Consumers now have more access to a piece of vast information than ever before. They will have access to even more information in the future through the internet and social media channels.
With this, they have more control of their purchasing journey and become more modern in their approach.
Do you agree?
If markers aren’t innovative, they will not succeed in keeping pace in terms of sophistication.
Modern Demand Generation – An Introduction
Demand generation is a holistic marketing approach that creates awareness about the product or brand and drives interest towards the brand.
This approach involves the collaboration of the sales and marketing teams.
As you are here, I guess you are a marketing professional, and if not, you own a business.
Which one are you?
I am going to give you tips to build your email contact list in a hassle-free manner.
Use Email Extractor Tool
Have you heard of the email extractor tools before? These are popular among the growing marketers.
GetEmail.io is one of the best email format identifiers you can use to build your B2B email contact list.
You can start with the free plan that gives you ten free credits every month.
I hope you find this helpful.
As you read ahead, this article will discuss the issues causing the failure of the demand generation strategy.
An Isolated Organizational Approach
Many organizations have their team structured into silos. Every department is defined depending upon its activities, roles, and responsibilities.
In such a structure, everyone will be busy executing on their areas of responsibility. As a result, it would lack content continuity, and the entire process will not be aligned with the consumers and their buying journey.
Lack of Skill Set
The breadth of skills required to succeed in marketing keeps increasing with the years, and many organizations find it challenging to train their resources adequately on the necessary skills to market their business.
It would be best if you invested in training your marketing personnel with new skills to practice their craft effectively.
Not Collaborating with the Sales Team
Back then, only around sixty percent of B2B demand generation teams involved their sales team in developing their buyer personas.
It’s essential to have a standard set of KPIs that both sales and the marketing team share to measure success.
There is no denying that demand generation should be superheaded by the marketing team. Still, it is essential to involve the sales team to consider their insights into the market and consumers.
Lack of Complete Ownership or Accountability
If you want your demand generation to be successful, then give your demand generation team the ownership. `
Many companies commit the mistake of having their corporate marketing team develop the content and personas.
When you don’t give the demand generation team the tools and controls to perform their task with precision, you will struggle with the demand generation.
Demand generation in this millennial era demands specific skills, content for every stage of the prospect’s journey in the sales funnel.
Final Thoughts
The marketing leaders should adopt the demand process approach to make the best out of their marketing and sales investment.
Besides this, it is vital to address the issues discussed in this article.
Lean and Mean: 5 Ways Small Businesses Can Cut Costs
Although vaccination efforts are now underway across the world, many aspects of human society will never remain the same. The pandemic has affected almost every facet of your day-to-day life, and small business owners are among those who have been most affected.
Hundreds of thousands of businesses have had to shut down or drastically reduce their operations to stay open. And despite the promises of a post-pandemic world, almost all of them may never recover.
Expert analysis of data on business closures revealed that only approximately 3 percent of businesses that have closed will open their doors once more. Majority of these businesses are small enterprises who will have a hard time restructuring their finances and reorganizing their operations.
You have multiple strategies toemploy to ensure your company remains in business. One such strategy is to trim down your expenses, which will let you funnel resources to running your business.
Here are five ways to cut down your small business’s operational costs.
Outsource Jobs
Many parts of your small business’s operations don’t actually require a full-time employee to accomplish. Go over your entire operational structure and determine which tasks can be outsourced. These tasks are often those that don’t need to be done every day and require complex training, training that your employees may not the time or bandwidth to receive.
For example, many companies rely onaccountants for small businesses to ensure their finances and paperwork are in order. Other businesses outsource their website management and design, freeing up valuable man-hoursfor work more relevant to their enterprise.
Reconsider Your Office Space
One of the primary reasons many small businesses shuttered their doors was to avoid paying expensive rental feels on commercial property. If you want to trim down your business costs significantly, you should look for a way to decrease the amount you pay for office space. Renegotiate the terms of your lease with your landlord or find less expensive commercial space.
Maybe you can even forgo having an office space. For example, if you’re running a business that sells natural preservatives for cosmetics, you may not need a full office. Perhaps you can get by with some storage space and manage your enterprise from home instead.
