The advertisement industry has seen many revolutionary times when the campaigns changed the face of the earth. From banners ads to digital ads, the average American is exposed to a few hundred to a few thousand ads every day. The use of new technologies helped the businesses to win millions of new customers and even helped the candidates to win the elections.
The advertisement industry has seen many revolutionary times when the campaigns changed the face of the earth. From banners ads to digital ads, the average American is exposed to a few hundred to a few thousand ads every day. The use of new technologies helped the businesses to win millions of new customers and even helped the candidates to win the elections. Direct mail campaigns proved to be the biggest player in the whole marketing game. Even in the age of digital ads, print mail still proved to be the most useful marketing method for every business.
Here are some marketing campaigns that made the biggest impact on the global communities.
1. The Pause that Refreshes by Coca Cola
The current idea of the Santa Clause is thought to be introduced by Coca-Cola. In reality, the same concept of Santa Clause has been around for years. Coca-Cola simply put all the ingredients in a compelling way to showcase the idea to the world.
The ad campaign by Coca-Cola gave a whole new idea to the world. Since then red costume of Santa Clause has become an essential part of events.
2. Real Beauty Campaign by Dove
This was an intelligent move by Dove where they used visual content to describe the fact that only 4% of the females consider themselves beautiful.
FBI agent draws the woman after she explains herself and then another stranger is asked to describe the same woman. The drawings from both subjects are totally different.
3. Red Bull Stratos
In 2012, Red Bull ran a promotion where Felix jumped from 24 miles in space. He became the first person to break the sound barrier without using any type of vehicle or rocket.
This ad took over the internet and attracted millions of new customers from all over the world.
4. McDonald’s’ “Our food, your questions”
McDonald asked the users to ask a question about the products. McDonald also answered all of these questions so the doubts can be cleared.
This was a bold move but this campaign helped to strengthen the trust of users in the food items offered by McDonald’s.
The Use of Print Media in Your Marketing Campaigns
Direct mail has always been on the top of the list of every company and brand. Print mail has been used even in presidential elections. When it comes to influencing the masses, direct mail has always proved to be the most effective and useful method. The twist was the use of APIs that made direct mail marketing whole better. Since the use of APIs for marketing, the world has seen a whole new phase of advertisement.
Conclusion
Most of the marketing campaigns were meant to offer special results for a specific event or period. Concepts and technologies like APIs for print media are going to stay here for long. Now, almost every marketing agency and campaign are somehow using the power of APIs in one or another way.
The Thrive Global Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
So, yeah: You know what to do. But knowing what to do is never a guarantee of success.
How can you tell if you actually made a good first impression? Science to the rescue.
According to a 2018 meta-analysis of more than 50 different studies published in Psychological Bulletin, the key is to look for specific nonverbal and verbal signs to determine if you’ve established some degree of rapport.
Smiling and laughing. No surprise there. But most people reflexively smile back, especially at first. And then there’s the Jimmy Fallon-esque “Oh, my gosh, I’ve never heard anyone say anything so funny” kind of laughter that doesn’t indicate anything genuine.
Holding eye contact. Also unsurprising; the eyes are usually the first indication the other person is thinking about somewhere they would rather be.
Maintaining physical proximity. We all define “personal space” differently; the fact you back up half a step might just only mean I’ve slightly encroached on yours. Yet according to the researchers, physical proximity is a key indicator of likability.
Starting new topics of conversation. Another less obvious, yet important, indicator. If there’s no spark, polite people will see the current topic through and try to move on. But if they bring up something else, without prompting…
Unconsciously mimicking nonverbal expressions. A 2019 study published in Cognition and Emotion shows that when other people mimic your nonverbal expressions, that indicates they understand the emotions you’re experiencing — and may even result in “emotional contagion.” (Which means, if you want to use your first impression skills manipulatively, copying the other person’s expressions and gestures can make you seem more likable.)
So: Imagine you meet someone new. You know what to do. Smile. Make and hold eye contact. Laugh when appropriate. Don’t back away. Shift the conversational focus to the person you just met; one way is to use the 3 Questions Rule.
All the while, pay attention to how the other person responds. Whether they smile, laugh, and hold eye contact.
And more important, whether they maintain physical proximity, initiate new topics of conversation on their own, and mimic some of your nonverbal expressions.
And then use what you learn to make a better first impression with the next person you meet.
Because the next person you meet could turn out to be one of your most important connections. Or one of your biggest customers.
Optimizing sales and promotions via tech will be a key goal for businesses going forward to price right and maximize margins.
Why it matters:
Amid a changed economic landscape, traditional brands can no longer rely on pricing strategies based on an annual seasonal calendar.
Many consumers will continue to feel economic pressure, while others have savings and pent-up demand.
