your MySpace or Facebook page as once again these more good ways of increasing the traffic to your blog and getting more readers interested in what you have to say.

Happy blogging!

Online communities are one of the most popular ways to get connected with people and businesses that all share certain things in common. Building an online community is a very difficult and very time consuming task, and one which is constant, you can’t just begin an online community and expect it to flourish, you need to put in some very hard work. If you feel you are up to the challenge here are some steps that might help you on your way:-

1. Do you have the time needed to devote to building your online community? In order to answer this question you need to know that you will have to constantly watch it, spend countless hours re-coding various parts of the site if someone hacks into it and most importantly do you want to especially if you don’t see any real results for months?

2. Do you have a good idea and plenty of good ideas for content? If you are unclear about your aims and goals you will find it difficult to build an online community that people will want to be a part of.

3. Make sure that the rules and guidelines for you community are as clear and reasonable as possible and stick to them! Make sure that you set the example for others to follow and if you see any comments or behaviours that you feel is not adhering to the ethics of the site do something about it.

4. If someone does make a mistake point it out to them privately, you don’t want to engage in a public dressing down of someone if it is their first mistake – use your judgement and you will gain the respect of the community members.

5. Have somewhere that members of the site can talk about the site. It is a good idea to have this somewhere prominent on the site so that visitors can read it and join in. It also gives you a clear insight into what members think of the site which is always important.

6. Try and get friends involved – do you know someone who would make a great moderator? If so ask them to help you, that way you will get people who have you best interests helping you to run the site.

7. Make a point of highlighting certain members when they contribute something that you and other visitors to the site love. That way you will be encouraging more people to do the same. How you decide to do this is up to you, you might like to have a points system and have weekly stats or how about their profile pic being on the homepage for a week?

8. Have fun – whilst you will have to spend plenty of hours performing mind numbing tasks to get your community up and running you should still make it enjoyable. If it becomes a labour of love you might start to loathe it and not give it the time and attention it deserves, so keep a sense of humour and remember that all good things come to those who wait.

Any business today that wants to maintain an online presence needs to be proactive and take certain steps to maximise this presence. Whilst it is easy to be online during office hours or at home on a PC it is difficult to keep this up when you do not have access to a PC and internet connection. This leads to gaps in availability and could result in vital business being lost due to not having the facility to check emails, update a blog, respond to customer queries, check orders and so on.

Mobile technology providers have recognised this need to be connected to the office, albeit virtually, and have designed something to enable business owners and individuals to be able to access the internet and make phone calls all from one device – the Smartphone. Smartphones are mobile phones which offer advanced features which are likened to that of a PC. For example certain Smartphones enable the user to add additional applications that will allow them to perform certain functions such as data processing. In addition to this there is full internet access, email capabilities, PDF readers, media software and even the ability to access secure networks such as company emails. Smartphones are also designed in such a way that they also incorporate a mini QWERTY keyboard so that writing emails is made easier and they sometimes have a touch screen or D-Pad.

When you are choosing a Smartphone you must first decide what features you would like it to have, for example if you only need one to be able to access and reply to business emails you should opt for one with these features as standard. If you are looking for something that is a little more advanced and that is able to support more features choose one that allows third party applications to be added to it such the Blackberry. All Smartphones run on their own operating system so check which applications they allow before deciding on one. Microsoft Smartphones for instance will allow all Microsoft applications to run on them but will not support all third party applications which can cause problems if you work on a particular application in the office and need access to this regularly.

Another advantage of using a Smartphone is that unlike a traditional mobile phone which limits the number of contacts that can be stored in it, the only limit with a Smartphone is its memory, so you can add contacts on the move and then transfer details to your PC when you are back in the office. If you are in a business where contacts are important choose a Smartphone with a large memory so that your contact list is not limited.

So to ensure that you get a Smartphone that is right to maximise your presence online do your homework and find out what features you need. Then you can check the market and see which Smartphone best suits your needs and go ahead and get connected.

Markets in economic terms are defined as any infrastructures, systems and procedures in which buyers and sellers exchange services, information or goods – when money is exchanged for any of these it is known as a transaction. When you have a business it can be a huge benefit if you can successfully expand into new markets as this can bring increased revenue and raise the profile of the business – if you get it right. Get it wrong and you could run the risk of losing a great deal of money, something which should be avoided at all costs.

With this in mind it is important that when you are expanding into new markets you have thought about all possibilities and done as much research on the market you will be expanding into as possible. Before any expansion can begin you need to decide how you want your business to expand into new markets – are you looking to expand geographically or do you want to aim for target market expansion, where you offer a new product or service?

