News

25.05.2017 // Why game recommen­dations are great for PR

Game awards are welcome advertising for the games themselves and also help point consumers in the direction of the games that are trending at that moment. But what makes a good game? This question, looking at board games and other tabletop games, throws up very different answers depending on the point of view and interests.

The criteria for a good tabletop game range from expert assessments and consumer and expert surveys through to empirical facts of market researchers. In between can be found a wealth of recommendations. Major retailers such as Toys “R” Us create a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy by recommending to consumers the products they believe will be that season’s best sellers.

Industry associations draw up similar lists, which also regularly recommend tabletop games. In Germany, these are the German Association of Toy and Game Retailers (Bundesverband der Spielwareneinzelhändler - BVS) with its “Top 10 Toys” (compiled by a jury of experts from the trade) and the German Association of the Toy Industry (Deutscher Verband der Spielwarenindustrie - DVSI) with its “golden rocking horse” (decided upon together with readers of a parenting magazine). Other trade associations also provide similar recommendations, such as the “Genius of Play” initiative in the US.

The ToyAward awarded each year by a team of experts at the Spielwarenmesse® has also become a great success. This year’s nominees included another two tabletop games: Icecool from AMIGO Spiel + Freizeit and Sjoel de Boules from International Stationery.

The market researchers referred to above use consumer and retail panels to gauge quite precisely how consumers feel about a game and whether or not they would buy it. As in the world of literature, where no critic would solely assess the quality of a book based on the number of units sold, you would be hard pressed to find a game critic who would use the mass-market appeal of a game as his sole criteria.

Game critics have very often been right in their assessments, even in terms of how well an award-winning game will perform on the market in the long term.

The games community has its say

Of course, the online community has also contributed a lot in this area. People exchange views in forums, comments are left on blogs and in blogger networks and awards are meted out. One example is the Beeple blogger network, which considers itself the go-to place for people interested in board games. It wants to help strengthen the appeal of board games among the public.

The bloggers share this sense of mission with the world’s most successful PR initiative for games: the “Spiel des Jahres” (German for “Game of the Year”).

Back in 1978, a small band of game enthusiasts had the idea of enhancing the value of games, which they felt were under-appreciated by the public, by awarding the “Spiel des Jahres” title.

Jochen Corts, Harald Fritz, Walter Luc Haas, Dieter Hasselblatt, Jürgen Herz, Bernward Thole and Tom Werneck formed the Spiel des Jahres e.V. association in a beer hall in Erlangen, Germany. Thus began a tremendous success story, which has taken even the founding members by surprise.

The annual awards ceremonies in Berlin and Hamburg are now a huge event, with award winners usually making it into prime-time news bulletins. This gives publicity to award-winning games, which almost always go on to become runaway sales hits as well. Accordingly, all involved not only appreciate the honour but also the commercial success.

Differentiation has certainly played a key role in the success story as well. With target groups so heterogeneous, it is difficult to award just one title. That is why the “Kinderspiel des Jahres” (“Children’s Game of the Year”) was added and is now awarded annually in Hamburg. After that came the “Kennerspiel des Jahres” (“Expert Game of the Year”), which looks to guide very active players.

The shortlists and lists of nominees also help raise awareness of games that do not make it to first place but are still especially noteworthy in the eyes of the jury.

Successful games adapted to local preferences

These examples show that the games community in Germany is particularly active and diverse. There are similar initiatives in many other countries. Ultimately, games, more than other toys, have strong cultural and linguistic elements. The names of the games often vary in different languages. Sometimes, the stories behind the games, overlaying a particular game mechanism, are retold in different countries as well. Furthermore, many games are only published in a particular country. A multinational affair, in other words.

There are actually very few truly global games. Monopoly, Cluedo, The Game of Life and The Settlers are the most prominent examples, not to mention the classics such as chess, Ludo (Pachisi) and backgammon.

18.05.2017 // MAY 18 IS THE DAY OF UKRAINIAN VYSHYVANKA (EMBROIDERED SHIRT)

Ukrainian Vyshyvanka - is the colloquial name of the traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt. History of Vyshyvanka, technician and methods of her implementation are by the world-wide type of art of the Ukrainian people.

HISTORY OF UKRAINIAN VYSHYVANKA

When exactly history of Ukrainian Vyshyvanka takes beginning, for certain not it is known. Her origin and development took place gradually, absorbing in itself various elements of patterns, decorative patterns that symbolized perception of the world and belief of Ukrainians.