Against that backdrop, brands can use this time to go back to the drawing board to optimize their pricing and promotional strategies via data analytics.
As the economy slowly lurches back toward what many describe as a “new normal,” brands will have to deploy their pricing strategies carefully amid a minefield of variables that could impact consumer behaviour.
One strategy that brands remain committed to is promotional optimization. With production costs rising, and pent-up demand for many products rising as well, companies need to protect their profit margins and make sure they are not using promotional pricing unnecessarily to drive sales that might have occurred anyway at full price.
There are also opportunities to use promotional analytics to drive sales of “affinity” items, which are those products that are associated with the promoted items. Some companies, including Kohl’s, have cut back on promotional activity and instead focused more on everyday value and more personalized offers.
The year ahead also poses other unique challenges for businesses pricing strategists. Traditionally, brands base their pricing on annual patterns that are adjusted for changes in their costs and tweaked to reflect other considerations, such as competitive activity in the market. This year, however, comparisons with last year — or any previous year, for that matter — are irrelevant.
“Companies can’t go back to that whole one-year model,” Ellen Kan, partner in the New York office of consulting firm Simon-Kucher & Partners, told CO—. “Decisions can’t be made with a long lead time. Companies, especially big companies, have to think about more ways to be agile and nimble.”
In addition, she said, companies will have to make some assumptions about which consumer shopping behaviours that changed during the pandemic, such as relying more heavily on e-commerce, will continue in the years ahead.
Food retailers, for example, saw sales surge last spring and fall as consumers stocked up on shelf-stable items, made fewer trips overall to the store and shopped online more often. Those companies will need to decide how they will use pricing as a tool to drive traffic back into the stores or to retain those online shoppers.
It’s a brave new world. You can create your own future, and the best retailers are doing that.
Matthew Pavich, managing director of global strategic consulting, Revionics, an Aptos company
New approaches to optimizing promotions
One grocery chain, 80-unit Shop ’n Save, is implementing a new pricing analytics solutions from Daisy Intelligence that seeks to optimize promotions from the perspective of their total-store impact, rather than the impact on the item itself.
Daisy’s “Halo Merchandising” approach considers the sales and margins gained from the addition of products to the shopping basket that are affiliated with the items promoted, for a more holistic view of the impact of promotions. A promotion on hot dogs, for example, might lead to additional sales of buns, relish, ketchup and mustard.
“Prior to bringing on Daisy, like all retailers, we made decisions on what items to promote based on single-item movement,” said Tom Charley, vice president of Shop ’n Save operator Charley Family Shop ’n Save. “While we have done the best that we can based on our tools, we understand there are more advanced ways of going to market today.”
Another retailer that has adopted a new promotional strategy is Dick’s Sporting Goods, which recently implemented the PromoSmart solution from Impact Analytics. With 850 store locations and thousands of promotions each month, Dick’s was seeking to move away from the repetitive promotions that it said were causing a decline in margins, according to a case study provided by Impact Analytics.
The new solution uses multiple machine learning models that analyse historical data to generate promotional recommendations that take into account seasonality and trends, as well as product affinities and cannibalization.
Implementing PromoSmart “helped us eliminate the toxic promos, adding millions to our bottom line,” the retailer said.
Kohl’s Corp. is another retailer that revamped its pricing and promotional strategy during the past year in an effort to improve profit margins, leaning into an everyday value strategy.
“We continue to reduce the number of general promotional offers and stackable offers [combined discounts], while increasing usage of price-led events to offer more value every day,” said Michelle Gass in the company’s recent year-end earnings call with analysts. “We are also leaning into more targeted and personalized offers to drive efficiencies.”
Chuck Davenport, a partner in the Atlanta office of Bain & Co., cited one example of a retailer, which he declined to identify, that took advantage of the changes in customer behaviour during the pandemic to reduce its promotional and discounting activities, and align its promotions between online and in-store.
In addition, the retailer added more premium lines, but made an effort to make sure there was a clear distinction between its higher-end brands and its legacy offerings.
“Because of the tightening of their promotional policies, they’re actually keeping each one of those categories stratified, and keeping the premium products in the premium lane and the lower-end products in the lower-end lane,” said Davenport. “It will be interesting to see if that is successful, but I’m glad to see that companies are starting to experiment with doing that.”
Other pricing strategies he sees emerging include B2B brands using technology to better control pricing, rather than leaving it in the hands of their sales teams, who are often incentivized to offer reduced prices to drive volume.
Kohl’s Corp. also revamped its pricing strategy, placing a heavier focus on everyday value along with targeted and personalized offers. — Kohl’s
One key pricing consideration: Rising production costs
A key metric underlying pricing decisions is rising inflation in the cost of commodities and other raw materials, which comes as a large portion of consumers are struggling financially to recover from the pandemic.
