In simple words, retailers cannot stay offline, otherwise, they will lose valuable customers easily. Thanks to e-commerce websites because they empower the customers to acquire a unique user experience of shopping online. So if you want to start an e-commerce business, the basic idea will be, begin with, a stellar-looking website. You can either choose to build one yourself or hire a web developer. Here, we will shed light on how you can build a good e-commerce website:

1. Consider the E-Commerce Platform

For your information, there are three different kinds of e-commerce platforms, open-source, SaaS, and headless commerce. Starting with the first one, open-source allows you to code freely without paying. This means it is free to install and can easily be customized according to your needs. However, it entails having advanced knowledge of coding to work on it. 

On the other hand, Software as a service is a platform that allows you to create a website by investing your money. Lastly, headless commerce provides you with a shopping cart and an additional layer of e-commerce sites for references. 

There are also lots of companies that allow you to create your website in a number of clicks. Check out Shopify, WordPress or Wix.  Depending on how complex you want your website to be, any of these are really good options. Some platforms focus only on e-commerce and they will probably be the easiest to manage your online store.  Some websites like buyv2ecigs.com, decided to use Bigcommerce which specialized in e-commerce. If you want something that is only for e-commerce, then check out Bigcommerce or Shopify. 

2. Website Performance

If your website takes too long to load or fails to load for first-time visitors, they won’t bother coming to your platform again. Now that there are hundreds of e-commerce websites out there, choosing the right one can be very daunting for the customer. However, a positive website experience is beneficial for ensuring the customer makes their purchase. 

In addition, your website should have the capacity to cater to the current traffic needs. You would not want a situation where your website crashes because too many people visited and your hosting package was not large enough.  

3. Website Should be Optimized For Mobile

A large number of online shoppers look for products and services from their phones, so if your website fails to load on their mobiles or is too slow, you will eventually lose a lot of customers. Look for different ways your website can be operated from mobile without any obstacles. 

This way, customers can easily find you, if your store is near their house. Also, don’t forget to offer secure payment modes to your customers.

4. Create an Interesting Domain Name

Always choose a domain name that resonates with your customers. Simply put, it shouldn’t be that hard to spell or type. Make it easy for your customers to remember you or to mention to their friends.  

Avoid generic names that have already been taken and try to stand out with your choice. Take your time and look for a brand-able name that can easily be recognized by the customers. Remember that your domain name will be a representation of your brand in the international market, so you need to be wise enough when choosing one. 

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To ensure you are truly building your brand, and doing your business justice, it’s necessary to identify and explore common misconceptions. It will keep you on the right path, which can help your business thrive in today’s highly competitive market.

Understanding the Terms

Branding, brand awareness, brand-building, and brand recognition are different concepts. They are all parts of the same process that involve creating and strengthening a brand, but they refer to separate actions.

You must understand the difference between each one, because it’s a common misconception that they all mean the same thing:

• Branding: A collection of processes, forming a system, to give your business its own identity, unique from competitors and other businesses.
• Brand-building: The act of building a brand, which can include several tasks or measures, like choosing themes, writing mission statements, and more.
• Brand awareness: Measuring, improving, or understanding the visual profile and performance of your business (brand). The goal is to associate emotions, impressions, and more.
• Brand recognition: The ability or likelihood of the public identifying your brand based on major themes, attributes, and quirks.

With that out of the way, we can take a look at some of the more common misconceptions about creating great brand awareness.

Myth: Building Brand Awareness Is Advertising

As a general rule, advertising is more about encouraging customers to buy a product or subscribe to a service. The outcomes are much more specific and measurable.

Marketing and branding, however, are more about fostering relationships with an audience, who also happen to be potential customers. Brand awareness, in particular, involves connecting experiences, emotions, and other traits with the business through smart marketing campaigns. Advertising can help achieve this, but other than that, it has almost nothing to do with brand awareness.

Myth: It’s All About Aesthetics

When rebranding, misaligned professionals tend to overemphasize visual elements like logos, colors, themes, and font styles. These things do play an important role, helping to strengthen a brand’s visual representation and recognition, but they are not the only part of branding.

A brand encompasses all aspects of a business, from the visual style and representation to the products and experiences delivered. Customer service, mission statements, goals, and unique presentations are all included.