The history of the Ukrainian nation, its mentality and culture are inextricably linked especially with the work. One of the great works of our talented peoplehave embroidery that largely characterizes the material and spiritual culture of Ukraine.

The fact that the embroidery has been known since time immemorial, according to stone "Scythian women", which is clearly seen in the schematic representations of embroidery in the insets, hem, cuffs of sleeves. Women's clothing Scythian times was like a long Ukrainian shirts, gathered at the neck and sleeves. Ukrainian Vyshyvanka had differences in different regions, which is achieved in particular by means of embroidery and sewing. In addition toshirts, have embroidery around the neck, on the sleeves, on the hem, embroidered apron decorated (hvartuh) - an integral part of women's clothing that protects the expectant mother from evil forces, etc.

There is a long tradition of Ukrainian resist evil by beauty. That is what prompted the long winter evenings to embroider clothes yourself, family and loved ones, concluding in embroidered patterns heartfelt dreams and feelings. Future bride begins in childhood care for chest: clothes themselves, her husband and children - embroidery towel.

Embroidered shirt Vyshyvanka done by the hands of loving mother or girl, provided with the unbelievable wave of cheerfulness and energy. Not for free, before wedding, fiancee had to embroider shirts to the darling and by the future to parents. Although wedding shirt and надягалась only one time in life, but she was careful to closing dates.

Floral designs for embroidery were required to demonstrate the beauty of nature. These patterns represent the real-life forms in nature. The most commonplant ornaments in traditional Ukrainian Vyshyvanka motifs are considered "Kalina", "oak leaves", "grapes", "periwinkle", "hop" and many others.

13.05.2017 // Mother's Day

 A special day in the honor of mothers, Mothers Day is celebrated in several countries around the world though on different dates. In a large number of countries the Mothers Day is celebrated on the second Sunday in the month of May, but in many other countries Mothers Day is celebrated in an entirely different time of the year.

What Do People Do?

Many people remember their mothers and mother figures on Mother’s Day. Mother figures may include stepmothers, relatives, mothers-in-law, a guardian (eg. a foster parent), or a family friend. There are many different ways to celebrate Mother’s Day. They include (but are not limited to):

Giving cards, flowers, or cakes.
Family gatherings or visits.
Family breakfasts, brunches, lunches, and dinners either at home, at a café or at a restaurant.
Personal phone calls, particularly from children who live away from their mothers and/or mother figures.
Mother’s Day poems and messages.
Gifts of chocolate, jewelry, accessories, clothing, hobby equipment or tools, handmade items, or gift vouchers.
 A day at the movies with mothers and/or mother figures.
Mother’s Day is celebrated in different countries, including China where carnations are popular Mother’s Day presents. Some groups in Samoa organize elaborate song and dance performances throughout the country. They celebrate the contributions that mothers make to Samoan society.

Public Life
Mother’s Day falls on different days depending on the countries where it is celebrated. It is held on the second Sunday of May in many countries, such as Australia, Canada and the United States. It is held exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday in the United Kingdom. Sundays are usually non-school and non-working days in these countries.
Mother’s Day is an annual public holiday in countries such as Costa Rica (August 15, on the same day as Assumption Day), Georgia (March 3), Samoa (second Monday of May), and Thailand (August 12). Restaurants and cafes may be busier than usual as some people take their mothers out for a treat.

Background
Early Mother's Day celebrations can be dated back to the spring celebrations to honor Rhea, the Mother of the Gods, in ancient Greek civilization, according to some sources. Later, Mothering Sunday in the United Kingdom was traditionally a day for people to visit the church where they were baptized, although it now also celebrates motherhood in modern times.
The modern-day origins of Mother's Day can be attributed to two women – Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis, who were important in establishing the tradition in the United States. Around 1870, Julia Ward Howe called for Mother's Day to be celebrated each year. It continued to be held in Boston for about 10 years under her sponsorship, but died out after that. Other sources say that Juliet Calhoun Blakely initiated Mother’s Day in Albion, Michigan, in the late 1800s. Her sons paid tribute to her each year and urged others to honor their mothers.
Many people believe that Mother’s Day is now largely commercialized, with card companies, flower shops, jewelry stores, gift shops, restaurants, hotels, and department stores advertising promotions and special deals for this event. Anna Jarvis, in her lifetime, unsuccessfully filed a lawsuit to stop the over-commercialization of Mother's Day.
Symbols
There are various ways to show an appreciation for mothers and mother figures on Mother’s Day. They include white carnations, which Anna Jarvis asked to be the official symbol for the day, as well as the International Mother’s Day Shrine. This shrine is dedicated to the preservation of motherhood. The structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States. It is located together with a museum at Grafton, West Virginia, and aims to preserve, promote and develop the spirit of motherhood.

