Growing An Online Business With Zero Marketing Budget

People often complain that they have no marketing budget to attract new customers, yet they have staff in charge of their PR or they handle PR themselves. You assign a budget as soon as you allocate someone to handle PR or marketing. Their wages constitute a marketing budget whether they have other responsibilities or not. You do not need to have someone working full-time on marketing to have a working and productive marketing plan and even when marketing efforts are stepped-up you can distribute tasks among employees to make sure everything required is completed on-time.

Free Marketing ideas

There are ways to create marketing campaigns that generate revenue before you spend a penny. The only thing you need is a little inventiveness.  Internet companies love the free competition model, but they can be just as effective to off-line businesses. Offer a free iPad to do people who like your Facebook page, invite ten friends or to your page or write comment number 1,000 on your blog posts and you have instant engagement from an otherwise un-incentivised audience. The iPad may sound like you need a marketing budget, but when you consider the cost of an iPad 2 is less than £250, you quickly realise that you should be able to generate more than enough business by converting website visitors into customers.

The Time and Effort Budget

It doesn’t matter how many times you read about a turnkey business that manages itself and creates a passive income from online sales, you quickly realise the writer has been making most of it up. All businesses require input from the business owner, staff or enthusiasts who are interested in your products or services.

If you are a rock band, Star Wars memorabilia stockist or sell addictive sweets, you may be lucky enough to have the fans and enthusiasts. If not, you could always try pulling your finger out and networking with players in your industry or your customer base on social networks, by writing blogs for industry relevant blogs or voicing your opinion and offering advice freely on forums. All of these will eventually generate traffic and custom for your website.

Brand and Online Reputation Management

An online business lives or dies with its reputation, but that stems from more than simply creating a few good revues for your products, it is about monitoring social media and utilising it in the correct way. People who openly criticise products and services on Twitter and if this includes a service you provided, a product you sold and creates another negative link to your company, you could be in trouble. You can use Twitter to engage your customers, but what about finding new customers.

Twitter has some amazing tools designed for people who want to use the platform as a professional communication setup. Even the simplest of tweets to about your latest blog post, product or service, will generate website traffic and potentially orders, but the best way to use Twitter is to find and engage with people who are in your target market. Using Twitter’s TweetDeck, you can have multiple-twitter feeds, each monitoring a different keyword that relates to your business. You will see complaints, enquiries and even straightforward requests for products or services from people who are in your target market. All of this is available completely free from charge, but these efforts require time and involvement.

From little Acorns, Do Mighty Oaks Grow?

The thing to remember if never run before you can crawl because it is easy to over-promise and under deliver. This is especially true in the service industry where clients and customers can see your company as a great provider, only to find out you have a staff of one when you fail to meet the level of service you promised.

Bill Jobs is a writer who has been involved with Internet star-ups for many years and has relied on the advice and mentorship of some of the UK’s greatest entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson and Gregory Cox who both inspire him daily.

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Richard Branson VS Donald Trump; Substantially Differing Men

When there is talk of two powerhouses of business and entrepreneurship, the general consensus surrounds two big names; Donald Trump and Richard Branson. Both are business moguls and innovative entrepreneurs in their own right and share immense success. Although both have created multimillion dollar empires and both share reality shows, they are also quite diverse. In this interesting article we look at both of these incredible men and how they differ, a Donald Trump VS Richard Branson if you will.

Richard Branson VS Donald Trump; reality show diverseness

Sir Richard Branson, Virgin King and Donald Trump, powerhouse of hotels, are actually incredibly different. Donald Trump, the big haired, loud talking American has his successful entrepreneurship show, Donald Trump; The Apprentice, where the mogul hires and fires people wanting to get a foot into the door to his empire. On the other side of the coin in a seemingly diverse program that has a to do with business but more to do with the persons courage and physical drive, Richard Branson’s biography may state that he has somewhat of a death wish, The Rebel Billionaire; Branson’s Quest for the Best, reflects this with contestants having to complete both business related and physically grueling challenges. The humble and relaxed billionaire will evaluate who will have the honor to take over as president of Virgin Worldwide. In the Apprentice, Donald Trump sits in his air conditioned castle delegating tasks to his minions while staying as far as possible from human contact, if possible he does not even shake hands with the contestants. Richard Branson on the other hand will be right there in the action. Encompassing an excited child, he will be present for all of the tasks and right there next to the contestants.

