There are so many ways in which a business can go through a downturn, slow-down or just plateau out. Every business faces these challenges at some time or other and, in some instances, how you deal with these times can be the making or the breaking of the business. Here are four tips on how to revive your business with Bartercard.
1. Marketing
Well executed marketing campaigns are always the strong-arm of any successful business. The sad thing is some business owners feel that if they have a website and a Facebook page, the money will just flow in. There’s a bit more involved than that. You need to have all of your bases covered – social media (including YouTube); direct mail-outs with offers and bonuses; email campaigns; newsletters; events and more. You can have the best widget in the world, but if no-one knows about it, it’s worthless. One of the reasons businesses don’t do all of this is because of the prohibitive costs involved. However, once they use Bartercard, they can retain their cash reserves and use Bartercard to cover these marketing expenses.
Marketing may not always come naturally to you. But it is a vital element of any successful business, so it’s not something you can DIY or allow to fall by the wayside. With help from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Small Business Owners, you can make sure your marketing is sending the right message with each and every action made by you and your business.
2. Advertising
While this is technically a part of marketing, it’s a whole different ball game. This is where the big guns come into play and where most businesses take a hit and miss aim. Whoever walks into the office on any particular day with a special deal gets the business. This can be from television, magazines, trade journals, newspapers, radio or flyers and the like. Taking this approach often means no measurable results. A planned campaign coordinated with marketing campaigns and implemented with measurable hooks is always the best way. But this can be expensive too. However, not so if you choose your advertising carefully. There are Bartercard members that specialise in producing television commercials and radio ads; others that sell magazine ad-space.
3. Networking
The reason networking is so powerful is because word-of-mouth endorsement, reference, support or anecdote from someone outside of your business immediately raises your credibility, creating confidence and paves the way for easier interaction. Some businesses pay tens of thousands of dollars to be in the right networking groups exactly for this reason. However, what they don’t realise is that firstly, Bartercard has its own inbuilt network with thousands of other businesses worldwide and secondly, there are a number of networking organisations that can be joined and paid for on Bartercard.
4. Lead Generation
This can be via a number of different avenues, but the main ones en vogue at the moment seem to be SEO, cold-calling, social media and list purchasing. There are dos and don’ts associated with each one of course, but suffice it to say that there are a number of well-regarded professional businesses on Bartercard that can set-up, organise, execute campaigns and track results so that real leads come your way as a matter of course. And the best part of course, is that it doesn’t have to cost a real-cash fortune – huge savings can be made when using Bartercard options.
So with these exceptional ways in which to use Bartercard, your business can be revived and accelerated at any time. You don’t have to wait for a down-turn to get things moving better, faster and smarter.
If you're looking for more tips on how to deal with change and other business related matters, why not check out The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Small Business Owners - and work smarter, not harder on your business.
