Bloggy Business Today

Marketing strategy is a part of business plan in every organization. This is one of the most important in running a business. In our time, many are using MLM or Multi-level Marketing as their strategy.

MLM also called as network marketing is a way of marketing in which the product and company is promoted directly to the consumers. The purpose is to create sales force that will perform as a distributor and generate income not only by producing sales but also by referring the product/company to the other people. Members of a MLM are earning income by commission based of their total independent sales plus the agreed percentage from the sales commission of their downline (recruit members).

Here are the reasons why many companies are using MLM or Multi-level Marketing as their marketing strategy.

1. Low-cost ways to promote company

2. Less workers or regular employee, meaning there is no need to hire salespersons and pay regular salary and other privileges of a regular employee.

3. No need to pay for big television advertisement

4. Salesperson has the high possibility to generate sales because they are earning by commission, they are more eager to gain sales than the regular employee

5. Easy to recruit members, many persons are interested to join for the following reasons:

a. The members success will be based on individual’s effort

b. Personal freedom

c. They have enough time to spend with their family

d. An opportunity to earn unlimited income

MLM companies are escalating, even in the web; they call each member as an affiliate partner. The process is the same; the only difference is as an affiliate partner to an online company, the task is to market the product online, either by sending emails or by putting the ads banner of the merchant to your own website.

I have here 10 lists of Multi-level Marketing companies (not in-order). They are successful in the field and you might at interest to know their background.

1. Forever living products
2. Herbalife
3. Mary Kay
4. Avon Products
5. Cobra group
6. Freelife
7. Nu skin Enterprises
8. Usana Health sciences
9. Amway
10. Kleeneze

Electronic commerce or e-commerce is the marketing process of buying or selling products or services over computer network such as internet. This form of business is growing each year, the proof are the increasing number of e-commerce websites. The competition is strong, that is why those who are planning to enter to this kind of business should be careful in setting up the details.

Here are the simple ways to create an electronic commerce (e-commerce) website

1. Select a good domain name
2. Make sure to register at different search engines
3. Create an effective website content that will connect to local and international market
4. Offer various payment options
5. Pay attention to different things for consideration when doing international business such as shipping and other sales service.

Creating website content considered as a critical process, because this will serve as the heart of the business. If the content looks awful or terrible, no one will trust the site. Build an e-commerce site that will surely drive shoppers. Here are the few tips in making a website content for e-commerce.

1. User-friendly….One reason why shoppers do buy products through internet is to save time and the least that they want is the complicated site. Simplicity is one of the keys to an attractive e-commerce site. Clarify those important needed things like the kind of product you are selling, the photo, product price and where is the shopping cart located.
2. Build a site with dimensional navigation….which means product pages should linked together accordingly. This is necessary especially when your site do offer variety of products and services.
3. complete product information or technical specs – when the site offers different products and services, the shoppers might confused and ended up not buying when they see many choices but do not detect the difference between them and not sure if the specs that they are looking for are in the lists. The aim is to avoid confusion to the consumers.
4. It should specify the whole process in buying, such as the taxes, the delivery and shipping method and the product availability.

Brand is a name, symbol, design or any trademark to identify one’s product or services. It considered as an important part of marketing strategy, because your brand name reflects with the status of your company.

Every organization has the desire to established a good brand and make it big in the industry. They do countless research and market test to gather public opinion. Other companies do attend seminars and conference just to improve the standing of their brand. Here are the few important reminders that might be helpful to you.

1. Know your competitor – you need this for product or brand comparison, knowing your competitor is important factor for you to stay in the battle, competition is tough and you should be inline with the standard package of marketing in the market.
2. Know your target market – identify the status and the capability of the possible buyer.
3. Invest time in researching, planning and surveying in the market about your product
4. Your brand name should deliver the message clearly – create a short but effective brand name, which easily retain to the customer’s mind.
5. Improve and develop a good packaging and identity
6. Emotional connection to the buyer is important – your brand should know the needs and wants of your target market.
7. Buyer’s motivation – create a market strategy in which can motivate your buyer to buy your product again. One example of this is the card in which the customer can earn points and gain a rewards.
8. Be consistent – consistency in terms of packaging, quantity and quality. You cannot gain loyal customers if you do not set a standard rules in your product. Worse you might receive future complains.
9. Continuous product development / improvement – do not stop discovering new things for the improvement of your product, remember that competition in the market is tough and there is now way for relaxation.

