Large or small, all businesses must promote themselves to be successful. Unfortunately, marketing is not always cheap, especially if yours is a small business with a limited budget. When cash-flow is tight, your first inclination might be to cut your marketing funds, but that would be a mistake.

Small businesses have more inexpensive marketing resources today than ever before. The digital world is full of trackable, cost-effective tools, and all you need to do is take advantage. Here are five ways to promote your business without breaking the bank.

1. Promotional Products

Everyone loves getting free stuff, so why not give prospective clients and potential partners something by which to remember you? One way to promote your brand and place your company at the forefront of everyone’s minds is by giving away promotional products.

Promotional products can take pretty much any form; from a ballpoint pen to an ice bucket emblazoned with your company’s logo or advertising message. This type of promotion is very cost-effective, and it adds a personal touch to your marketing strategy.

2. Social Media

Social media is potentially the fastest way to reach millions of people without spending a great deal of money. In fact, it is free to promote your business on social media, and you can do it yourself with a bit of research and practice. Paid advertising on social media, if done expertly, can be incredibly cost-effective.

Sites like Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, and Instagram all allow companies to market to the masses, and since these platforms are where most people go to find the things they’re looking for, it makes sense you should be there, too. The secret to successfully promoting yourself on social media is to provide high quality, helpful content your customers can use and enjoy.

3. Email Marketing

Email marketing is the use of email to promote products and services, as well as to build relationships with potential customers and clients. The secret to creating a successful email marketing campaign is to grow a robust, organized list of email addresses of people you already do business with and prospective future clients. Email marketing is another low-cost promotional tool you can do yourself. Mastering email marketing gives you a leg up on the competition because you can customize it to fit each client persona.

4. Networking Events

Networking is a process of meeting new people, collaborating, and building and fostering relationships to further grow your business. Attending networking events is perhaps the lowest-cost, most effective way to market your business in person.

Networking events can take place over the phone, through email interaction, at casual and formal social events, networking sites such as LinkedIn or in face-to-face meetings. All these methods are highly effective, and the cost factor is minimal compared to the return on investment they deliver.

5. Go Local

Your local community is a veritable wealth of cost-effective marketing opportunities. For example, your company could sponsor a little league team or host a charity fundraising event. Even printing up bookmarks to place at the public library gets your company’s name out for local customers to see and remember. Once you’ve established your organisation as a local hotspot, you can continue to figure out where and when to target even more current and future prospects.

These five ways to promote your business without breaking the bank will help you find new customers, build upon those relationships, and ultimately, keep your brand in the forefront of everyone’s minds. Marketing doesn’t have to be a race to see who can spend the most. Rather, it’s about how much time and effort you put forth to make it relevant to your customers’ needs.

Photo by Neven Krcmarek on Unsplash

Advancements over the past two decades have helped technology adapt to the needs of people with disabilities. According to a report, there are over 650 million disabled individuals in Asia and the Pacific. These individuals are benefiting from the discovery that programmable technology has facile capacity to accommodate human needs for assistance.

Currently, companies are using the application of physics and science to develop technology that helps improve the quality of life for individuals suffering from various disabilities like speech impairment, motion impairment, etc. As a result, assistive technology has become an umbrella term that includes everything from the tablets for the visually impaired to touch-free smartphones.

Overall, the use of modern tech in households with disabled people is on the rise. The following is a list of the latest technological equipment that is providing independence and freedom that came with restrictions in the past.

1. Stair Climber

Websites such as https://www.easyclimber.com/stair-lifts/ and other similar companies have introduced stairlift technology. It’s a chairlift device that allows people with physical disabilities to be seated as it goes up and down the flight of steps. Over time, advancements in stair lift technology have enabled the creation of sturdy designs that support attachment to the stair treads, allowing for quicker installation and no damage to surrounding walls. Most modern stairlifts can be completely custom made to allow for better fitting.