Reduce Non-Essential Perks
Employee perks help brighten up the mood, but collectively they can be a massive drain on your finances. All those fresh fruits, bottled water and similar perks can be making up a significant portion of your business’s expenses. Take a look at the various employee perks your small business is doling out and take note of how much they cost every week or month.
Next, discuss these reductions in perks with your employees. Which perks are they most willing to let go? Which ones can they live without? Bringing in your employees to gauge their reactions to such perk reduction is important because the purpose of these perks is to retain them. Their input and opinion in which ones they’re willing to lose is vital.
Renegotiate Employee Benefits
Yet another sacrifice you may have to make is reduce or renegotiate employee benefits, such as health insurance, allowances and similar things. It’s even more vital that you bring in your employees to discuss such reductions because it will have long-term effects on their well-being. Rather than cut them out outright, find ways you can reduce your expenses on these benefits.
For example, talk to your health insurance provider and discuss if there is a less expensive plan you can put your employees on. Look over employee allowances and calculate what would be an acceptable reduction. Maybe just reducing such allowances by 15 percent would be enough to make a difference in your budget. But never forget to inform employees on such cuts and alterations, so you retain their trust.
Go Digital
You can save substantially by embracing digitization. For example, increasing your use of electronic media and documents can mean you won’t have to buy as many office supplies like paper and printers. Streamlining your operations by incorporating more digital processes can be key in reducing associated costs. Sticking to virtual meetings and increasing your use of similar media will not only keep employees safe but decrease travel costs, like gasoline and parking.
Your small business requires sacrifices and now more than ever, you need to be smart about which sacrifices you’re going to make. These tips will help you keep your doors open and your business profitable through the uncertain times ahead.
How to Start and Grow Your Line Painting Business in 2021
The line painting industry is one of the most underrated industries in the US. There isn’t even an estimated market value for it as of this time. Currently, it is integrated with the traffic road marking coating industry which is estimated to be at $4 billion and expected to grow by 6% in the next few years. It is a sizable industry, but you have to note that line painting is a service that only takes up a portion of the market.
Despite its small size, it’s an essential business for many industries out there, like real estate. If you’re planning to start a quick and easy business that can give you an opening to expand and grow to other sectors like the construction industry, then the line painting business is for you. Here is how you can start a line painting business this year.
Cost of a Line Painting Business
A line painting business has a meager overhead cost when compared to other businesses out there. It’s estimated that you only have to spend between $2,000 to $10,000 to start this particular business. If you compare it to the overhead cost of other businesses out there, you’ll see that this investment is among the cheapest in the market.
Once you get started, you’ll see that line painting is not only meant for roads. There are other industries out there that require line painting, such as the sports industry. You’ll be asked to mark football fields or basketball courts. Your business might also be called to mark parking lots and other properties out there. It is a diverse business model that you can run inside your home, which means you don’t need to rent an office.
You also don’t need to hire full-time employees. You can hire freelancers who are willing to do the job for you. If you want to save up, you can always do the jobs yourself, given that you have the right equipment for the job.
Buy High-quality and Modern Equipment
Your investments will go primarily to the equipment you’ll be using for the job. Since you rely so much on the equipment, you should invest in the best in the market.
As stated earlier, it’s quite cheap to start a line marking business. However, you’d want to have the best equipment for the job if you want to be ahead of the competition. For example, using reflective road marking paint can be a worthwhile investment because they last longer, even on roads that receive a ton of traffic. The less likely it fades away, the less time you have to spend to maintain it. This gives you more time for other jobs out there. Another example is using a modern paint-striping machine. Old paint striping machines can be very inefficient and hazardous to your health because of their fumes.
Using a more modern paint-striping machine can cut down the time you have to do a job, and it can be much safer to use. You can also invest more into a heavy-duty paint striping machine once your business takes off. This ensures that you’re ready for highways. These are usually jobs given by the government.
Having the best-quality equipment can open you up to more jobs in the industry. The more jobs you take, the more income you generate. This will help you grow your company in the future.
Partner with Local Businesses
As a line painting business, you’d want to partner up with real estate developers and construction businesses in your city. Tell them that you can do line painting jobs for them at a much lower price. Since you’ll be doing these jobs in bulk, you can get a much higher profit margin, even if you offer your services cheap. Additionally, by partnering up with local businesses, you can ensure that you have jobs for the entire quarter.