Adjusting how customers interact with or experience aspects of your business is an excellent way to evolve your brand. One example might include placing smart displays strategically throughout a store, to better engage shoppers and capture their interests. It reimagines and restructures the way they interact with a brick-and-mortar location, and evokes various emotions and feelings to make a more memorable visit.

Stop and think about how customers see your brand. That’s the best way to approach the process, whether starting new or repositioning an existing business.

Myth: Brand Awareness Won’t Improve Sales

Perceived value has everything to do with how successful a product or service is. Investopedia defines it as the customers’ evaluation of the merits of a product or service. Can it meet their expectations? Will it solve their problem or improve convenience? How does it compare to the competition and other products on the market?

The higher the perceived value, the higher the demand, and naturally, the greater the sales. It’s also entirely possible for something with a low margin to be considered expensive, thanks to perceived value.

Why does this matter?

Brand awareness directly relates to the perceived value of products and services a company is offering. So the opposite of the myth is true, here. Excellent brand awareness does contribute to higher and better sales. It can also determine whether customers support your business or not.

Myth: Brand Awareness Is Too Much of a Challenge for New Businesses

If brand awareness includes the sentiment surrounding a business and its products, then wouldn’t it be nearly impossible for new businesses to capitalize on? Wouldn’t it be too expensive and too difficult?

The answer is no. In fact, many branding techniques don’t cost money to implement, just time. For instance, did you know that 73% of customers prefer brands with friendly customer service?

Improving your customer service and customer experiences not only defines your brand but also leads to higher recognition and more positive sentiment — and repeat business. It is entirely possible to focus on the aspects of branding that will impact your business most, especially when you’re just starting.

You don’t have to dump inordinate amounts of money into branding or rebranding your business, if you play it smart.

Myth: Branding Is a One-and-Done Event

Branding, and building your brand, isn’t something you do in one long stretch. It’s a continuous movement that evolves throughout the scope of your company’s lifetime. You and your marketing team must continue to shape the narrative, through regular updates, visual changes, product improvements, and much more.

Everything your brand is associated with makes a difference, from your social marketing campaign to the philanthropic impact your company has on the local community.

The More You Know

When it comes to marketing, branding, advertising, and customer support, the more you know and understand, the better your business will be.

Striving for growth, and always looking to improve and build on what you’ve achieved, goes a long way towards earning you and your venture success. It will also earn you a lot of respect from your customers.

The next time you consider branding or rebranding your business, keep these misconceptions in mind and try to avoid falling into their trap.

This post was written by Eleanor Hecks for the Marketing Fundamentals Team. Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. She was the creative director at a digital marketing agency before becoming a full-time freelance designer. Eleanor lives in Philly with her husband and pup, Bear.

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In the week that Americans celebrate Thanksgiving I wanted to take the opportunity to share this post originally published on my LinkedIn Page. You can view it here.

For the last few days I have been searching…

but I regret to inform you that I have failed in my search.

I was searching for the first person who took a chance on me and gave me my first permanent job in Marketing.

Months after my appointment I remember her telling me that she had fought for me. There were other candidates being considered.

I was filled with so much gratitude then as I still am now. To have someone believe* IN YOU is a wonderful feeling.

My plan was to thank her again via LinkedIn.

UPDATE: This afternoon I have found her, here on linkedIn, courtesy of advanced search. The person I want to say thank you too is Sharon Wheeler  https://lnkd.in/d3rMeRz – Picture above.

Thank you Sharon Wheeler!

Who was the first person to believe in you professionally? If possible, name them in your comments below.

So often we are pushing forwards chasing the next goal or objective. We don’t always get time to reflect and express our gratitude. Have a great day everyone!

If you have liked this post you will probably enjoy, How to Start a Digital Marketing Career.

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Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

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Mike Pitt

Founder, Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

* Someone other than family and friends.

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Business Relationships – 6 tips to create better business relationships

1. Face to Face meetings

Take time to meet new people face to face and extend your circle of contacts. Approach these intro meetings with an open mind and no agenda. Do not pitch during these meetings and listen more than you speak.