03.05.2017 // 25 Tips for Creating Great Marketing Videos

In recent years, videos have been making inroads in digital marketing, emerging as a powerful promotional tool for businesses to promote their wares in an exciting and engaging way. Though when it comes to video marketing, there’s some pretty definitive ‘rules’ businesses should stick to in order to get their videos right. Get them wrong and marketing videos can be more hindering to a company than profiting.

Tips for Creating Marketing Videos

Tell a Story

Instead of being overtly salesy, an effective video tells a story. As the Digital Marketing Institute notes, businesses should utilize the emotive power of video by appealing to their customer’s needs and desires.

Make Sure the Introduction Stands Out

A little like how we are unlikely to click on an email if we’re not inspired by the subject line, an incredible one fifth of viewers click off a video within 10 seconds if they’re not interested in what they see. With this in mind, the introduction of the video is vitally important and should be made inspiring, entertaining and informative, to hook the viewer and encourage them to view the whole of the video.

Create a Stimulating Title

By the same token, your video’s title should be stimulating and eye-catching in order to grab a viewer’s attention. Furthermore, by using relevant keywords in a title, the video is likely to show up on the search engines when viewers search for the topic.

Focus on the Mission and Less on the Product

Instead of being overtly focused on the product and all its benefits, channel the message of the video into the mission of the product. Dove, for example, are hailed are being experts in creating emotional viral videos that focus less on their product and more on their mission.

Don’t Be Boring

Who wants to watch a boring video? It goes without saying, if you want your business’s video marketing campaign to be successful, create exciting and inspiring videos that can never be considered boring.

Get a Little Bit Risqué!

While too much naughty content is unlikely to do the credibility of your business many favors, as Inc. writes, just the right amount can be good for page views — as long as not overdone.

Make it Mobile Friendly

With more and more people using mobile devices to get online, it’s imperative corporate videos are mobile friendly. In fact, according to YouTube, mobile video consumption increases 100% every year! Marketing videos therefore need to be able to be downloaded and enjoyed on mobile devices.

Think About SEO

Quite simply, Google loves video content and an effective video marketing campaign should have Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in mind. To ensure maximum SEO value from your videos, accompany the video with a well-written description that is tagged with relevant keywords to help boost the video’s SEO.

Include Your URL in the Video

Displaying your website address in a marketing video is a good way for companies to get exposure and generate traffic to their website through a video.

Educate Your Audience

As the Digital Marketing Institute informs, one of the most powerful ways to implement effective video marketing is to educate viewers. Often videos that offer advice, information, tips and other informative content can be more effective than a solely promotional video.

Make the Video More Atmospheric with Music

Music is a powerful tool on video content, evoking a myriad of emotions. Don’t be afraid to use music in your video that fits the mood of the message and crafts a more exciting and emotive video.

Use Video Content Generated by Customers

Putting your customers behind the camera to talk about how they have used and benefited from your product, can be a powerful way to engage viewers and appeal to prospective customers.

Include a Call to Action

Similar to how all blog posts and content should have a call to action at the end, which invites the reader to take further action, such as signing up to a newsletter, or visiting a website, so too should a marketing video. Ask yourself, what do you want viewers to do when they’ve watched the video and then encourage them to do so without being overtly salesy.

Take Viewers Behind the Scenes

Consumers love to get up close to a brand and video marketing offers the perfect opportunity to take customers behind the scenes and into your business’s ‘natural surroundings.’

Include Tutorial Videos

Posting tutorials that are relevant to your niche is a great way to connect and engage with customers. Tutorials shouldn’t give away all your industry secrets, but should be enough to entice the viewer with informative and useful content, leaving them wanting to learn more.

Keep Them Short

Online viewers often don’t have much time to spare before they’re off looking on a new site and at a new video. In this sense, shorter marketing videos can tend to work better than long ones. As Helen Klein Ross told Kiss Metrics:

“The less you say, the more likely people are to remember.”

