A great way to get your message across and win more customers

At '245 days…' I take a look at all issues they can affect the success of your startup. For any startup business communication is absolutely crucial to your success. How you are able to capture the attention of your audience is vital. To be able to explain your product or service quickly and in an engaging manner can transform the way you are received and understood. You need to find a way that your potential customer can receive and process the information you want to deliver.

You need to find a way of delivering your content in a way that holds the attention of the viewer, delivers the key messages you want to get across and that looks professional.

One great way of doing this is by using an explainer video.

One great company that provide this service is Again Studios.

The explainer video breaks down the essence of what you do and turns it into something that is-

•          Easy to watch
•          Easy to understand
•          A great hook for finding out more

Again Studios explainer videos talk your potential customer through the process step by step. They catch the attention straight away and then lead the viewer through a few screens of information before providing the hook. The best explainer video examples of these videos look like they have great production values and enhance the view of the company that the video represents.

But I've seen so many poor quality explainer videos that don't achieve anything. They can be all fluff and no substance. Again Studios produce a high quality explainer video that will wow your potential customer and help to transform your business. This can make the difference between a viewer clicking away or staying, watching through and then buying your product or service. This can be the difference a thriving business or the potential of no business at all. Startups are so prone to failure in the first year that they need to b totally on top of their communication because every single sale counts.

You need to be able to communicate your offering to your customers in a concise way. Time is so tight for people that they don't want to be spending a lot of time working out what you offer. They need to be able to understand what you do, why you are different and why they should contact you. This last part is important to you. You want the viewer to get in contact with you – Again Studios will help you with this.

Get a free social media audit for your startup business

At ‘245 days...” I take a look at all of the aspects of your startup business that you need to get right first time to get you in line for success. There are so many areas of startup business that must be done correctly to make sure that you don’t end up as one of the statistics of failure. Startup businesses are particularly vulnerable to closing down in the first few years. It can happen for a variety of reasons but the major factor in this is cash flow. This comes about because of not enough customers. It is vital as early on in the process as possible for a new business to start recruiting customers. In the past they may have involved expensive marketing campaigns, but in the modern world it involves making use of the free medium of social media.

Unfortunately, because it is free, some people in business seem to think that you can throw whatever you like at it and something will come back. There are millions of users on the social media networks and a high proportion is small business. To be seen takes a strategy.

How do you get your audience to find you? How do you gain a meaningful audience? Where do you turn for help?

Gradient Social Solutions is currently offering free social media audits for your startup business. It means that you can get quality advice from a professional in this field. It can transform the way that your company uses social media and the engagement you have with your audience.

Gradient Social Solutions have been helping clients for years to make the most of their social media presence. They work on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to get you an audience that means something to you. They look to engage followers that are likely to buy and endorse your products to get you traffic that converts into business.

When I first started on Twitter for my business I was thrilled to see that I was followed by Yoko Ono and the crown Prince of some country I hadn’t really heard of. After a short while it dawned on me that this wasn’t my audience. These were not people that were going to buy my product. It is by having your target audience follow you on social media and reacting to what you post that you can convert this free tool into income and profit. Don’t be fooled by follower numbers.

As you would expect with a marketing company that helps you with social media, Gradient Social Solutions have their own Facebook page that you can check out.

At ‘245 days...’ I repeatedly extol the virtues of marketing, especially when the medium is free to use. Social media is a great way to engage with your customers and get them to interact with you and your business. It is a really cost-effective way to generate new customers and to turn these customers into loyal customers. However you need to use social media correctly if you want a return from it. Gradient Social Solutions can give you a free audit to make sure you are doing just this. Contact them today!

I started writing, got half way through a piece and just stopped.....

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I've got half way through a writing piece this week and stopped in my tracks. It's not really happened before but I do t really know how to finish what I've been writing. It's not writer's block or anything like that, it's just I don't really know where I want to go with it. The current text is the second sample blog for my estate agents blog that I let you know about recently-

http://245daystogo.blogspot.com/2015/11/see-writing-skills-that-can-help-estate.html

And the text I have do far is-

"Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England has hinted that interest rate rises will happen later rather than sooner-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34733480

The global economic situation means that inflation is less likely to rise and interest rate rises are less likely to be needed.

But what does the phrase 'interest rates' mean?

When newspapers, television news and websites say interest rates, they mean the Bank of England base rate. This is still at the lowest it has ever been. It has stayed at 0.5% since the credit crunch of 2009, and there really hasn't been much sign of it changing since then. And it's this Bank of England base rate at half a percent that goes on to influence the interest rate you pay on your mortgage. A consistently low base rate gives confidence to the banks to offer low mortgage rates.

But what does that mean for home buyers in Yourtown? What does it mean for customers of estate agents in Yourtown?

Well, a second statement from the Bank of England this week sheds a little more light on this-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34741331

The Deputy Governor states that the Bank of England base interest rate should not be used as a tool to control the housing market. This should mean that house prices in Yourtown follow a more natural curve of demand and supply, without a large intervention from outside sources. This gives you an idea that changes in interest rates are made to control inflation - not to control the price you pay for your next home.

The best way to know about your local market us to keep a watch of your local market. Register with home estate agents and we will send our freshest properties on the market to to your email inbox. To have the latest homes for sale in Yourtown sent directly to you when they are released puts you at the front of the information market. If you speak to is then we can let you know what is available to you and what the asking prices are for the type of property you want.

And it's by understanding what you want that you can get to grips with your local housing market."

 As I've said, I'm not unhappy with the current content, I'm just not completely sure if how I finish it. I'm trying to create several things at once-

1. An SEO-optimised piece that will boost an estate agents search engine rankings.
2. Something that their customers will read all the way through.
3. Something that prompts the customer to action.
4. Something that creates customer confidence.

And I think that this piece so far creates points 1 to 3, but I'm concerned that it borders on infringing point 4. Interest rates are a touchy subject and I don't want the blog piece to put customers off buying a home because they fear interest rate rises. The next step in the blog will have to be a careful one as I want to say more about how my estate agents can help clients but without causing any fear. I'll think long and hard about it and post any updated version on here.

It's a strange feeling to not finish a piece of writing, but it's come to this here. Hopefully it's a one off!

See the different marketing ideas I'm using to sell my books

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I've been looking at ways to expand the sales of my mystery shopping book. It's had some initial interest and I want to capitalise on that interest and turn it into book sales. There have also been a couple of positive reviews already. It's one of those things that every time you talk about it, other people are really interested in what you have to say. It's a topic that everyone has some interest in, either what you do or becoming a mystery shopper themselves. To assist with the book I've started a blog that mixes hints and tips from the book with my daily experiences as a mystery shopper. Each blog entry prompts the reader to take a look at the book. The blog can be found here.

I have also set up a basic promotional YouTube video to help with the book sales. The idea behind these two things is to get people to like the look of what is going on and then go on to buy and read the book. But the next questions I have are-

• How are people going to find the blog or the YouTube video?
• Who is my target market?
• How will I reach them?

The people who I think will be mainly interested in mystery shopping are university students and the mothers of children that are at school. I live quite close to a university city so I thought that the below poster could get me a bit of traction. I'm going to put it up in a few places around the city that I know students frequent. I hope that more readers of the blog might mean more book sales. Finding the mothers might take a little bit more doing. I'm thinking that the forums mothers frequent such as mumsnet might be somewhere to look. I know from sites like Money Saving Expert  don't allow people to advertise their own products on their forums so mumsnet may be the same. Aside from these two areas, it's a case of searching and thinking more about potential readers and how I can reach them.

The poster looks like this-

Wish me luck!