A recent report from data analytics firm dunnhumby found that 43% of U.S. consumers surveyed said they were paying more for food than they were before the pandemic, and many of those said they were taking some action because of it, including shopping at stores with everyday low prices, searching online for sales and coupons, buying larger pack sizes and stocking up on products that are on sale.
Some makers of consumer-packaged goods, including Procter & Gamble, have said that increases in the cost of ingredients are forcing retail price increases. P&G said in late April that it would implement price increases on certain products in September.
Many observers believe, however, that a large portion of the population has pent-up demand for goods and services, which will give some brands the ability to pass along higher prices without fear of hurting their margins.
One pricing case study to watch in the food industry will be how the plant-based meat alternative manufacturers, including Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, price their products now that they are ubiquitous, said Kan of Simon Kucher & Partners. The products have seen their sales continue to climb during the pandemic, even though they carry a premium price tag.
Now that they are gaining enough scale to lower their prices to be more competitive with traditional meat items, it will be interesting to see if even more consumers try these alternative proteins, she said.
Disruption in demand
Matthew Pavich, managing director of global strategic consulting at Revionics, an Aptos company, and provider of automated pricing solutions, said the disruption in consumer demand caused by the pandemic has had broad ramifications for pricing strategies. Some product categories, such as shelf-stable grocery items and cleaning essentials, have seen soaring demand, while others, such as fashion, have seen demand curve sharply in the other direction.
“We have a whole lot of different things going on, and it’s about being able to capture that and deliver a pricing strategy that translates to a customer’s need now in this moment,” said Pavich. “That’s the fundamental challenge, and it looks different for different retailers.”
Some retailers will use aggressive pricing to drive consumers back into their stores with greater frequency, and others will streamline their promotions. For many retailers, the new operating environment presents an opportunity to update their omnichannel pricing strategies.
“Companies have this unique opportunity to start from scratch and rebuild their pricing strategy,” said Pavich. “Whether they already had a fairly robust strategy with some analytics and some optimization and some consumer insights, or they are starting from scratch, there’s an opportunity now to take their data, take best practices, take what consumers are telling them and really invest.
“It’s a brave new world,” he said. “You can create your own future, and the best retailers are doing that.”
In general, the enormous challenges presented by current market conditions will force all companies to take a step back to carefully examine their pricing strategies, rather than pursuing business as usual.
“When everything’s good and the sun is shining on all companies, and everyone’s growing, [companies] can get a little lazy,” said Davenport of Bain & Co. “But when business tightens, and the supply tightens, it gives people a real motivation to get sharp.”
Feature Image Credit: Dick’s Sporting Goods’ new pricing strategy taps multiple machine learning models that analyze historical data to generate promotional recommendations. — Dick’s Sporting Goods
Storytelling is powerful. When we read or listen to a narrative, our brains light up. Stories can help strengthen our memory, engagement and empathy, and they can even change our attitude about something.
The stories you tell about your brand shape how people feel about your business. But companies must be intentional about the stories they tell to illustrate their purpose in action. Too often, I’ve seen companies talk a big game about purpose without ever really demonstrating the value they provide to the people they serve.
If you really want your stories to resonate, stop telling stories about your brand. Dig deeper to find the stories that show why and how you make an impact through your business.
Here are three ways to garner positive attention and brand affinity by making others the main characters of your stories:
1. Give your partners and suppliers a platform in your marketing.
If your company produces a physical product, who are the people who make it? How does their work tie into your larger purpose? Make your production partners and purveyors a focal point of your brand story.
For example, Rothy’s is a sustainable fashion brand that makes shoes from plastic water bottles. In addition to using recycling materials to create its products, Rothy’s partners with the Envira Amazonia Project to offset carbon emissions, which helps the company get in front of eco-conscious consumers through press coverage.
Starfish Project is another example of a company that leverages its commitment to ethical production in its marketing. The jewellery company gives artisan opportunities to exploited women and girls. It has a “Stories of Hope” section on its website where you can read dozens of jewellery makers’ stories and shop the pieces that they designed and crafted themselves.
Consumers like knowing how their products are made. When you show the faces, places and impact of the work that goes into your products, customers will feel a deeper connection to your brand.
2. Spotlight your employees and your community engagement impact.
Your employees are just as important as your customers in upholding your brand values.
Rather than talking about how stellar your employees are, tell stories about how your company has helped your employees realize their own goals and purpose. Show that you don’t just hire great people; you actively nurture your employees to achieve their full potential.
Stryker, a medical manufacturing company that was voted the No. 1 workplace for diversity by Fortune, has stated it has a mission to make healthcare better and more inclusive of people from all backgrounds. It commits to that mission through its diverse hiring practices, which it showcases on its career blog profiles of employees who bring a wide range of perspectives and experiences to the company.