Use a Professional Voice

Words spoken with clarity and professionalism will always come out better in a corporate video than an amateur speaker, whose lack of experience speaking on the camera is obvious. With this in mind, it might be a good idea to have an employee that is experienced on speaking in front of the camera record for the video, or even think about calling in a professional.

Use Micro-Video Apps

Along with all this talk of keeping videos short for  the viewer, it’s also true shorter content is a better format for most social platforms. As Forbes notes, short, concise content triumphs over longer forms of content, particularly on social media channels. Video marketers should consider using micro-video apps, which shorten videos to less than 10 seconds, so they’re ideal of sharing on the likes of Instagram and Twitter.

Pose Questions

Strive to create engagement and conversation with your video by asking viewers questions. Ask viewers to leave answers to the questions in a comment section below the video.

Don’t Be Preoccupied with Perfection

Videos for marketing purposes aren’t Hollywood movies and nobody expects perfection. Whilst you want the video to look professional, don’t become too obsessed with perfection that on the 50th take you still haven’t got in right.

But Don’t Forget Production Quality

That said, it’s important a marketing video is produced professionally. From the camera work to lighting, edited to voice overs, it might be a good idea to call upon the expertise of a professional video production company to ensure the video is produced in a high quality.

Use Videos to Help You Create Your Own Effective Video Marketing Strategy

Head to the likes of YouTube to see how businesses are already building videos that have managed to go viral. Featuring the likes of Coca-Cola, these ‘10 Epic Viral Marketing Videos’ on YouTube will give you some pointers on how some of the biggest and well-known brands are producing a video designed to go viral.

Build Hype Around the Launch of the Video

Instead of just going ahead and launching your video, build hype around the video by promoting its launch date on your website, blog and social media channels.

Provide Some Humor

Not all corporate videos need to be serious. On the contrary, some humour can work well in generating more interest in your video. Vidyard gives an example of a humorous marketing video that proved hugely successful — a parody by cloud invoicing provider Taulia of the award-winning commercial series ‘Get Rid of Cable’ by Direct TV. As Vidyard writes:

“The video not only delivers a laugh, but this kind of humorous take on B2B solution can really get your customers feeling connected with your brand and help you stand out in what can be a stuffy market.”

Embed a Video in Landing Pages

Think strategically about where you are going to place your marketing video. Statistics show that embedding videos in landing pages can raise conversion rates by as much as 80 percent.

With video forecast to claim more than 80 percent of all web traffic by 2019 and 90 percent of customers reporting that product videos help them make purchasing decisions, it is imperative companies create videos that resonate with their audience and ultimately help sell their services and products.

27.04.2017 // How to Use the Psychology of Colors When Marketing

Do you feel tranquilly calm when surrounded by green fields and blue skies? Or perhaps slightly alarmed when staring at a red stop sign?

Color has been known to have a powerful psychological impact on people’s behavior and decisions, and this knowledge has been harnessed all too well by designers and marketers alike. Color can often be the sole reason someone purchases a product, where 93% of buyers focus on visual appearance and almost 85% claim color to be their primary reason for purchase!

How do Colors Influence People?

Red – Creates a sense of urgency, which is good for clearance sales. Encourages appetite, thus is frequently used by fast-food chains. Physically stimulates the body, raising blood pressure and heart rate, associated with movement, excitement, and passion.

Blue – The preferred color of men. It’s associated with peace, water, tranquility, and reliability. Blue provides a sense of security, curbs appetite, and stimulates productivity. The most common color used by conservative brands looking to promote trust in their products.

Green – Associated with health, tranquility, power, and nature. Used in stores to relax customers and for promoting environmental issues. Green stimulates harmony in your brain and encourages a balance leading to decisiveness.

Purple – Commonly associated with royalty, wisdom, and respect. Stimulates problem solving as well as creativity. Frequently used to promote beauty and anti-aging products.

Orange & Yellow – Cheerful colors that promote optimism. Yellow can make babies cry, while orange can trigger a sense of caution. Used to create a sense of anxiety that can draw in impulsive buyers and window shoppers.

Black – Associated with authority, power, stability, and strength. Often a symbol of intelligence, but can become overwhelming if used to frequently.

Grey – Symbolizes feelings of practicality, old age, and solidarity. But too much grey can lead to feelings of nothingness and depression.

