The Gift That Keeps on Giving – ROI on Corporate Client Gifts

Getting the best ROI on a corporate gift is more about being impressive than being lavish. Making an impression on your clients doesn’t mean a private jet pool party in the Maldives. On a small business budget, being impressive simply means conveying your branding message in a way that generates a return on the investment. So, how is it done?

Business growth via corporate gifting

Redefine “Impressive” in your mind

When it comes to small business branding, being impressive is about conveying the right message about your brand, in a memorable, valuable way. If you’re in the business of growing other businesses, this may mean a “growth” themed gift.…

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Tips On Getting Your Event Promoted

If you are thinking about planning an event of any kind, you will hopefully have realized that how you advertize and promote the event will in most cases determine whether it is a success or failure. By now you probably have a date set for the event, the location and you are now left with just letting your audience know about it.

Business event promotion

The methods used for promoting your event will invariably change depending on the purpose of the event, the type of audience you are targeting to attend and the budget and resources you have at your disposal.

Take a look at a few pointers you can consider when determining your very own promotion plan.…

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Don’t Waste your Money Hiring Consultants: There are Better Alternatives

Hiring a consultant is expensive, and not all small business owners have the privilege to hire one due to budgetary constraint. Before you decide on hiring one, you need to ask yourself this question: Do you really need to hire a consultant?

Business consulting

Please be clear early on: I personally think that small business owners need to find as much help as possible in order to improve their businesses. However, help often doesn’t come cheap.

Consulting fees usually come in the hundreds of dollar an hour. A typical 6-week engagement with McKinsey will easily cost over $500K. This is not ideal for many – even most – small businesses.…

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Innovation in Marketing Creates Impact That Lasts

Marketing has taken a new turn in the recent years. Innovation and creativity should not only reflect in the advert being showcased but also through the media being used.

“Nobody remembers the number of ads you run, they just remember the impression you make,” said Bill Bernbach, founder of the world-renowned Doyne Dale Bernbach Advertising Agency.

Pepsi augmented reality ad

Integration of marketing with technology has become a must in today’s world where everything has become digital. More and more people are using mobile phones in India. 23% of this population is hooked on to smart phones, and this number is increasing as we speak.…

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What is The Best Online Address Book? A Debate Revisited

Let’s get clear up front – we’re talking about ‘online address books’, which for the purposes of this article means an address-book, a place where you hold information on how to get in touch with people, that is online. No, I promise this will not be the most patronizing article ever written, but it is important to clear up a potentially misleading set of terms.

Online address book

Let’s also be clear on is what we’re not talking about: phone books, like those you may still receive from your landline provider. We’re not talking about those.

Now we’re all singing from the same song-sheet, let’s get down to the business of looking at the market for online address books, and where we seem to be heading, what is now about 10 years since Facebook entered the mix.…

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5 Benefits of Project Management

SMB CEOs – if you want to get things done within your company, you need to set every goal as a project, and projects need to be managed for the best results. Let’s explore project management benefits, shall we?

Project management

On a contrary to what people believe, project management is not only about new product launch or customers’ orders.

Let’s define “project”: It’s a temporary group activity designed to produce a unique product, service or result (source.)

Launching a new store is a project. Recruiting new employees is a project. Improving your IT system is a project.

As you can see, everything needs to be considered as projects.…

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How Your Business Can Get a Mobile Marketing Edge

With everything from photo editing to bill pay in the palm of their hands, it’s no wonder most Millennials would rather give up their car than their smartphone.

Mobile marketing trends among teens

Millennials’ tech obsession runs so deep that a staggering 83 percent of them actually sleep with their mobile devices. Since mobile phones rarely leave users’ sides, it naturally makes them the most efficient point of contact for marketers.

Having a strong mobile presence is becoming essential to businesses’ success, with 15 percent of online retail taking place on mobile devices in 2013. That number is estimated to reach 25 percent by 2017, which means that if your business hasn’t yet developed a mobile presence, you’re missing out on a huge stream of potential revenue.…

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What are The Key Deal Terms of a Litigation Funding Agreement?

The key document that governs the relationship between a third party litigation funder and a claimant is a litigation funding agreement (“LFA“).

Litigation Funding Agreement

LFAs are complex legal contracts, which are customised to the facts of each individual claim, but the following are the main key elements:

Termination rights

It might seem counter-intuitive to list termination rights as the first key element, but in practice this is one of the most important aspects of the LFA.

As a claimant (or the claimant’s solicitors) you need to be comfortable that once you have entered into a LFA, your funder will provide the agreed level of third party litigation funding until the conclusion of the claim and only pull out if certain objective tests are met.…

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How to Plan a Successful Office Party

Although a smoothly run office party won’t make or break your career, there are many benefits to having a nice bash. It’ll show that you have a versatile range of skills including your ability to understand social dynamics. That’s the kind of transferable skill that’s useful in almost all industries. Consider the following tips in the days leading up to the event.

Office party planning

The Nature of the Event

Not all events will be the same. A member of senior management’s birthday might be handled differently than a someone who was hired to fill in someone’s shoes while on maternity leave. Think about the following questions:

  • What is the history of the event?
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Packaging Like a Pro: How to Streamline, Save and Stand Out

Taking the order and making the sale should not be the end of the customer experience journey. If the item that they have ordered from you arrives in poor condition due to cheap or inappropriate packaging, all that goodwill can soon disappear.

Amazon shipping packaging

This article takes a look at how you can enhance a professional image for your business by making sure your goods arrive in good condition and tell the customer that you care about them.

Think like a buyer

The first thing you should do when assessing your shipping policy is to think like a buyer. If you were ordering from your company you would want a number of key requirements to be fulfilled.…

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