Budget-Friendly Ways To Make People Notice Your Business

As a small business or a startup, you are likely to experience some financial set-backs whilst trying to get more people to notice your brand. The constraint placed on your budget only means that you must be strategic in managing the pillars of your presence.

Fortunately, it is not that complicated! 🙂

1. POST ADS FOR FREE

Online Classifieds are a good choice as these are cost-effective, convenient to relay contact, visible to a large-scale of consumers, and the advertisers are able to edit a listing anytime. If you are a promising entrepreneur working on a minimum budget, look for free yet established classifieds such as these:

a. STClassifieds had been a favorite of many Singaporeans since 2007. It allows its users to post an add for free in a wide variety of categories. Furthermore, you can upload up to 10 images so you can really get the best angle of your product.

b. Renowned as Singapore’s Number 1 Free Classifieds Site, Gumtree Singapore is well known for providing good classified services with one of the largest visibility. Their ads let you show the description, photos, date listed, price, condition, address, and your contact information.

2. GET A CATCHY DOMAIN

Once you settled the costs of the products or services that you are planning to sell, you can start creating your own website. Go Daddy sells website domain names for as low as $2.26 per year.

Focus on getting a website domain that represents your business well leave a lasting impact to your target market. For example, you can use “xxx.flowers” instead of “xxx.com” if you are selling beautifully arranged blooms.

3. STAY SOCIAL

Because of the emergence of social media, your marketing must create and showcase a credible online persona for your brand and its products or services. A great online persona will attract more people to the website, boost the brand’s loyal consumers, and increase the number of new consumers.

The efficiency of this social influence is due to the Bandwagon Effect. Bandwagon Effect is a phenomenon that occurs when people do something predominantly because others are doing it. Social media allows the consumers to talk about a brand and its competitors. Using this tool to your advantage can help boost your sales.

4. HOST A GIVEAWAY

A surefire way to make people notice you is to sponsor a giveaway on various social media platforms. In fact, that is one of the early strategies of Money Digest. As much as possible, do this on websites that receive tons of traffic regularly such as Facebook and Instagram.

Get more traffic by incorporating the number of “likes” and “shares” to the mechanics. Also, there are several apps on Facebook that will help you send a message to your followers and help you choose a random winner.

Image Credits: pixabay.com

Image Credits: pixabay.com

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3 Times Color Significantly Affected Your Spending

Whenever you are out to shop, you see wonderful colors from the lightest to the darkest shades. The sale signs are bright red, the shopping bags are shocking yellow, and the labels are resonating the rainbow. Did you know that these colors are strategically placed to influence the way you spend?

Colors can impact one’s spending because the sight of it automatically stimulates you and increases your memories, color-motivated behaviors, and social influences. Here are three situations when color significantly affects your finances:

1. RIGHT SHADE FOR YOUR CAR

Burgundy is a shade of red that is often associated with wine. Cars with this color are usually more expensive that their white counterparts as burgundy exude luxury and refinement. Furthermore, red is a difficult color to see at night when people’s visions are somewhat distorted. Be careful as this may lead to involvements in accidents.

On the other hand, a white colored car has numerous benefits.

But before discussing this, I must acknowledge the existence of the age-old debate of whether white and black are colors. According to the available online resources, white is an achromatic color composed of all the frequencies of the light of the visible spectrum. While black is a color when you are referring to the coloring agents of tangible objects. For example, if you combine the primary colors using paint, you would get a shade of black.

Going back to white as a color for your car…light colored cars have better petroleum mileage because you can stay cooler without the use of air conditioning. Painting your car white can instantly lower the interior heat. Also, it is easier to see by other drivers at night.

2. ATTRACTIVE PACKAGING OF BEAUTY PRODUCTS

You enter Sephora and you see their in-house brand of lipsticks in sleek black tubes. Don’t they look expensive? Even if these lipsticks cost less than other brands they seem more upscale because of the color they come in. In packaging, black signifies sophistication.