When it comes to community engagement impact reporting, numbers and accomplishments are impressive, but they can’t illustrate how you helped people on the ground. Try focusing on the story of someone who participated in a social impact program.
Salesforce, for example, has stated equality is one of its core values. (Full disclosure: Salesforce is a client of my company.) The company’s website has a dedicated section called “Our Impact” that details, among other initiatives, a workforce development program that serves veterans and people with disabilities, and one blog post highlighted how a veteran transitioned to a career in tech with the help of a Salesforce program.
Instead of a barebones employee engagement or corporate social responsibility report, empower the beneficiaries of your work to speak for themselves.
3. Put your customers’ stories front and centre to communicate brand value.
Make your brand’s core values more meaningful by allowing your customers to share them with your target audience.
It’s one thing to say, “We make clothes that last forever,” and another to let a customer share how, in their own words, they’ve spent more than 20 years hiking, building and spending time with his family in the same pair of shorts.
Patagonia is a beloved brand known for making sustainable outdoor apparel that people wear for life, but it doesn’t need to tell you that. Instead, the brand shows it through its Worn Wear webpage, which showcases long-time customer stories who have worn their Patagonia clothes through meaningful life experiences, travels and environmental work.
From my perspective, Patagonia demonstrates three central features of its business by sharing its customers’ compelling stories:
• Product quality: Stories about customers wearing the brand’s clothes help show the products are made to last.
• Company mission: Sustainability and environmental conservation are Patagonia’s bread and butter, and these stories endorse practicing mindful consumption.
• Customer ethos: Patagonia can attract like-minded people who identify with the customers in the stories they share.
Leading with brand messaging through your customers doesn’t just create goodwill for your company; it can also drive action tied to your purpose. One Porter Novelli study (registration required) found that purpose messaging is actually more likely to influence customer behaviour than product messaging.
If you can’t find a good story to tell, find something to do.
Purpose begets business opportunities when companies are vocal about how they’re making a difference. By illustrating your mission through the stories of individual people and programs, you build brand affinity in a world where consumers now expect businesses to care about the greater good.
And if you don’t yet have a great brand story to tell about how you help people, it’s never too late to start giving back.
Job hunting is an arduous process that ranks pretty low on the list of things people love to do with their spare time. The one thing I can think of that I enjoy less is waiting in line at the DMV.
It’s important to know how to utilize the digital tools we have at our disposal. Luckily, for people looking for work nowadays, companies everywhere are “very online.” It is more likely than not the company you’d like to get a foot in the door at has a social media presence.
We’ve created a guide on how to strategically interact with the company of your dreams through social media channels, below.
Connect with industry leaders on LinkedIn
One important step to take when job hunting is to find the thought leaders in that industry on LinkedIn. The leaders of the companies you are interested in joining often post relevant articles related to changes happening in the company, what direction they are moving towards, and what kind of people they are looking for to help them complete their vision.
Employers and the employees working at the company will often post about what company culture is like. This is important information to gather to see whether or not you’d be an ideal fit at this company.
You also have the ability to comment on any articles they post related to the company to gain more visibility in the field. Another great feature on LinkedIn is the industry-specific groups to connect with other professionals passionate about the same things you are passionate about. This is a great way to make initial contact. After offering helpful feedback on the topics they post about will make you more memorable when you message them directly on LinkedIn. Instead of merely sending someone an invite on LinkedIn that sends a default, generic message go to their profile to send a direct message that has a more personalized message.
Once the industry leader connects with you by messaging you back on LinkedIn this is a great opportunity to exchange numbers and email correspondence. The most important thing about learning to use social media to your advantage is through nurturing genuine professional relationships for the future. Now that you have someone valuable on the inside they can pass along industry tips, job openings, and other valuable connections in the field.
Staying up to date on your LinkedIn is also important because of the following statistics.
“As many as 68% of recruiters said job seekers need a LinkedIn profile in 2021, and 65% of hiring managers said that they don’t mind being contacted by potential candidates on LinkedIn.”
Engage with people on Twitter
Twitter is a great social media tool that can connect you to just about anyone in any field. While actively job searching career experts recommend focusing less on your personal accomplishments and more time spent sharing articles of interest in your field, starting a commentary on newsworthy topics in your industry, and starting conversation threads with other thought leaders. This will help you build your brand on Twitter and people will start to connect with you once you prove you’re a valuable, worthwhile voice in your field.
Feel free to show off a little bit of personality on your Twitter feed. Most hiring managers will do a google search with your name before the interview and your social media accounts will come up. Show them what a fun, enjoyable presence you would be if you shared an office together by sharing pleasant anecdotes, wholesome pictures of family and friends, and hobbies you enjoy!