White – Associated with feelings of purity, cleanliness and safety. Can be used to project an absence of color or neutrality. White space helps spark creativity since it can be perceived as an unaltered, clean state.

Properly Using Color Theory

Use contrasts to reduce eyestrain and allow readers to focus their attention on specific items. Vibrancy can dictate the emotional response users have to your design.

For example, choosing brighter colors can lead users to feel more energetic, which can evoke better responses and reactions. But if your website is information-intensive, you may find that a darker color theme will make it easier for readers to process all your data.

How Are Major Brands Using Colors?

McDonald’s chooses high-energy colors like red and yellow which appeal to children, kindle appetites, and create a sense of urgency. Of course, Ronald McDonald himself is popular with the kids, but he’s also sure to agitate parents quickly. This facilitates faster customer turnover.

It’s scary to think how powerful this tactic has been for Micky D’s, which might not have been the same ridiculously big chain it is today without using red and yellow so effectively. McDonald’s sure wouldn’t be so popular trying to market all that unhealthy food using the color green!

Interestingly, the only major global brand to use green as its primary color is Starbucks. Using green shows that Starbucks hopes to promote a sense of relaxation in their cafes, inviting customers to come in for a coffee break during a stressful day.

How are you incorporating color into your branding and marketing efforts?

25.04.2017 // How to Boost Sales While Spending Less on Marketing

Marketing is a critical, yet expensive part of any modern business. Most major brand name companies spend a considerable amount of revenue on marketing; Salesforce, for example, spends a whopping 53 percent of its revenue on marketing, while social media giant Twitter commits 44 percent.

Regardless of how much your company can or wants to commit to marketing, it is nonetheless a costly affair.

Here are a few tips to help reduce those costs, and still generate leads and make sales.

How to Reduce Marketing Costs

Optimize Your Social Media Presence

While there are numerous platforms in which to market your products and services, social media is the newest; it also shows tremendous potential for marketing effectiveness at a reduced cost. Social media platforms like Facebook are a terrific medium for relatively economical, highly targetable online ads, so you can reach your target market at a reasonable price.

The social media platforms themselves enable you to build brand awareness and loyalty, both through paid as well as organic content; often the mix of both helps to generate significant buzz about your company and to generate leads. You can further positive word-of-mouth on social media by providing discounts to customers who write positive reviews. The social media platform Twitter can serve as an effective email distribution list for your company, alerting the public to new products or sales.

Finally, you can use all of the social media platforms that are out there to maintain contact with your customer base, essentially for free, and use your interactions with them to help expand it.

Leverage Data

Don’t waste your time or your company’s scarce resources advertising to consumers who are not there; instead, employ data to help shape your marketing plan, and how you execute it. A good place to start is with your current customer base; determine what makes them tick in regards to your company, and why they continue to rely on your products and services.

Online, written, and telephone surveys can help provide a window into the consumers who are buying your products. Your company could also employ other powerful tools, such as Google Analytics, to sift through marketing and online data, and the tools to help make it useful to your company. Using tools like this can help you to calibrate your marketing efforts to achieve maximum effectiveness while minimizing overall costs. Finally, ensure your company takes advantage of the troves of free and accurate data that is out there.

Government sources, such as Data.gov and the U.S. Census Bureau, can provide critical information to help you market more effectively, and at a lower cost.

Remember the Basics

Regardless of the high-tech tools, you apply, or the new frontiers in media you venture into, following long-standing marketing principles remains one of the best ways to market your company effectively while controlling overall costs. Avoiding costly mistakes, in print, online, and social media ads and posts can help prevent you from putting your company in a negative light and threatening sales.

Avoiding costly mistakes, in print, online, and social media ads and posts can help prevent you from putting your company in a negative light and threatening sales. Avoiding costly changes to your marketing strategy when the current one is working (as your detailed data clearly shows) is another way your company can manage marketing costs and still make good sales. Investing in well-trained marketing staff — through targeted recruitment, effective training, and follow-on education — is another way that you can have the most effective marketing department for the cost.

Finally, remember, one of the best ways to reduce marketing costs is to retain the customers you already have. Repeat customers are responsible for 40 percent of a given business’s revenue on average, so retaining customers is another great way to reduce the costs incurred in marketing to find new ones.

14.04.2017 // Greetings with the coming Easter

05.04.2017 // 25 Phone Sales Tips for Successful Cold Calling

Making cold calls might not be the most fun part of the sales process. But in many industries and businesses, it is necessary. To perfect the art of cold calling, take a look at some of the tips and tricks in the list below.