There are advantages and disadvantages to both types of expansion, for instance if you choose to expand geographically you have an advantage in the fact that you already know and are comfortable in your current market. So in theory expanding into a new geographical market should not present you too many problems. However one of the cons to this type of expansion is that the product or service that you sell might not be suitable for a different geographical market, so do plenty of research beforehand and make sure that expansion in this way is the right choice for you and your business.

If you are looking towards target market expansion you need to decide what market you will be targeting, for instance if you already sell a type of drink that is aimed at adults why not think about selling one that is aimed at children? This way you can get a larger portion of the drink buying market as you are targeting a market that is made up of both adults and children, yet you are still comfortable trading in a similar market to your original one.

Regardless of which way you plan to expand into a new market there are a few things that you should bear in mind. To begin with start off slowly, don’t plough too much money that you can’t afford to lose into your expansion. That way if things go wrong you are not risking too much financially. You should also make sure that you have done plenty of market research to see if expanding into a certain new market is a viable option for you, if not forget about it and concentrate on a different market that would be more profitable. It is also wise to make sure that you have a business plan to work to that way you will know what you want your expansion to achieve and how you are going to make sure that happens.

In the current climate today more and more people are trying to be Green and think about their personal impact on the environment and many people make changes in their lives to do all they can. This can be anything from choosing cars that create fewer carbon emissions, recycling rubbish, opting to walk rather than drive to places, using recycles materials and so on. Company’s are also following suit and adopting more environmentally friendly ways of doing things so that they are seen to be actively contributing to the environment in a positive way. Indeed some people will choose company’s that do all they can to stay Green over others that do not.

So how can you reduce your company’s impact on the environment and still make sure that you are delivering what your customers expect? There are many different things that a company can do to reduce their impact on the environment such as:-
1. Join a recycling scheme for old ink cartridges if you use them – this can involve recycling old cartridges or having your existing ones refilled as this reduces the impact that your company has on the environment.

2. Recycle all paper that is used in the company – this helps to cut down on paper wastage and helps to create more recycled paper which helps the environment even more.

3. Use a software solution that allows you to cut down on the amount of paper that you use. S3 CRM for example has features such as document storage alongside customer contact information which means that you can go to a meeting and not have to take any paper documents with you. Simply log into your S3 CRM account and access the documents from anywhere in the world with an internet connection – no need to ever take papers with you ever again!

4. Use video calling – this reduces the need to travel to meetings which reduces the carbon footprint of your company, doing this means that you don’t have to travel for meetings again as you can have virtual meetings whenever you like

5. Buy energy efficient PC’s and peripherals – by doing this you will not only help the environment as your company will be using much less electricity but you will also be saving money as your equipment is more efficient.

6. Try to only conduct business with other companies that do all they can to reduce their impact on the environment. Doing this will not only encourage other companies to follow suit but you will also be ensuring that none of your business activities damage the environment and this is something that a great deal of customers look for when choosing who to become customers of

7. See if there any Green business initiatives in the area that your company is in, this will help you to find out other ways in which you can help to reduce the impact that your company has on the environment.

Follow these tips and soon you will have a company that is doing all that it can to help the environment and you can be proud of that.

Marketing is a method that businesses the world over use to advertise their services, products and the business and brand itself. With a growing number of businesses having their own websites email marketing is big business with new customers subscribing to newsletters, updates, press releases and promotional emails with their favourite companies. Using email marketing is a cheap, fast and effective way of delivering news and other information to customers directly with none of the usual marketing costs associated. This makes it the ideal marketing tool for any business that is looking to reach a wide audience almost instantly directly into their customer’s inboxes. Not only that but email marketing is the preferred option for businesses who want to be seen as Green and thinking of their impact on the environment.

For email marketing campaigns to be successful they must target people who are likely to a) read the email, and b) likely to respond to it. Here are a few hints and tips to make sure that you are maintaining your email marketing list so that you are getting the most from it;

1. Get your customer’s email addresses on your contacts list – this might seem straightforward and common sense but it is surprising how many businesses fail to ask for this information during a phone call. Obviously if a customer contacts you by email their email address can be collected easily – but make sure you add it to your contact list.

2. Make sure that you don’t send too many email marketing campaigns out each month – repeatedly getting emails from a business is a sure fire way to annoy your customers and potential customers. No one likes their inbox being flooded with marketing emails so make sure each one you send has something worth reading.