2. Deliver Value

Make a point to help help out your contacts whenever you can and to connect them with people that they should meet. Do so without point scoring or expecting anything in return.

3. Surprise and Delight Your Clients & Customers

Execute all contracted projects and tasks well but make one of your objectives to surprise and delight them by delivering beyond their expectations. If you are unsure how to do this your staff and customer feedback will give you some very strong indicators.

4. Be Authentic

One of the benefits of being a business owner or entrepreneur is that you can create your own company and remain true to your values and vision. Do not lose sight of this when you are starting business relationships even if there are monetary reasons to do so. If your gut tells you that a potential relationship will be problematic – go with your gut.

5. Establish Trust

For any relationship to work there needs to be trust on both sides. Major deals and agreements need to be written down and formalised but a good relationship should be the basis. Be worthy of trust, open and and trust in others.

6. Frequency and Feedback

Regularly communicate with your contacts – this applies equally to your staff as well as contacts external to your business. Encourage the giving of and be receptive to feedback and reviews.

Implement these points and you will establish better business relationships – relationships that will help you build better business. The last word goes to Dale Carnegie

“You can close more business in two months by becoming genuinely interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” – Dale Carnegie

We hope you have found this information useful.

Need help creating better business relationships? Give us a call on +44 845 2264 247 or email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com to start the conversation.

Best regards,

Mike Pitt
Founder & CEO – Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

The post How do you Create Better Business Relationships? – 6 tips appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

Negotiation Tactics – Top 5 from Self-made Millionaires

1. Knock out the competition
Steve Jobs was a genius, and his negotiation strategy is probably the most unbelievable of them all. His tactic was to come up with offers that no other competitor could render. That’s exactly what happened when he wanted Lala (the future iTunes). Nokia offered $11 million for the startup, so Jobs took a piece of paper, gave it to the CEO, and the deal was closed. The amount was $80 million.

2. Play mind games
When Donald Trump chooses to take someone’s business, he arms himself with a couple of really good tricks prior to entering a negotiation. He knows all about playing mind games, so he spends hours chatting in the friendliest way possible. His counterparts will assume he’s just being a nice guy, but his goal is to find a weak spot and have the upper hand.

3. Leaving investors and lawyers at the door
Facebook CEO and multi-millionaire Mark Zuckerberg likes to acquire a start-up without consulting with his advisors. In 2012, Facebook agreed to a deal with Instagram worth $1 billion. He didn’t want to consult with his lawyers, and he closed the deal while eating ice cream with Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram. The deal was signed in a day and nobody knew anything about it.

4. If there’s no cooperation, end the whole thing
The moment Dick Costolo became Twitter’s CEO he had to deal with a dysfunctional board of directors, among numerous other things. Rather than accept unprofessional people on his team, he leveraged his power and fired everyone. He managed to demonstrate that Twitter was his company, and that the people who can’t play by his rules should go home.

5. Don’t forget that you have something they don’t
Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO and founder of Yelp, managed to stay very calm when Yahoo and Google mentioned they want to buy his review business. He told Fast Company that the negotiation didn’t live up to his expectations, and that both Yahoo and Google only wanted to know the worth of his company. So he turned them down.

Negotiations are challenging even for the richest people on the planet. However, they’re done differently as money is not the only incentive a seller wants from a buyer. Their negotiation tactics are all about maintaining their names on the floating line.

Need help with your negotiation strategy? Give us a call on +44 845 2264 247 or email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com to start the conversation. We are a leading Marketing Agency in London.

We hope you have found this information inspirational.This guest post was written by Jason Philips of The Gap Partnership .

Best regards,

Marketing Fundamentals Team

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Thank you for reading and interacting with our blog over the last year – special thanks to everyone who has been reading since 2010. In addition to this written blog we do also have an active YouTube channel with 67 videos uploaded that you will find helpful. Click on the links below to view 5 of the most recent uploads and subscribe to the channel to ensure that you are notified when a new video has been uploaded.

If this is the last blog post you read from us before Christmas have a wonderful Christmas and a very happy New Year! For the rest of you – we will expect you back here next week!

Business owners – Are you ready for the long haul?

Business owners – Are you living in ‘Startup World’?

Business owners – Is it time to Vine?