2. Personal Navigation Device

Wheelchair users face a range of issues, and loss of sight is one of them. Personal navigation devices like The Kapten Plus can make navigating around the sidewalks safe for such people. Modern navigation devices attach to the individual or the wheelchair. Then it relies on a GPS locator to provide directions and details about a particular location to users. This innovative tech provides wheelchair users with a peace of mind that they won’t get lost. It can also be used to find a safe spot nearby where wheelchair users can wait in and call someone for assistance.

3. Parkinson-Friendly Handle

Self-stabilizing handles like Liftware are allowing Parkinson patients to eat normally by attaching an eating utensil to the handle. It is quite useful for patients who are suffering from motion disorders that result in hand tremors. The self-stabilizing technology calms the movement which reduces the spilling of food content from the attached utensil before it goes into the patient’s mouth. The particular offering – liftware – features a stabilizing handle, three utensils (fork, spoon and soup spoon), and a charger. The charge lasts over several meals and users can wipe down the handle while the fork and spoon can be cleaned like normal utensils.

4. Wearable Finger-Worn Device

Wearable finger-worn devices like the FingerReader are being researched to enable the vision-impaired to convert any text into audio in dim lighting conditions. The technology makes use of haptic motors that vibrate when the user’s finger deviates from the text. A musical tone also goes off as an alert if the finger doesn’t track properly. There’s also a software and a tiny camera to process videos in real-time as the user sweeps his or her finger from left to right. Such technology may also be useful for individuals with dyslexia or learning disabilities.

The future of assistive technology looks bright as researchers and engineers around the globe continue designing and creating new devices based on different needs of the disabled.

Written Jane Brown

What is marketing? If you were to ask most business owners, they’d stay along the lines of things relating to advertising such as social media, blogs, videos, commercials, print ads, and more. While these are all valuable marketing sources, the realm of marketing does not stop there. Any good marketing professional will tell you that marketing encompasses everything relating to the sale of a product or service – from the design and implementation right down to the packaging and presentation.

Product packaging is a crucial part of the marketing process. It acts as a mini advertisement that each consumer will see on the products as they browse the storefront or receive the packages in the mail. As a result, every business owner should be looking at efficient ways to improve their product packaging to drive more sales. With companies like QuickLabel providing affordable labeling solutions for your packaged products, improving your product as a means of increasing sales should not be an issue.

How Packaging Influences Purchasing Decisions

There is essentially an emotional aspect to making any purchase. While there are many emotions that can drive a purchase decision, impulse happens to be at the top of the list. Since the packaging is often the first thing that customers see (in brick and mortar locations), what they see will spark certain emotions which can be key indicators of whether or not they’ll make the purchase. A well-designed package related to the company’s brand and consumer’s needs can increase the possibility that customers will be interested in making a purchase.

There have been studies conducted to determine exactly how the brain works when customers look at various packages. In general, the studies concluded that products that are inside attractive, vibrant, and relevant packaging cause brain activity to become more intense. Whereas packaging that is dull, plain, or irrelevant can cause negative reactions in the brain, thereby evoking negative emotions.

How to Improve Your Product Packaging

In order to determine where changes are needed it becomes important for you to look at your packaging through the eyes of your customers. When you look at the package your merchandise comes in, are you engaged, interested in making the purchase, neutral, or do you get a negative vibe? Getting the opinion of your customers or staff can help you to draw more effective solutions. Once you know where the issues lie, you can begin to make the necessary changes to improve packaging and your brand. Below are some tips:

There are tons of new marketing trends in China and across the globe that business owners can take advantage of. Remember, marketing goes well beyond the scope of flyers, social media, and blogs. Your product's packaging can make a significant difference in whether or not you make a sale. Therefore, evaluate your packaging and take the time to make the above mentioned improvements to help drive sales and increase brand reputation.