Image Credits: pixabay.com (License: CC0 Public Domain)

Image Credits: pixabay.com (License: CC0 Public Domain)

Another color that can push people to spend more on beauty products especially the anti-aging ones is purple. Purple signifies royalty. This is why people are often convinced that there really are special properties inside the “purple box” and they are willing to pay more for it.

3. APPETITE-ENHANCING COLORS

From the logos to the interior, two colors seem to stay at almost every fast food chains. These two colors are red and yellow. Red and yellow stimulate appetite, which probably explains why your stomach starts to make noises as soon as you see the yellow arches or the red logo. And, you cannot resist spending more inside.

Image Credits: Mike Mozart via Flickr (CC License)

Image Credits: Mike Mozart via Flickr (CC License)

Interestingly, you can combat how colors affect the way you eat by controlling your own plate. Researchers at Cornell University found that when they reduced the contrast in their plates and tables or in their plates and the food itself, people tend to serve themselves less food. For example, to eat less, pair your white plate with your white table-cloth or a blue plate with a blue table-cloth.

Sources: 1,2, 3, & 4

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Leverage on modern marketing for your brand

owl city singapore featured

Times have been difficult recently and this resonates with companies trying to keep their costs low. Traditional marketing techniques have been slowly losing its trend due to its time consuming and costly factors. All these things are delivered in print format or in person. On the contrary, Internet marketing transcends outdated form of marketing using the power of online networks and interactive media to reach your marketing objectives. With modern marketing, you can lower costs and accomplish more without catalogs, brochures and any other marketing collateral. You can reach more customers than ever before with its cost efficiency formula.

Spreading the name of your company does not have to be expensive. Owl City SG provides online advertising, marketing and profiling for local companies and businesses. They were nominated this year with “Top 25 Prestige Award 2015” for demonstrating exceptional accomplishment in Business Fields.

Owl City provides excellent Business to Business (B-to-B) services ranging from Profile Portal, E-commerce, Media Advertising and Marketing Consultation.

A recent profound marketing collaboration that Owl City has undertaken involves assisting Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) on their Drug Awareness Campaign by managing CNB’s “Life Does Not Rewind” FaceBook page. In there, creative marketing techniques such as videos and games contests were showcased with highly creative and engaging content resulting in overwhelming responses from the general public.

Essentially, Owl City’s achievements would not have been made possible without Miri Yeo, the Founder of Owl City SG. Through her sheer determination to pursue her passion of starting up a marketing firm, she stands firm to her beliefs that profit maximization should never be her main goal, rather the importance of advocating an honest reputation when doing business, alongside with maintaining top-notch work quality standards and efficiency.

Fundamentally, over 300 clients who have engaged Owl City SG’s advertising and branding services have left them with positive feedbacks which resulted in significant cost savings in the long run. Owl City SG remains as a prime choice for people who wish to grow and expand their businesses, and customer bases. Its grasp of modern media and advertising is second-to-none.

An example on how Owl City provides a comprehensive services to Yoogane, a Korean restaurant in Singapore:

yoogane

Yoogane, client of Owl City Singapore

For more information on Owl City SG, refer to the links below:

http://www.owlcitysg.com/ (Business to Business Services)
http://www.owlcity.com.sg/ (Business to Consumers Services)

This article is brought to you by Owl City Singapore.

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Increase Your Sales Through Social Influence

As the technology advances, the presence of social media became inevitable. With this in mind, the marketing department must up their game by creating and showcasing a credible online persona for the company and its products or services. A great online persona will attract more people to the website, boost the brand’s loyal consumers, and increase the number of new consumers.

The efficiency of this social influence is due to the Bandwagon Effect. Bandwagon Effect is a phenomenon that occurs when people do something predominantly because others are doing it. Social media allows the consumers to talk about a brand and its competitors. Using this tool to your advantage can help boost your sales.

