Creating Virtual Opportunities in Business During Lockdown

Quite a number of places had some degree of lockdown imposed on them in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. This has sorely affected most businesses, big or small. In a previous article, we visited the possibilities of making social media a veritable tool for your business marketing and visibility. This article will discuss important steps to digitise your business.

Working from home has gained popularity over time, however, it has been a slow process. Running a virtual business has numerous benefits, not least of which is that it costs arguably less to run. Despite reservations about the idea from many, it has become a necessity for businesses to explore this mode of running a business as the restrictions to movement lingers. The following are some steps that can be followed in creating a virtual workspace.

Create Online Awareness

This is a very obvious step, so it goes right on top. For the same reason you would expect your physical business to be known around its physical location (unless you run a shady business of course 😉), your virtual business can do with online publicity. Social media remains a primary tool for this. This space gives you visibility and engagements, as has been discussed earlier.

Social media does not do it all, though. Your business needs its own private space, space where all your offerings and information can be seen. You need an up-to-date website that is easy to navigate. Websites do not personalise your business, however. For this reason, it is encouraged to run a blog also. Blogs provide a personal feeling about your business. People are more likely to patronise you if they feel there is a person behind it and not just a “mindless bot”.

Create a Business Plan

You need to identify what your business offers in terms of goods and services – what your business CAN offer. You need also to have a clear vision and set boundaries, create an effective working process, and have realistic targets. This helps you and members of your team to be able to be effective and have the best possible ROI in the shortest possible time.

Let all employees understand how working remotely differs from working in an office environment. Be selective when picking members of your team; not all are well suited for remote assignments and not all tasks can be handled by all members of your team.

Keep the Communication Line Open

This works for both customers and employees. There should be an open channel of communication across the designated hierarchy of your organisation. All members of your team should be comfortable coming up with ideas and putting them to those higher up the ladder. This gives them a feeling of belonging and drastically improves their input as they feel like a part of the system and not a misfit.

Regular meetings should also be set up. This will help to keep tabs on the progress of the team, communicate new plans to all, and maintain a personal relationship. Virtual meetings can be held using various platforms. Popular ones include Zoom, Skype for Business, Slack, Zoho Meeting, and WhatsApp.

Measure Productivity

Your business must first and foremost be productive. So you must have set down metrics to analyse the productivity of your business. Try not to only focus on the final outcome of a particular process. Evaluate various stages of the process. Use quantifiable data to measure how well you are doing. Analyse key performance indicators (KPIs) diligently and be willing to make changes to certain areas that seem to be lagging.

For every observation, you need to be willing to train members of your team to make them improve in that area. Do not stop at measuring the team as a whole, observe individual members of the team and help any such who might be behind to keep up. Make sure to have a rewards system as well as extra motivation.

Be Realistic

It will not be easy getting used to the remote working system for sure. There might be some losses along the way, maybe more. But with proper planning and determination, a virtual workspace will yield dividends. Overall, it’ll pay off!

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May 30

5 Steps to attract more customers to your exhibitions booth

It is said that to be outstanding, one must do things differently. This is a trait in any business/organization that is currently dominating the market, especially when it comes to exhibitions.

Perhaps, your business or organization has been exhibiting at events and have not seen the desired results on your investment there. Then it is time for a change.

As organisers of the biggest trade show in Africa with over 7000 attendees, we have listed 5 steps to help your business/organization attract more potential customers to your booth at exhibitions.

If you want to get a good return on your investment, then you must be able to separate yourself from the crowd of other exhibitors at the event by attracting the majority of the traffic to your booth. Below are the steps to help you achieve that.