You can also use hashtags on Twitter to search for jobs. Many companies are casting a wider net on digital platforms by tweeting out job applications with related hashtags. For example, Teen Vogue might tweet out “looking for a new editor in chief #writing #job #hiring #digitalmedia.”
Basically, all you need to do is type hashtags like #hiring #jobopenings #remotework and other hashtags related to the field you want to work into Twitter’s search bar. This should generate a slew of openings in your desired field.
Like and follow companies on Facebook
When you “like” a company or business on Facebook they send you notifications when any updates happen. This can be useful to you because they usually post job openings this way. Receiving daily updates about what is going on at the company you love could also give you some great talking points if you land an interview with them. This proves that you’re vested in how the company is doing and how you can add to their continued success.
With Adobe InCopy, copywriters and editors can edit and style text, even while a designer is simultaneously working on the same document in partner program InDesign. So if you’re in the writing game and looking for the best desktop publishing software for your needs, it’s an option worth considering.
InCopy is part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite and there are several different ways you can access and pay for these apps. In this article, we explain how to download InCopy and try it out for free, the various subscription plans available, and what alternatives you might want to consider.
It is possible to download InCopy for free, but you’ll only be able to access it for a seven-day trial period. If you Google “Adobe InCopy”, the top search result should be Adobe’s main InCopy page. Here, you can click on Free Trial to access the download. You’ll be given the choice of trialling InCopy alone or alongside the entire Creative Cloud software set.
It’s worth noting that, when you sign up for the trial, you do have to give Adobe your payment details. And when the week is out, a paid subscription automatically begins. If you don’t want to commit to this, remember to cancel the subscription before the week is over. If you don’t, you may end up having to pay a cancellation fee.
During your seven free days, you can try out the various features of InCopy and decide whether you want to continue with it. After the trial, there’s no way to continue using InCopy for free, so you’ll have to consider the payment plans on offer.
How do I buy InCopy?
On the InCopy page on Adobe’s website, clicking either Choose a plan or Buy now will take you to the page where you can subscribe to the app. You’ll notice that all the plans are subscription-based; there is no option to pay a one-off fee to buy InCopy outright.
You can either subscribe to InCopy on its own or sign up for the Creative Cloud All Apps package. This includes over 20 creative apps, including some you might use alongside InCopy: page design app InDesign, image editing app Photoshop, and vector graphics program Illustrator, for example. If you’re going to be using several of the apps included, then the All Apps package can often work out cheaper.
Adobe offers various pricing options for InCopy (Image credit: Adobe)
What’s the price of InCopy?
The main subscription plan Adobe offers for InCopy costs $4.99 / £4.98 / AU$7.69 per month, though it requires you to commit to a year at a time. If you cancel before the year is over, there’s a cancellation fee of 50% of your remaining subscription. To avoid this, you can choose a subscription that costs $7.49 / £7.58 / AU$10.99 per month, which can be paused at any time. Or, you can prepay for a year’s subscription for $59.88 / £59.46 / AU$92.27.
If you’re likely to use InCopy on a regular basis, then the annual subscription is the best choice. But if you’re not going to use it every month, it may be more cost-effective to subscribe to the monthly plan as and when you need it.
The Creative Cloud All Apps plan has a similar pricing structure: $52.99 / £49.94 / AU$76.99 per month with an annual commitment; $79.49 / £75.85 / AU$114.99 per month with no annual commitment; or $599.88 / £596.33 / AU$871.07 for a full year.
These figures were correct at the time of writing, but prices outside the US often change alongside the exchange rates. It’s also worth noting that you can cancel any Adobe subscription for a full refund within the first 14 days.
InCopy discounts for teachers and students
Adobe offers a discount scheme through which students and teachers can subscribe to the Creative Cloud All Apps package—including InCopy, all the other desktop and mobile apps, and 100GB cloud storage—for a significantly lower price.
This costs $19.99 / £16.24 / AU$21.99 monthly for the first year, then $29.99 / £25.28 / AU$43.99 per month thereafter. Like with the standard plans, you need to commit to a year’s subscription. You can prepay for a full year, but this doesn’t work out cheaper. Adobe will ask for proof of your eligibility for the offer, such as a school-issued email address.
How can I get started with InCopy?
Though it can often be tricky learning new software, you’ll find InCopy quite intuitive once you’ve worked out the basics of how to use it. If you’re struggling, clicking the Learn & Support link on the InCopy web page will take you through to Adobe’s helpful set of guides, including how to use the workspace, styling text, linking documents with InDesign, and more.