Be Aware of COvID-19 Protocols
Lastly, you must be aware of the construction protocols during the pandemic. The line painting business is widely associated with construction, so those are the protocols you’ll be following, and you can find them here. The pandemic has only affected line marking businesses last year. Now, line marking jobs are everywhere as the economy tried to catch up on real estate development projects on hold last year.
Starting a line marking business during the pandemic is quite easy compared to starting other businesses out there. Just be aware of the protocols and how much you have to spend to start your business. The rest of the work is finding the job you need to grow your company. Eventually, you can expand to other industries out there, like the construction industry.
Guide to Handling Bleaches and Other Chemicals during the Pandemic
Bleaches and other types of chemical-based disinfectants are in demand during the pandemic. Even until now, as the new normal ingrained the habit of frequent cleaning in us. Many of us may have been vaccinated already, but we can’t risk another outbreak to happen. As such, strong disinfectants became a new essential in every home and business establishment.
If you want to profit off this trend, don’t start until you actually know what you’re venturing into. Manufacturing bleaches and other chemicals puts your health at risk. The material is also susceptible to leaking and spilling, creating safety hazards all over your workplace.
It will be costly to deal with health problems and injuries in your workers. They won’t be minor cases, after all. Constant unprotected chemical exposure warrants a serious respiratory infection, while slips and falls can result in long-term disability.
So here are your crucial pointers for handling bleaches and other chemicals for viruses:
Refer to EPA-approved Products
If you’re creating a new brand, check out the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s list of approved disinfectant products. That will give you an idea of the chemical ingredients to use. Check out the popular brands in the market as well to get a glimpse of your potential competitors.
Disinfectants aren’t supposed to be useful against the COVID-19 virus only. It should also killcold, flu, and other disease-causing viruses,including canine parvovirus, which is notorious for killing puppies. If you’d market to people with pets, they’d definitely need a disinfectant potent enough to kill that menace.
Note that disinfectants are distinct from other cleaning products. Disinfectants kill germs, while ordinary household cleaning products only remove them. Hence, avoid claiming that your disinfectant brand works as a cleaner, too. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), disinfectants should only be used on surfaces that have already been cleaned.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is Mandatory in Your Workplace
During the pandemic, PPE has been mainly associated with healthcare facilities. But PPE is also essential in other industries, including production and manufacturing.
But the PPE you need in your workplace isn’t the same as those worn by healthcare workers. Your PPE should meet industry standards, or you could be fined. For the handling of chemicals, your workers may need one of the four types of PPE:
Level D Protection: Level D PPE are the most basic work uniform for chemical handlers. It’s composed of coveralls, safety footwear, gloves, and disposable protection suits. However, they can’t be worn if there are skin and respiratory hazards in your workplace.
Level C Protection: This type of PPE is for facilities with airborne chemicals and substances. It includes the garments in Level D PPE, plus an air-purifying respirator. But skin and eye protection aren’t necessary for routine use.
Level B Protection: You can settle for Level B Protection if your workplace isn’t threatened by skin and eye irritants. But your workers still need full-body protection, particularly chemical-resistant types.
Level A Protection: This is the PPE type that offers the highest level of protection. Its ensemble of clothing includes an air respirator or a self-contained breathing apparatus, protective suit with full encapsulation, inner and outer safety gloves, and steel toe footwear (can be worn over or under suit boots).
Perform a complete hazard assessment of your workplace before deciding on a type of PPE to require. Train your workers on the proper usage of PPE as well; they’ll only receive its full protection when they wear it correctly.
Leaks and Spills May Result in Serious Health Issues
Since you’ll be handling liquid chemicals, you need storage equipment that prevent leaks and spills. They will protect your workers from dangerous exposure to chlorine gas, a chemical found in cleaning materials such as chlorine bleach.
Your chemicals should be secured in drum containers, and held atop high-grade chemical containment palletsfrom a reliable supplier such as TRADE ENVIRONMENTAL PTY LTD. The pallets protect the drums from slipping, so that the hazardous chemical inside them won’t cause safety and health risks.
