Working from home is becoming more and more common. With e-mail, social networking sites and online collaboration systems, its never been so easy to work from home but what can you do to make working from home more productive?

Here are some of my tips for working from home… something which I have done for many years now…

Workspace

Its important to have a separate workspace. You need somewhere where you can setup your business, ideally in a spare room. To me, this is one of the most important things! I have two small children and being able to close the door to block out the noise and distractions is very handy!

Try and make your workspace inspirational; somewhere where you want to work. Put up artwork or posters that you like. You will be spending a lot of time in your new office so you need to like your surroundings.

Plants are a worthy introduction too! Try and get something quite hardy as, if your like me, you will forget to water it!

Take a look at some of the images below for some inspiration workspaces:

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No matter which industry and which niche your website or your business operates in you will have to face competition. The more competition you face the greater the challenge you have to become the go-to company that potential customers choose. Regardless of the number and quality of competitors you have, though, part of the challenge that you face is standing out from the crowd. …read more

Here are a pile of more inspirational business card designs. As you may have gathered, I like business cards!

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The marketing arena is an ever expanding and ever evolving one. Seemingly new and innovative ways to market a business are introduced on a regular basis. It doesn’t feel that long since a website was considered a luxury for most small businesses and yet, nowadays, small businesses are turning their attention to Social Media Optimisation as well as Search Engine Optimisation, online press release submission, link building, and many other forms of online marketing.

The big question is do you have the resources and the expertise to effectively establish and maintain all of these marketing methods?

• Can you write press releases?
• Can you craft compelling content?
• Do you know how to conduct keyword research?
• Do you know the most effective ways to build links for your website?
• Are you able to formulate an effective viral marketing campaign?

Don’t worry if you can’t answer yes to all of these questions because, in reality, very few companies can. In fact, there are marketing companies out there that can’t manage all of these aspects of marketing and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Who’s to say what the next big thing in marketing will be, right?

The Pool Of Knowledge

One of the biggest benefits when outsourcing your marketing is that you gain access to a pool of knowledge that you don’t already have. A marketing company specialises in marketing in the same way that your business specialises in manufacturing your products or providing your service.

If you were to attempt to undertake all of your own marketing then you would need to employ an extensive team of marketers. You would need to pay for the office space, utilities, and the cost of computer equipment, software, and hardware. Plus, of course, you would need to pay your new marketing team a competitive salary to ensure they stay with your company.

The Cost Of Knowledge

That leads us to another advantage of outsourcing, in general, and outsourcing your marketing requirements specifically - the cost. Employing a team capable of fulfilling all of those functions would cost a prohibitive amount of money for most small businesses and many of the team members would find themselves with little to do for a lot of the time.

A marketing consultancy is only paid for the work they do. When the work is done, or when there’s nothing to be done except wait, you won’t need to pay wages or rent office space or meet any of the other overheads.

Intricate Insight

The biggest downfall of using a marketing firm is that they won’t have the same intricate knowledge of your business, your products, or your services as you and your employees do. This makes it vital when choosing a marketing consultancy, that you choose one that gets involved and makes decisions based on your specific requirements rather than offering a one size fits all solution.

We covered QR codes in a previous post recently and we even have our own! To follow on from this post, have a look at some of the creative ways you can use QR codes to market your business.

H&M Poster Campaign

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Affiliate marketing is a internet based practice where business rewards its affiliates who bring in new custom, through sales or unique visits, through website, e-mail or social network referrals.

So who are the affiliates?

They can be anyone you want them to be! There are different ways of getting affiliates for your site. You can offer a signup service on your website. If you do this, your website will need the ability to track referrals. This is normally done using cookies.

Another way of gaining affiliates is via a third-party service, called an ‘affiliate network’. These networks have the added bonus that they already have a large customer base that they can market your affiliate service too and they do all the sales and referral tracking for you. The only negative is cost. If you have a small budget, the DIY approach may be your best starting point.

The affiliate process

Its a pretty straight forward process…

1. An ‘affiliate’ will sign up on your site, or through an affiliate network.
2. The affiliate will then link through to your website. This could be a direct link to a product, or a link through to your main shop.
3. When a customer visits your site via your affiliate, the visit is logged.
4. If the customer goes on to make a purchase, this is also logged. This may not be an immediate purchase, it could be a purchase of up to 30 days after the visit was referred. The period something you can define yourself.
5. Commission is then paid to the affiliate. Commission levels are also something that you can set yourself.

The future of affiliate marketing

With the boom in social networking, affiliate marketing is going to play an even bigger part in online business activities. Social networking is quick. A customer could review your product and within minutes you could be gaining new traffic.

The benefits and use of Skype are certainly no secret to the majority of businesses. It offers an incredibly cheap alternative to standard call charges and has even been proven to improve calling efficiency and productivity. As such, Skype’s uses transfer ideally over to cold calling so if you regularly undertake any cold calling and you still use a standard land line or, and we find it unlikely but you never know, a mobile phone then you should consider the following.

Skype can work out considerably cheaper than standard call costs with any telephone carrier. Calls to other Skype numbers are free and you can get some incredibly priced packages that put BT, Sky, TalkTalk, and other service providers firmly in the shade. As cold calling is usually done en masse it can mean ringing hundreds, or even thousands of numbers, so the savings can prove to be incredible.

As well as cost efficiency, Skype cold calling has the advantage of being more productive too. Some figures estimate that you would be able to make 50% more calls in the same amount of time when using Skype. Browser plug ins, and even plug ins for Excel and other office software exist that enable single click dialling. Using these tools you will be able to quickly and efficiently work through lists of telephone leads from any source giving the best possible results.

Skype numbers can be registered with the TPS, or Telephone Preference Service, in the same way as standard numbers can. What’s more, it is vital that you check any number you have details of has not registered with the TPS because if you call a number that is part of the Telephone Preference Service then you or your business can face thousands of pounds of fines. No cold call is worth that kind of money.

Used properly, Skype can prove to be a highly effective and inexpensive business tool. As a cold calling tool, it can be used to greatly increase efficiency while also greatly reducing the call costs associated with your direct marketing.

Useful links:

• www.skype.com

All but the very lucky few are suffering at the hands of the current economic downturn. While it’s certainly not the first recession we’ve faced it is proving to be a big one and in times like these it is the smart marketer and the smart business owner that comes out on top.

The main key to marketing in a recession isn’t necessarily to plump for the cheapest option but to make use of the most effective and the most cost effective marketing solutions. Every aspect of your marketing should be about finding value and this may lead to increased spending in some areas as well as decreased spending in others. …read more

This video is doing the rounds at the moment. When I first ‘tweeted’ about it last week, it had only 300 views… now it has had over 415,000! That’s the power of social networks for you!

Have a giggle for yourself…

…he does have some valid points but then on the other hand, he has some very bad ones. For starters, a card that doesn’t fit neatly in a business card holder isn’t a very good idea. I would also advise not spending $4 per card! You wouldn’t feel to happy handing out cards that cost that much willy-nilly!

On the other hand, he is right about the ‘crap’ cards. It is important that your business cards stand out - they are there to promote you and your business - a poor looking, poor quality business card could reflect badly on your business.

Business networking has been the best friend of the salesman and the marketer for decades. In the physical sense of networking it really all is about appearance in everything you do so it’s vital that you look the part, sound the part, and act the part. Here are 5 top tips to improve your business networking results. …read more