Don’t ‘Fake it til you make it.’

‘How to TurboCharge Your Business with a Blog’ Book Testimonial – Sophie

We hope you find this content useful and inspirational.

Best wishes.

Mike Pitt

Founder & CEO – Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

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Call Marketing Fundamentals Ltd on 0044 845 (0) 2264 247 to arrange a Blogging workshop or Content Marketing Training Day for your company.

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5 reasons why business storytelling will lead to greater engagement with your Target Audience

1. Emotional and not rational connection – Storytelling will build an emotional rather than a rational connection with your audience. Stories connect people – Ideally you will have both a rational and an emotional connection over time but connecting with your audience emotionally is a major plus.

2. Broader appeal – A well told story will have a broader appeal than a product demonstration or list of product benefits. Film-making is storytelling.

3. Memorable – People remember stories and the connection to your product/services rather than product claims.

4. Ideas/ themes – Stories can contain ideas and themes that are bigger than products.

5. Cultural relevance – Storytelling is part of the human experience and developed along side speech and language.

Parents of young children know very well the power of the bed-time story and its importance to their children’s development. Once you are able to harness storytelling in your content you will create a stronger relationship with your customers and prospects.

Need help creating stories for your business? Give us a call on +44 845 2264 247 or email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com to start the conversation.

We hope you have found this information useful.

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Marketing Fundamentals Team

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1. What has worked well this year?

2. What did not work well this year?

3. What new challenges do you expect next year?

4. What trends have you identified in sales of your products and services?

5. What are the trends in your sector or niche?

6. What would represent a massive achievement were you to achieve it next year?

7. Are you using the much vaunted Social Media platforms effectively?

8. Do you have a Content Strategy?

9. How successful do you feel your email activity has been?

10. Is it easy for you to identify the ‘raving fans’ of your business? Do you have a specific strategy for them?

11. What is your growth or scaling strategy?

12. Are you to busy to think about this because you are working in the business?

These are just a few of the many considerations for next year – we would be happy to help you create a plan for next year and introduced our Strategy Days for this specific purpose. We work with you to construct a plan for your business. Give us a call on +44 845 2264 247 or email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com to set up your strategy day or you could just fill out this form

We hope you have found this information useful.

Best regards,

Marketing Fundamentals Team

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1. Research – What does upmarket look like in your niche? Is there an upmarket segment? Is there potential for one? Do not skip this step – it is vital. Your repositioning needs to be commercially viable.

2. Value proposition -What is to be your new value proposition? What will you offer to consumers that is different to what you are currently offering and also different to your competitors?

3. Consistency or congruence – Are your brand assets consistent with your new positioning or will they need to be updated. This could include website, stores, communications materials, staff uniforms etc

4. New positioning or sub brand? – Is it feasible to take your brand upmarket? Or should you consider a sub brand and start fresh as Toyota did with Lexus?

5. Customer experience – What changes will need to be made to the overall customer experience to substantiate the new upmarket positioning? You will need to list these out.

6. Stop anti- brand activity – If you are running any price promotion activity – stop it . As I said above brand is reputation and if yours is ‘Closing down sale’ ,’2for 1′ or ‘60% off’ then that becomes your reputation.

7. Social proof – What do customers say of your customer experience? Is there some evidence within the feedback you have received of potential for your brand to be reappraised? Do you already have an upmarket segment of your customer base?

8. Products and services – What changes do you need to make to your products or services to be congruent with an upmarket positioning? It might mean removing some and adding others. You may already have clear customer segmentation which will help the transformation process.

9. Distribution – Your distribution network needs to be consistent with your new positioning. If your product is on sale in dumpbins at a discount retailer you will not be able to take your brand upmarket.

10. Implementation – Great news ! If you are a SME owner or entrepreneur – with a relatively small number of staff (up to 50) and low number of sites – in most cases it is considerably easier to plan and execute a brand repositioning than it is for large multinationals. The advantage is with you and the potential rewards can be too.

Are you considering re-positioning your brand? We would like to help you. Feel free to give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247 or drop us an email via mail@marketingfundamentals.com – We look forward to hearing from you.

I hope you have found this information useful.

Best regards,

Mike Pitt
Founder & CEO
Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

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