Chemical handling is extremely serious in the production industry. Even low levels of exposure to them can cause respiratory diseases, especially if it’s often experienced. When workers suddenly breathe in airborne substances, they can develop acute pneumonitis. In time, if they continue ingesting chemicals, their acute pneumonitis can progress into long-term chronic pneumonitis, which may cause respiratory failure and death.
Health and safety are two of the most sensitive matters you’ll deal with in making disinfectant products. Develop an excellent plan for those factors first, ensuring that you’ve considered every single aspect in your business that affect health and safety. After that, then you may start your creating your marketing plan and commencing your operations.
The Future of Shopping: How Going Online Affects Retail Stores
The predictions regarding the future of shopping have long been talked about. A few years ago, numerous speculations from experts and analysts were all over how technology would change and affect our lives – and they weren’t wrong.
Today, we enjoy the many benefits, convenience, and opportunities that these innovations have brought us. But along with it, challenges and social changes are expected, especially for entrepreneurs. The correlation between the tools that we use and our social structures forces our society to adjust accordingly.
The Internet is no exception. The huge impact it has brought has changed the game for brick-and-mortar stores since online shopping became possible. Sadly, most of these physical stores became one of the many casualties when the coronavirus hit worldwide.
Thus, online shopping swiftly earned its sweet spot as the most popular online activity globally.
Thelatest survey from PYMNTSfound that 35.7% of consumers in the U.S. prefer buying retail items online. A separate studyinvolving 3,700 respondents from emerging and developed countries found that more than half of them now shop online more frequently compared to the past years.
The Fight to Go Online
Online shopping isn’t new to the pre-pandemic world. The rise of online retail giants worldwide has made it possible for anyone to order items of their liking anytime, anywhere, and even have them delivered on their doorsteps the same day without hassle and stress. The implementation of a worldwide lockdown and limited movements intensified the joy and ease of having to scroll over our favorite online shop.
The increased appetite for consumers to purchase online continues to spike, especially for essentials, food, and so on. Thus, the need for businesses to adapt is inevitable, forcing most retail stores to switch or branch out online to cater to the growing demand and up their game.
Online Selling versus Physical Stores
The reasons many customers and sellers prefer purchasing and selling their items online seem endless. The convenience of surfing over the internet to find what you’re looking for and even scoring great deals, discounts, coupons, and loyalty points saves so much time and money for the consumer compared to their brick-and-mortar counterparts.
With the ongoing digitalization of modern life, multiple payment methods and options to cater to each consumer’s need have greatly influenced their purchase decision. Each one suits their needs, giving the buyers the freedom to explore their options and score the best deal.
From traditional cash to credit/debit cards and bank transfers, people can now seamlessly and securely enjoy paying through their prepaid cards, e-wallets, points earned,cash-on-delivery service, and even cryptocurrencies.
Of course, it’s not a one-way street. Sellers also enjoy the benefits from online selling in terms of low cost on rent and premises, getting more traffic, getting consumer data insights, and whatnot.
However, despite its convenience, online shopping still has its downside. The joy of physically seeing, touching, and even smelling the item you’re buying is something online shopping cannot offer. One good example is the fashion and textile industries. Most people still think that trying the items on and inspecting the look and feel of it when worn will convince them to buy the item.
It’s the same with other things that people try to buy online. Some find it hard to see if the items are legitimate or authentic. Luckily, thiscan be preventedusing the right tools, research, and guide.
The Future of Shopping
The buying pattern for most customers today has drastically changed over the past few years. Though many prefer going to physical stores, comparing prices online and getting the same item at a much lower price still earns the consumer’s preference at the end of the day.
This is not to declare that physical stores are on the brink of extinction. But to remain on the game, a business must adapt. From cassettes and mp3’s to digital music, it seems we haven’t seen the end of the tunnel for the evolution trail on businesses yet. Thus, learning to swim with the tide is crucial.
Physical stores may be behind, but most of them have already cemented their place in the industry and have earned trust and credibility, which is a huge edge for their competitors. On the other hand, the convenience and growing demand that online shops have on people continue and shouldn’t be ignored.
Undoubtedly, both will have a huge impact on the existing retail infrastructure. Some will fail, some will grow, and some will spring up from continuous innovation. But one thing is for sure, none of them are going anywhere.
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