25 Phone Sales Tips

Prepare Yourself Mentally

Cold calls can be intimidating, especially if you’re unprepared. So before you get started, you need to get yourself in the right state of mind. This means coming up with a general script or talking points. But it also means coming up with a routine so that you’re comfortable and relaxed on each call.

Have One Goal in Mind

You should also have a specific goal in mind for each call so that you’re more likely to stay on task. Usually, your goal is to make a sale. But in some instances, your goal could be to sell a specific item, to upsell a new version of your product or even to just gather information from new prospects.

Practice Your Tone

In general, you want to sound relaxed but professional on each cold call. But you can’t hope to achieve that blend without some practice. So before and during each call, pay special attention to your tone and make note of any areas you might notice that need improvement.

Record Yourself

In addition, you might consider setting up an audio recorder on calls or practice calls so that you can hear yourself and make notes of areas that need improvement later on.

Build Up Your Confidence

Confidence is an absolutely essential part of creating a relaxed tone for cold calls. So that means you need to work on improving but also think about some of the things you do really well. And simply practicing and making a lot of calls can make you feel more confident over time.

Don’t Dwell on Small Talk

Small talk at the beginning of each call might seem friendly and natural. But too much of it can be distracting and time wasting. So say a quick hello and then try to get to the point of your call quickly.

Anticipate Obstacles

Not every cold call is going to go smoothly. In fact, there are some obstacles that might come up fairly regularly. If you notice some of those common issues, you should be able to anticipate them and come up with good responses to use on your cold calls going forward.

Keep Talking Points Handy

While you don’t necessarily need to stick to an exact script on every cold call, it can be a good idea to have a general outline. If you keep a few talking points nearby, it can help you stay on track in case you get distracted or thrown off.

Be Conversational

However, it’s important to not get too attached to those talking points. If you sound like you’re reading from a script, customers are less likely to buy. Instead, respond to each customer inquiry or response in a natural way that allows you to then lead back to your talking points.

Find a Way to Connect

If possible, it can be beneficial to find some kind of connection with your prospect early on in the call. If you’re from the same city or have a colleague in common, for instance, that can be a good way to build a rapport with them early on.

Create a Comfortable Space

When you’re making cold calls, you need to be both mentally and physically comfortable. So that means you need to set up your workspace in a way that will support you. Get a comfortable chair, put up some family photos and otherwise personalize your space.

Don’t Multitask

If you want to get a lot done, you might think that you should make cold calls while also completing other tasks. But your prospects deserve your full attention. And you don’t want to sound distracted on calls either.

Build Up Your Energy

You also don’t want to sound tired or disinterested on calls. So build up your energy with some healthy snacks or light exercise beforehand.

Put Yourself in the Customer’s Shoes

When talking to potential customers, it’s important to word things in a way that they’re likely to relate to. So think about what types of problems or needs they might have in order to better sell to them.

Keep the Focus on Their Benefit

In addition, it’s important that you always keep the focus on how your product or services can benefit them. So instead of just talking about the features you offer, focus on what your product or service can actually accomplish for your customers. For example, if you’re offering a software program, you can talk about the time saving benefits rather than outlining all the different capabilities it offers.

Highlight Your Track Record

You can also talk a bit about what your company has accomplished in order to offer some proof that it would be beneficial for customers to buy from you. For example, you can call attention to high ratings or reviews, or talk about how many years you’ve been successfully in business.

Ask Questions

You also need to fully understand your customers in order to effectively sell to them. That means that it can be a good idea to ask a fair amount of questions to gain a better understanding and keep the conversation going.

Don’t Be Pushy

However, you don’t want to be too pushy throughout your conversation. Doing so can turn customers off and ruin any future chance you might have of doing business with them.

Keep It Quick

You also don’t want your calls to run too long. If you go on and on forever, your prospects might get bored or disinterested. Or they might just not have the time to sit on the phone with you for that long, even if they are interested in purchasing. So get to your point fairly quickly and if it doesn’t work out, move on.

Make as Many Calls as Possible

Along those same lines, you also need to keep calls quick so that you can make as many of them as possible. You’re likely to get a lot of rejections, so the more calls you make, the bigger your chances are of making some sales.