Richard Branson VS Donald Trump; diverse as men and in business ideals

Apart from being totally diverse in their reality shows, these two men are polarized opposites in character and business practices. Sir Richard Branson with his shaggy hairstyle, casual dress code and happy go lucky demeanor expresses his fun and daring exploits in The Richard Branson autobiography. Donald Trump on the other hand reflects a true Manhattan ‘fat cat’ in his tailored suites and his affluent apartment decked out in purely decadent designer attire. Apart from the diverseness in obvious appearances, Donald Trump and Richard Branson have business approaches as diverse as their appearances and characters. To simplify their business ideals, Donald Trump moves vertically in business ventures not straying from his main focus, real estate and his most important brand, himself. Richard Branson and his companies differ considerably. He moves horizontally and has managed to extend his Virgin Brand into many different market offerings and spheres.

Although it is a prerequisite for both of these business kings to have considerable egos, they differ in their projections of it. Richard Branson says that the person he most admires is friend Nelson Mandela, Donald Trump on the other hand, well let’s just say the person he most admires may be closer to home. Both of these men have created empires that will withstand the test of time and possibly another economic crisis, it is interesting to see that they are as diverse as any other two differing men and their different style created business empires tailored to them.

Jemma Scott is an avid writer of business figures from ones in London offices all the way to serviced offices Edinburgh.

 

James Caan in His Dragons Den

Few business entrepreneurs ever step forward into the limelight; Donald Trump and Richard Branson are among the exceptions to the rule. But the Dragons’ Den television show has unleashed more than a few business figures into the public. One of these businessmen with new found celebrity status is James Caan, not to be mistaken with his Hollywood actor counterpart. James Caan from Dragons’ Den was born Nazim Khan in Pakistan, moving to the UK at a young age. The Dragons’ Den series showcases young inventors all looking to have their inventions invested in by the ‘dragons’ who dissect and pick apart the inventions; James Caan is one such dragon.

James Caan’s Business Career

Operating in business since 1985, James Caan has overseen any type of business imaginable chewing through the average office for rent like bubblegum. The Alexander Mann Group was his first attempt at a company and even though he didn’t need to go through the effort of pitching it to a Dragons’ Den, the UK recruitment agency took off; he sold it in 2002. He is also known for co-founding the executive human resources firm Humana International. The company has seen young college students from the classroom all the way to serviced offices; some even go on to be CEOs. If you watch Dragon’s Den then you know James Caan tends to be a strong presence although a shrewd businessman. Today he is the CEO of the UK-based private equity film Hamilton Bradshaw which he also founded yet he continues to participate in charitable activities. James Caan left Dragons’ Den in 2011 and the show is at a loss for it, but he plans on starting a new Dragons’ Den in his country of birth, Pakistan.

The James Caan Foundation

It seems unlikely that James Caan left high school at 16 with no qualifications and has become one of the 100 most influential Asian people in the UK according to the Asian Power 100. However seeing his fair share of scandals, he has remained quite conservative yet effective in his business practices. James Caan actively participates in charities that benefit children, but his own James Caan Foundation seeks to raise awareness of issues facing the developing world. During the Pakistan flooding of July 2010, Caan personally flew to Pakistan to aid relief and continued to work with UNICEF upon his return to the UK. The Dragon’s Den entrepreneur is, as they say, perhaps not a perfect man but a perfect businessman.

Eugene Calvini is a keen businessman who enjoys writing on the world through his own pair of rose-tinted glasses.