3. Use S3 CRM to create and send your email campaigns then you can check on the reports to see which emails have bounced back. By doing this you can delete any email addresses that are no longer valid, this will give you a better indication as to how successful each campaign you send is.

4. Delete any subscribers from your list who wish to unsubscribe, once again doing this will give you a clearer view of how many subscribers are reading their emails and clicking through. After all if you send an email to 1,000 people and 100 of these expressed a wish to unsubscribe you are losing out on 10% of your potential unique reads before you have sent a single email.

By adhering to these few hints and tips you will be able to successfully maintain an email marketing list that works with you and presents statistics that are more valid than one that is filled of bounced back emails and people wishing to unsubscribe. If you get into the habit of maintaining your list you will find that it takes less and less time each week or month as you will only be adding new contacts and deleting old / expired ones as you find them.

When an individual starts up in business it is easy for them to underestimate the scope of the work that they will need to undertake that are not always apparent when they begin. For example if you run a business that sells products you will not only need to have employees that take calls, answer emails, send out goods and so on, you will also need people creating your website, designing advertising, creating and implementing email marketing campaigns – the list goes on.

As a result you might find that you have something of a talent shortfall when you are looking for certain tasks to be completed, but often these tasks do not need to be done on a weekly or even monthly basis, so do not require a full time member or members of staff doing this for you. And this is where subcontractors are so useful for you as they can provide the services that you need and you only pay them for that service as it is done. This means that you will save on wages for permanent full time staff and you know that you are paying a professional for a service that you can rely on.

Subcontracting parts of your business to others is the ideal way for you to get certain tasks done without having to employ someone specifically to do them. Subcontractors work on a per job basis so you can hire them to do a specific piece of work and agree on a price before the work starts. This means that you and the subcontractor know where you both stand before any work is entered into. Some people like to pay part of the fee to a subcontractor when half of the work is done as gesture of goodwill, although if you have a person or people who regularly subcontract for you this might not have to be the case as both parties know that the work will be completed and paid for without any problems.

If you are looking for a subcontractor to help your business there are different ways in which you can do this. Some people ask around to other business owners to see if they have subcontractors that they can recommend. Or you could go online to some of the freelancing sites that are around and put up an advert for a subcontractor that will be able to help you with what you have in mind. Another way of finding subcontractors is to either do an online search or use something like the Yellow Pages to find someone who can help you with outstanding tasks.

One thing is certain if you find yourself in a situation where you need something doing for your business but don’t have the talent in house – don’t worry. By subcontracting parts of your business to others you can easily solve this problem and get the very best talent working for you without having to put them on the payroll permanently.

Happy New Year!
We thought we would kick start the New Year with some tips on starting a blog.

Blogging is one of the most popular ways that many businesses use to reach a wide audience and get them to find out about what that business does and keep their readers up to date with anything new. So what are the top 10 things to remember when starting a blog for your business?

1.What is your blog about – this may seem a little obvious as you would think “My business” but you need to decide what you want your blog to tell people about your business.

2.What is your aim – if you want your blog to bring you more customers then add special offers for blog readers, make people want to read it by giving them a little something back for doing so.

3.Who is your audience – once you have decided on your audience you can then write the content. If it is aimed at your customers you don’t want to bog it down with too much industry jargon and things that only someone in the same business would be interested in so keep it relevant to your readers.

4.Keep it relevant – all blogs tend to be on a certain topic and this is why people read them as they have an interest in that particular topic. Going off on a tangent on your blog will make people wonder what you are talking about – so keep all your blog posts relevant and suited to your audience and they will come back for more.

5.Keep posts short – blog posts should aim to be around one page long at the most, the majority of people do not like to read endless paragraphs when they sit down to read a blog so make sure that you do not ramble on in your posts.

6.Have reciprocal links – these are links to and from other blogs and websites that can help to drive more traffic to yours. To many people this seems like a way of giving custom away but it is not – you don’t have to link with other sites that do exactly the same thing as yours, just have something in common. Have reciprocal links and see your traffic soar.

7.Post regularly – this will keep people coming back for more. Irregular postings will lead to disinterest and a fall in traffic to your blog.

8.Allow comments – these can help you refine your blog and improve on it. It also helps to build a mini community around your blog which generates even more interest.

9.Link to your own website – some people do not have blogs on their own website and if this is the case make sure that there are plenty of links back to your website on it. Otherwise all your hard work will be for nothing!

10.Enjoy yourself – writing a blog should not be a chore, it should be something that you enjoy doing and if you do this will show in your posts – and once again this will lead to more readers.

Happy blogging!