In fact, Engage Selling‘s C. Francis once said that sales of US$30,000-250,000 were once made due to finding opportunities in LinkedIn or Twitter.

HOW TO BOOST YOUR SOCIAL INFLUENCE?

1. INTEGRATE TESTIMONIALS

Integrate honest testimonials by using the company’s website, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, or other social media accounts. This is a way to show the clients’ great experiences – making the company be as relatable as possible. People are more likely to be patronizing a product if they heard about it from an existing satisfied client.

2. ENABLE CLIENT’S REVIEWS AND RATINGS

Truth be told, whenever I am about to watch the latest movie or eat from a new cafe, I would search for the previous reviews and ratings first. This is because I want to get my money’s worth by choosing the best and the most affordable products or services out there. Adding this feature to your website will allow direct feedback to increase your credibility. This is what e-commerce websites such as Amazon or eBay strive for.

3. FEATURE YOUR AWARDS

If your company won an award or has been featured in an article or two, post them up for everybody to see. Through this, it will show a new consumer that your brand has shines from the rest because your product or services are outstanding.

4. PUT SOCIAL MEDIA WIDGETS OR PLUGINS

Adding social media widgets or plugins that enable the consumer to share your content is important as it optimizes the traffic that will only come back to your company’s website. One example of it is “ShareThis” (get the code here– for free). It is important that your valued clients see the number of likes, shares, or followers. A hint of trust to the brand increases, as they will see their friends patronizing the same product or service.

Image Credits: mkhmarketing via Flickr

Image Credits: mkhmarketing via Flickr

To sum it up, a sure-fire way to increase your brand’s desirability, profits, and consumer interaction is to boost your social media influence.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, & 4

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Opening A Franchise in Singapore? Know These 5 Things First

Starting a business in Singapore cannot only be expensive but also difficult. As Albert Kong, CEO and chairman of Asiawide Franchise Consultants that advised 650 franchise clients in Asia, once said: “Starting a business in Singapore is much tougher than other countries in the region especially when it comes to dealing with landlords and managing employees.”

1. SAVE LOADS OF MONEY FOR FUTURE EXPENSES

You must save for the franchise fee, renovation of the space, rent requirements, raw materials, and employee salary. Regardless of whether you are making a huge profit or not, the franchisor will request a share in your revenues.

For example, the franchise fee for a cafe is about S$50, 000 for a 3-year contract. The renovation costs may hit about S$100, 000 for only a 600 sq ft place. The rent of this 600 sq ft place costs about S$7, 000 a month. Additionally, the raw materials and employee salary for the first few months costs an extra S$100, 000. These costs heavily depend on your franchisor and landlord.

2. EMPLOYEE EXPENSES ENTAILS HIGH COSTS

Employees in Singapore are among the highest paid workers in the world. Not to mention, as an employer, you will have to contribute a given amount to the Central Provident Fund (CPF). Employees can leave you whenever they want and because of it, you will have to spend more resources to hire and train again. To avoid this, layout a 1-month waiver for employees that want to resign.

3. FAMOUS BRANDS ARE THE SAFEST

A household name such as 7-Eleven is your safest bet if you are franchising for the first time. First, the landlord will be more lenient to you as they know the “required look” of the establishment. Second, consumers tend to buy brands that they are most familiar with. In Singapore, the famous F&B franchises are Subway and Ya Kun Kaya Toast.

4. FOLLOW YOUR PASSION

Follow your passion so you do not feel the stress of costs too much especially during the first few months. If you are motivated by your happiness then, you are more likely to succeed in what you do. Furthermore, you may consider franchising a unique business with a popular brand to avoid the competition.

5. BUILD GOOD BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS

It pays to have a good business relationship that is open and honest with the suppliers and the landlord so that if disagreement and troubles arise, you can settle it out in a friendly manner.

Image Credits: 드림포유 via Flickr

Image Credits: 드림포유
via Flickr

Sources: Business Insider Singapore

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