This is the user interface of InCopy (Image credit: Adobe)
InCopy: Key info you need to know
InCopy is currently a desktop-only program and there is no version for mobile devices. Adobe does offer a range of mobile apps which have basic versions available to download for free, plus premium versions for subscribers. The closest InCopy equivalent among these is Adobe Comp, which is a layout design app, though this is more geared towards web design. There’s a notable lack of anything that can be used to edit longer text in Adobe’s mobile app portfolio, though this may be something that’s addressed in the future.
InCopy alternatives
If InCopy isn’t the right software for you, there are many other options available. Microsoft Publisher is a popular and accessible piece of publishing software that can be used for writing and page layout. It can be bought individually or as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription.
An open-source option is Scribus, which is free to download for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It has a wide range of features for writing and page layout, though it does have a steep learning curve if you’re a novice
As a startup, you’ll need to know how to write a business plan in order to attract investors. Here are some templates and examples to help you get started.
If you’re starting a new business or executing a new plan within your company, you’ll want to have a business plan. It’s a formal document that outlines your company, your project, funding options and your means of execution. There are many resources available to help you write your business plan, including countless templates you can follow depending on your goals. Below we’ve outlined some examples, including a sample plan.
Business plan template examples
While business plans can be general, it’s helpful to gear yours toward your industry. Here are five business plan templates for specific industries or situations:
A one-page business plan briefly states your opportunity and timeline. It’s often used as an introduction to your longer, more robust plan. Here is a brief overview of a business plan and the nine elements that should be included.
1. The business opportunity
At the top of your plan, state the endeavour you’re looking to pursue. Are you a new start-up or an existing company looking to grow? Describe your challenges and how you plan to work through them. This section should be a one- or two-sentence elevator pitch of your business opportunity.
2. Your company description
When writing your company description, assume the reader knows nothing about your company. Briefly define who you are, identifying your values and why your company is necessary right now.
Outline your timeline for launching your business or project. Timelines are always subject to change, so make sure you account for alternative scenarios and setbacks.
3. Your talent description
In this section, you’ll want to introduce your team and demonstrate why they are the right fit for your business. Talk about their relevant skills, experience and background, getting as specific as possible. Providing their track record will reassure potential investors that your business is backed by reliable professionals.
4. The industry analysis
While writing your plan, it’s important to recognize your industry’s outlook and your potential within it. This will also help you identify your competitors and analyze their offerings in comparison to yours, so you can focus on how you might stand out among them. This analysis is a great way to show investors that you’ve done your research and understand how you fit into your market.
5. Your target audience
In this section, you will identify your target audience, defining their demographic, location and other specific traits. Additionally, explain how your audience will benefit from your company or project, or how you will solve common problems they share.
6. The timeline
Outline your timeline for launching your business or project. Timelines are always subject to change, so make sure you account for alternative scenarios and setbacks. For your one-page business plan, talk about your general timeline, its phases and why it’s a realistic goal.
7. Your marketing plan
How will you get the word out about your new business or project? Identify the avenues you and your company will choose to explore and how you plan to meet your target audience there. For example, consider your social media efforts, digital marketing and other methods that you seek to execute.
8. The financial summary
Clearly define your cost structure and revenue streams, describing your sales methods and post-launch goals, as well as how you will achieve them. Be sure to include both your long- and short-term financial goals and benchmarks.
9. Your funding requirements
One of the primary reasons you write a business plan is to help obtain funding. In this section, talk about the amount of funding you’ll need from investors and where that funding will go. You should also be clear about how you plan to pay back your investors through your financial plan.
CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.
Being an entrepreneur is no simple task, given the fact that 90% of start-ups collapse. But based on the learnings from past flame-outs, there are some leading indicators that can identify whether your start-up is headed for failure.
1. Lost Focus on Primary Goal
For some start-ups, their focus can divert to unimportant factors than the primary goal at hand. A successful start-up learns to prioritize its efforts, and stay religiously focused on that end goal. Keeping the team firmly focused on the end goal can also be beneficial for the work environment as it will keep the team all rowing in the same desired direction. If you see a start-up flailing in the wind of change, going in multiple directions based on the “flavour of the month,” you know that business is in trouble.
2. Poor or Slow Execution
There are start-ups that begin with innovative concepts but cannot execute them properly. This is due to a number of reasons—lack of relevant resources, lack of motivation or poor working habits for starters. Firms that are properly tracking their progress with regard to a particular project will quickly see if they are falling behind and come up with ways to correct the problem before it becomes a material one. Those that are not executing well will suffer deficits in capital or timelines. There is also a problem with the speed in execution, with many start-ups not being able to push out products or services as fast as their competitors. Speed is critical, to staying ahead of your competitors as the first mover, and not being forced to play catch up.