Try Batch Calling

But don’t make just one or two calls at a time. Once you’re in the groove of making calls, make a lot of them. You’re likely to have all the information fresh in your mind. And you might even get more comfortable making those calls as you go.

Don’t Get Discouraged

It’s also important that you don’t get discouraged by rejection. When you’re calling people out of nowhere, you can’t expect them all to be ready to buy right away. So when you get rejections, just let it go and move onto the next call.

Take Breaks

Once you’ve made a fair amount of calls, you can take breaks to refresh and build your energy and confidence back up, especially if you need a break after some particularly harsh rejections.

Keep Records

As you make calls, you can take notes or keep records of each call in case those notes might help you make that sale or others in the future.

Follow Up If Necessary

And sometimes, making the sale might require that you make more than one call. So after your cold call, make any necessary notes and then follow up with them again later.

23.03.2017 // Features of Effective Loyalty Programs

Are you getting the most from your retail loyalty program? Or are you considering implementing a loyalty program and wondering if it’s worthwhile? A study by Accenture polled more than 25,000 consumers and unearthed some insights about what loyalty programs actually work and how to make yours more effective.

First, loyalty programs are ubiquitous — in fact, the average U.S. household has memberships in 29 loyalty programs. Second, they work: Overall, members of loyalty programs generate 12 to 18 percent more incremental revenue growth per year than non-members, the study found.

But with millions of loyalty points going unused, loyalty programs could be a lot better and deliver more value for businesses. Some 77 percent of U.S. consumers say they’re more fickle with their loyalty than ever before, making it even more of a challenge to keep them satisfied. In fact, “satisfaction” and factors such as reliability and low prices aren’t as effective as they used to be at generating loyalty. Today, you need to go above and beyond.

Key Features of Effective Loyalty Programs

What features of loyalty programs are most effective with customers?

Offers

Fifty-nine percent of U.S. consumers are loyal to brands that give them discounts, gift cards and special offers to reward their loyalty. You probably already do this; just make sure you’re tracking which offers get the best results and generate the most profits.

Personalization

Forty-one percent of U.S. consumers are loyal to brands that allow them to personalize products. Offer loyalty program members free customization, such as engraving a product or special ordering custom-color sneakers.

Innovation

Forty-one percent of U.S. consumers are loyal to brands that present them with new experiences, products or services, while 51 percent are loyal to businesses that consistently have the “latest” products available. Create special experiences for your loyalty program members, such as a VIP sale, early access to sales or early access to new products.

Celebrities

About one-fourth of U.S. consumers are loyal to businesses that partner with celebrities or “social influencers” such as popular bloggers or YouTube personalities. Try a partnership with a social media “star” your customers care about.

Family and Friends

Forty-two percent of U.S. consumers are loyal to brands their families and friends do business with. Offer loyalty program members a reward for getting friends or family to sign up, too.

Participation

Forty-four percent of U.S. consumers are loyal to businesses that involve them in designing or creating new products or services. Enlist your “VIP” customers to help choose which new products your store will carry.

Beyond the Features of Effective Loyalty Programs

Accenture offers the following tips for getting the most from your loyalty program:

• Monitor ROI. Review the cost of current loyalty programs and make sure the ROI justifies the investment. Perhaps you can eliminate some aspects of programs or change the rewards to either cost less or generate more sales. For instance, instead of giving away free gifts or gift cards, create a value-added service instead, like free personal shopping services, free gift wrapping or a year-long return window instead of 30 days.
• Think beyond dollars. Don’t just focus on getting loyal customers to spend more. Loyal customers have additional value beyond sales: They’re also a good source of new customers. Focus on retaining the happiest customers and getting them to share their opinions with new customers. More than half of the most loyal customers in the study actively recommend brands to others; 14 percent express their loyalty by publicly endorsing or defending the company on social media.
• Understand what Millennials want. When it comes to loyalty programs, Millennials care more than other age groups about interacting with businesses through multiple channels, celebrity partnerships, exclusive offers and personalized loyalty rewards.

20.03.2017 // Congratulations with the International Day of Happiness

The International Day of Happiness was introduced by the General Assembly of the United Nations during 2012 and was celebrated for the first time in 2013. Through seminars and educational tips and tools, the aim is to educate and increase public awareness of the benefits of happiness.

The original idea came from the Kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayan region of Asia. There, the population is thought by many to be among the happiest in the world due to the holistic approach to life and the amount of importance which is placed on the well being of people and communities, as much as material wealth.