Your Brand is the reflection of the status of your company. If people want and need it, then they also do need your company. It is a matter of proper planning on how to build or create a good image to the target market and maintaining the image.

A business letter is quoted as a formal letter, written and addressed from one business organization to another. Companies write business letters typically for the purpose of inquiry, reply to the inquiry, letter of request, letter of complaint and many other purposes.

Here are the six essential parts of a business letter for your guidelines: Heading, Address, Salutation or Greeting, Body of the letter, Complimentary close and Signature. Along with the parts is the format. Kindly see the four formats regularly used by the companies.

1. Block format – wherein no paragraphs are indented and all text is align to the left margin

2. Semi-Block – here you can see the sender’s address, date and closing salutation are indented.

3. Modified Block – the return address, date, complimentary closing and the signature line are indented and no paragraphs indented

4 Modified Semi-Block – the return address, date, complimentary closing and the signature line are indented and along with the paragraphs.

After discussing the brief introduction about Business letter and knowing the standard parts and formats of a letter, let us now identify and discuss how to compose and write an effective one. Sure, we have numerous ideas and we do all want to convey it in our letter, but is the recipient has all the time to read your long business letter? Check out the lists of my view in writing an effective business letter.

1. It should conform to standard format – hence be guarded to the discussed format above

2. Identify your purpose – know the reason why you are going to write a letter to a receiver

3. Make sure you addressed the letter to the write person – any one, including myself is not in interest reading a letter addressed to a different person

4. Be specific and concise

5. Make sure that in your letter you answer the possible objections and questions of the recipient.

6. Professional tone – use proper words, avoid using shortcut or abbreviation words. Always be professional but friendly in writing a business letter

7. Finish your letter with simple and formal salutation like “sincerely yours”

8. Try to print it in a short bond paper with your company logo to customize your letter.

Remember that in business, you need to be always prepared and professional. Knowing the rules or the standard procedure is an important key to be effective. Moreover, it all applies in all aspect of a business including composing a business letter.

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What is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a formal business goal. It is a mindset of attainable goals having studied by the business owners. The said plan is explaining the step by step process on how they will attain such target of the business and it helps you sell your company to the target market.

Business plans contain the background information of the organization including the management. For me it is an essential factor in the growth of your company. Good planning of business plan helps you obtain and boost your confidence to the industry.

Business plans differ depending of what types of the business they are planning to build. Some of business types are: Hotel and restaurant business plan, Internet café business plan, Real state business plan and many more. In planning business goals they also considered two factors; if it is profitable and non-profitable business.

Profitable business usually focuses on the planning on how to generate income while the non-profitable organization focused to the mission and vision. Sample of profitable organizations are bank, hotels, restaurant, private schools and the likes, while non-profitable are government organizations.

What is the Business Plan Outline Content?

An outline usually contains execution to the business plan and extensive details on the cash flow.

Here are the suggested content of the business plan outline:

1. Cover sheet
2. Summary
3. Mission Statement
4. Competitiveness of the Product or Service in the market
5. Principal Steps required to ensure Success
6. Market Analysis
7. Financial analysis that reveals a first-class break-even analysis
8. Other supporting documents

What are the Key factor affecting the value of your business?

1. External factors – These includes state of the economy, competitors (how many are you, with the same line of business in the market) and the scope of your market.
2. Financial factor – your company expenses, projected sales or profits, the estimated future expenses and company financial history.
3. Assets and liabilities – Includes your company assets and debt
4. People – Generally it refers to Management and staff

Having a good business plan helps you to grow in the business industry, but remember that even if you have a good plan but there is no proper execution to the management and staff.

All of your efforts in constructing a strategic business plan are useless.