Written by Jane Brown

The Internet has truly changed business and commerce as we know it. We’re playing in a truly global economy now, and that makes international teams a valuable asset for any business, large or small. The internet is also what makes it possible for such remote, “virtual” teams to exist, allowing everyone to connect and exchange information no matter how wide spread the team members. Of course, keeping a virtual team on task has a set of challenges all its own. Here are the vital tools and skills any online boss needs to keep their operation running smoothly.

The Right Tools for the Job

The first step in facilitating productivity and communication in any virtual team is ensuring that you have the right tools to get that job done. In a traditional workplace, communication is easy: it’s all in person, thanks to everybody being in the same location. Managing a far flung virtual team, however, the quality of your communication will often depend on the quality of your communication software.

With the advent of better networking tools and better internet speeds, video conferencing has exploded into prominence, surpassing voice conference calls as the number one way for teams to stay in touch.

In earlier days, setting up an in house video conferencing network was an expensive, time consuming, and glitch nightmare, requiring expensive equipment and an involved installation process. Fortunately, now every smartphone, tablet, and computer had a video camera and internet access, and video conferencing can be hosted entirely online.

Video conferencing services like Blue Jeans offer entirely cloud-hosted, browser based conferencing, which allows anyone to access a call from any device. Just send an email a link, and your employee or coworker can join the conversation with one click. Blue Jeans also offers localized services, so Singapore companies can get a huge savings on video conferencing equipment with Blue Jeans SG.

Etiquette, Adaptability, and Understanding

Managing remote workers is a challenge all on its own, but when you add in time differences and cultural boundaries, managing a multinational team can be a true tightrope walk. It takes thought, empathy, and tact to manage a multinational team, and any manager will make a few missteps along the way.

The key, according to Donna Flynn of the Harvard Business Review, is to make a point of acknowledging cultural differences and the potential for awkward moments early. It fosters a culture of openness and understanding, and helps ensure your team members feel comfortable speaking up if a boundary has been crossed.

Understanding can turn a cultural misstep into a good laugh for your team, instead of an awkward moment that goes unaddressed and festers into a larger problem.

Adaptability also plays a key role in collaborating across time zones. It may be tempting for a manager to go without sleep to keep everyone on the same page, but Harvard Business Review and Forbes Magazine both say it’s far more beneficial to get your sleep and share the load of late nights. Donna Flynn’s team rotates their meeting schedule so that no one is expected to attend a late night meeting: they’ll have one meeting night off every four months, when the team meeting falls in the middle of the night for their time zone.

Clarity and Communication

When your team isn’t guaranteed to see each other in person every day, keeping a clear set of goals and agendas becomes crucial. Harvard Business Review says to clarify, clarify, clarify: make sure everyone is aware of their tasks and the processes they need to follow to accomplish them, not just overall goals and their role in the team. Make sure you budget time in team meetings to cover details that you might otherwise just take “as it comes.” Simplify your instructions as much as possible so they can be easily delivered and understood without grinding a meeting to a halt.

Wade Foster of Zapier, a very successful remote management team, also recommends hiring people with good writing skills. With only occasional face to face team meetings via video conferencing, almost all communication will be written, so it’s vitally important that your team can exchange information efficiently via email.

This is another area where the right tech will go a long way towards keeping your team on track and running smoothly. Media sharing functions, like Blue Jean’s virtual whiteboard, make it easy to exchange photos, documents, and even video and audio media in process. They’re great for workshopping media that’s still being edited and developed, or for taking notes and minutes, leaving a permanent record for anyone who couldn’t attend the meeting to get caught up. Your team can also treat a virtual whiteboard as a chatroom, keeping each other updated about their progress, asking for help, and socializing and bonding.

A Few Final Words

Any effective team needs good communication, and virtual teams are no different. However, keeping communication up and productivity high in a virtual workspace takes a new set of skills…and a new set of technology to facilitate those skills. However, with the right software at your disposal and the right mindset and agenda, a virtual team could be the boost you need to get your business playing at the truly global scale.

By Staff Editor