3. Lack of Customer Engagement
A lack of customer engagement is something many early-stage start-ups face. There are a many possible scenarios in which customers might lose interest in a product or service. Maybe the start-up didn’t properly research the market to ensure meaningful demand? Maybe sales and marketing efforts are not the best strategy for that business? If you don’t truly understand your customers pain points, they will never have a serious interest in your product or service. It is best to figure out why customers are not engaging, sooner than later, to try and resolve those product or marketing related issues to see if they are fixable, before deciding to cut your losses and close shop.
4. Poor Teamwork
Sometimes, perfectly capable and promising start-ups begin descending into failure because of differences among team members or lack of effective teamwork. This does not necessarily have anything to do with how well a person or a group of people can perform in the workplace. It just means, at times, some people cannot work well together. It is a start-up CEO’s responsibility to know what is required to keep the team gelling and how to improve the team’s performance in thinking and acting like one well-oiled machine. If ineffective teamwork goes undetected or unresolved for an extended period of time, the start-up will struggle to recover.
5. High Employee Turnover Rate
If the employee turnover rate is high and recurring, it could be an indicator of a failing start-up. There could be a number of reasons why the turnover rate is high. For one, a start-up’s culture plays a strong role. If employees are unsatisfied with the work environment, don’t like the people they are working with or don’t have confidence with their management, they will most likely be looking to leave. So if you have a revolving door with your staff, something is wrong and needs to be fixed, as you can’t scale a business on a wobbly foundation of talent.
6. Lack of Adaptability
Any start-up that says it is immune to changes in the market is setting itself up for failure. External market forces ultimately dictate how your start-up will fare against changing trends and competitors in the industry. If a start-up doesn’t truly understand or disregards what is happening outside of its own office, it is doomed to fail. For a start-up to truly reach success, it may have to pivot several times until it finds the right mix of product-market fit. If a start-up does not pivot fast enough, that is usually a sign the end is near.
7. No New Product Development
For a start-up to stay relevant, it needs to constantly be reinventing itself. Your product development efforts are never done, as you should always be striving to improve from version 1, to version 2 to version 3 over time. Because if you don’t, you can rest assured your competitors will clearly copy whatever you are doing successfully today, and will be improving their business at your expense.
8. Unaware of Finances
Every good start-up should always be aware of its financial situation. But you would be surprised how many entrepreneurs have no clue about their finances, and hence cannot easily predict they are about ready to slam into a brick wall. There needs to be financial reports, dashboards and KPI’s that a start-up studies closely each week to understand how much it is spending, earning and retaining vs. its goals. You can’t manage what you are not measuring, so make sure you get your key reporting metrics identified and tracked.
9. Creative Block or Stubbornness
Oftentimes, a start-up’s team gets hung up on a particular perspective or approach to an issue. When things are not going well, it is important to push the team to change their perspective and try something new and creative to solve the problem. Start-ups that are heading towards failure are often unsure of where they should be heading as a company, and lack the creative thinking skills that are required to ideate potential solutions. Or, they are simply inflexible and not willing to entertain a different approach.
10. Boredom
The team getting bored with what they are working on can surely be a start-up killer. Early in the start-up’s life, the team is motivated, as the venture is exciting to work on, and the team enjoys working towards the success of a start-up. Hence, everyone works with dedication and puts in long hours. But the reality is, after the euphoria wears off, it is easy for the team to get bored with their work. It could be due to their attention diverting elsewhere, lack of motivation, or monotony in the day-to-day grind of the workplace, especially if the business is not succeeding as planned. A good entrepreneur will figure out ways to keep its employees engaged and motivated at all times.
So, do a critical assessment of your business to make sure you are not about ready to drive off the cliff. If any of the above resonates as happening with your business, it is time to put an immediate fix in place.
Become recognizable for the things that set you apart.
Video is one of the best windows your consumers have into your business. It allows them to see for themselves what you can offer them and why they should trust you. But for it to be effective, your videos need to build on and strengthen your brand so that consumers have a clear picture of what to expect and why they should come to you.
In light of the pandemic, 30 percent of marketers have indicated that they plan to increase their video production, which means it’s more important than ever to ensure the strength of your brand through your videos. That’s what will set you apart.
Let’s get started.
1. Be clear from the start.
The first few seconds of your video are not the time for ambiguity. Your audience needs to recognize your business early on. This maintains consistency and ensures that they spend the rest of the video associating everything they see with you and your brand.
Additionally, be clear about your message from the start, whether your goal is to teach your audience, introduce a product or tell a story about your services. This reminds your audience what your business is about and keeps them hooked throughout the video. If your audience stops watching, your video will do nothing for your brand.
2. Establish your target market.
Before you even think about designing a video campaign, you need to identify your target audience. Generalizing your video to everyone won’t do you any good when it comes to strengthening your brand.
By focusing on the audience your business appeals to, you not only create a more focused brand but you increase the likelihood of getting through to your audience and seeing real results. Pro tip: More business helps your brand, too.
3. Tell a story.
Use your videos to tell a story, whether it’s the business’s story, an employee’s story or a consumer’s story. This shows your audience that there are real people behind the logo and allows them to connect with your brand on a human level.
Putting real faces and stories at the forefront of your marketing strategy builds a sense of trust and understanding between you and your audience and helps craft a brand that appeals to people on a personal level.
4. Include testimonials.
Don’t just rely on yourself and your employees to sell your company. Let satisfied consumers do it for you. If your video displays real consumers who enjoyed your product or service, it lends your brand credibility and shows that you’re a business that can be trusted.
Think about it: Who are you more likely to believe? A happy customer sharing their positive experiences or the employees that get paid for every product or service sold?
5. Use your expertise.
You are where you are for a reason. Let your audience see that. Make how-to videos or case study videos. Give your audience real advice that they can apply to their lives to show that you know what you’re doing or show them your real results and how you got there. Make sure that your brand is associated with real expertise and knowledge in addition to good human relations.
According to a 2021 report, “94 percent of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service,” so your efforts won’t be in vain.
6. Incorporate calls to action.
You need more than just a goal for your video. You need your audience to know what you want them to do. Including a call-to-action in your video shows that you are a brand with direction and purpose and gives the audience direct instructions on how to get involved with you if they’re interested.
A successful call to action will also strengthen your brand through the business it brings you. Although most put their calls to action at the end, studies have shown that calls to action in the middle of a video actually have the highest conversion rate. Play around with it and see what works best for your video.
It’s important to remember that when it comes to video marketing, standing out and being unique is important, but that in itself isn’t enough to bring in business. You need to ensure that everything you do works to strengthen and build upon your brand so that you not only gain your audience’s trust and confidence but become recognizable to them for the things that set you apart.
Remember, it’s not your product or your services that sell. It’s your brand.
Feature Image Credit: Getty Images
By Jacob Tanur
Founder and Creative Director at Click Play Films, a video production company specializing in premium branded content.
The “3 M’s” as Kwik calls them, consist of Mindset, Motivation, and Methods, and have the ability to change every aspect of your life—if you’re willing to cultivate each one to increase your productivity and success while rewiring your brain.
The science-based practices and field-tested tips that Kwik employs are proven to help accelerate communication, memory, focus, recall, speed reading, and even self-learning, in order to create fast and tangible results no matter your goals or to-do list.
Flipping through Limitless, you’ll notice that the book is broken down to cover the “3 M’s” in a systematic approach—something that anybody can accomplish if they’re ready to put in the work involved.
Flipping your mindset, to start, is nothing new to personal development junkies—but it’s key to achieving greater success and the most important aspect of flipping the switch on your productivity and brain power.
Your brain is a ‘supercomputer’
According to Kwik, the brain is like a supercomputer and your thoughts program it to run. The “Kwik Brain process” as it’s called in the book, will help you to rewrite the assumptions, bad habits, and procrastinations that are holding you back or causing your negative thoughts.
From there, readers will move onto igniting their motivation—which Kwik says is the key that opens up limitless mental capacity. It’s here that readers will get to focus on a more tangible aspect of success and goal-setting; passion, purpose, energy, and focusing on goals should all foster a sense of excitement when done right—and Kwik shows readers exactly how to foster a more sustainable and self-renewing sense of motivation that will help drive success even faster (and further).
Becoming “brain-fit”
The final step involves mastering the method—putting together everything you’ve been training your brain to do and think. According to Kwik—and to the endless reader reviews—mastering the method will allow you to use your brain in ways that you never thought possible.
The level of “brain-fit” you achieve will all come down to the effort you put in after finishing the book. If you take Kwik’s lessons and run with them, chances are good that you’ll be able to read a book three times faster through speed reading, actually learn to speak a second language fluently, and master other skills like learning an instrument, simply by shifting the way you think about motivation and mindset.
While it might sound like a lot of fluff or fiction, there’s a reason that Limitless has nearly 10,000 five-star reviews online—the hacks and processes that Kwik brilliantly lays out within its pages are a game changer when it comes to overcoming poor productivity and lack of motivation.
Whether you’re hoping to increase your productivity and success or you’re ready to take that new self-taught hobby to the next level, the surprisingly simple ways to unblock productivity and expand your brain’s capacity as outlined in Limitless will benefit anyone willing to work on their motivation and mindset—and it’s definitely worth a read.
Kohl’s Corp. also revamped its pricing strategy, placing a heavier focus on everyday value along with targeted and personalized offers. — Kohl’s