Steps to help you attract customers to your exhibition booth

Create a buzz factor: One feedback every marketing executive would like to hear from customers at exhibitions is that they saw their stand and patronized them at the event. One way to maximize this is to create a social media buzz even before the exhibition day. Use your social media pages to tell your audience that you will be part of a particular exhibition and begin to warm your prospects up by showing them irresistible offers and packages you have prepared for them at the exhibitions. This way, you have aroused their interest, and they will be on the lookout for your exhibition booth at the event.
Use mini-influencers: You may wonder what this means? This is basically getting your best customers or people around you with a strong following both online and offline to promote your presence at the exhibition. Remember, this is a 5-step list and they are to be followed semantically. You will be getting a customer or good friend to post something like this: “(name of product/service) has helped me develop myself in so many ways. They will be at (exhibition name), make sure you check out their stand at the exhibition”. Remember, nothing travels faster than word of mouth whether online or offline. With these testimonials, you are beginning to build the interest in your booth.
Pre-event Follow-up: Before a tradeshow starts, usually, there would be a buzz weeks before and depending on the magnitude of the exhibition, people may have been posting their attendance confirmations online or offline, and this is another goldmine where you can trap leads from. One easy way to do that is to simply follow the hashtag on social media e.g #TOSSE2022, and see all the posts of people who have signaled their interest, and begin to filter them to see those that fit your customer description. Then send them personal invites and materials to educate them about your products to show that you want to see them in your booth at the exhibition.
Get inbound traffic: Note that we are talking about doing things differently to attract potential customers to your booth. One of the traditional things done at exhibitions is that exhibitors get one of their staff to distribute their flyers or brochures to the attendees. This still works, but there is something better, which is using challenges, contests, giveaways, mystery games and other ideas that naturally calls people attention. People love freebies, and these kinds of things, hence increasing the amount of leads you are getting into your booth and that also increases your chances of converting them while they are inside.
Post-event Follow-up: Remember, you are trying to get them to make a decision and it may not necessarily be at the exhibition, so you must follow them all through the decision making process. Get their social media handles and thoroughly check up on them to see how your products and services can help them, lookout for their needs, celebrate them on their special days and build a relationship afterwards, and you will have some become lifetime customers of your business/organization.

These are 5 steps which when followed will bring a vast amount of traffic who are potential leads that can become your customers. It may sound like a lot of work, but if you want to make sales and achieve your goals as an exhibitor, you must be ready to do this.

Don’t forget to also check out our article on how to improve your Brand presence at exhibitions.

Feb 08

4 Core Principles of Customer Relations That Fuel Business Growth

Companies in all industries and all of sizes understand that customers are perhaps their most valuable asset. Improving the overall customer experience is vital for continued success and survival of their business.

APPLY FOR A STAND AT TOSSE 2019

Customer relation is a way business relates to its customers, clients and patrons. Some business organizations hire people specifically to manage how the company interacts and communicates with people. The goal is to retain existing customers and to gain new ones by providing the best customer relations and clients’ services.

There are some core principles to relationship management that any company can and should follow:

Communication: Listening is just as important as telling. Think about how often you actually speak with your customers. Focus on less financial-driven communication (whether it’s E-mail, phone or face-to-face interaction) if you make your customers feel involved, they feel as though they actually have a stake in your company, and feel like you care about more than just trying to make sales.

TOSSE 2019 EXHIBITOR INFORMATION

Rewards: Every company should initiate and make provision for reward programs. It is a very simple form of saying “Thank you” and particularly it is a viable and measurable marketing tool that big companies and small businesses can use to retain their customers and grow their business.

Be flexible: Be quick and attentive to customer’s complaints: The objective of customer relation is typically to interact with the customers in order to answer questions, resolve support issues, establish credibility and nurture relationships.

Here are strategies that Improve Customers Relations and building customer’s loyalty, from simply opening up communications channels to implementing elaborate point systems that reward loyalty enhanced customer communications.

Be prepared to meet and interact with lot of customers at TOSSE 2019.

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Providing customer feedback forms
Asking about customer needs in general when customer calls with problems
Training call-center staff to handle disputes
Encouraging a service culture throughout the organization.

Jan 28

Beyond Events – The Value of Leads

Exhibitions present opportunities for businesses to sell their products, get in the faces of prospective buyers/clients, and network with other competitors. The benefits of getting your business showcased at an exhibition cannot be overstated.

Rather than focus on only making physical sales, attention should also be given to getting leads for the future. In fact, the number of leads that are gained at an event or exhibition should be seen as a metric to measure the success of that outing. While immediate sales might boost business at that moment and possibly morale, it is these leads that will enable the business grow in the future. Therefore, this part of the exhibition should not be taken lightly.

Apply To Showcase Your Product/Service At Africa’s Biggest Education Trade Show And Conference

Getting The Leads

People present at an exhibition are either business owners like you, or are (prospective) clients and customers. Identify the latter, that’s the group you are looking for. Most likely, the exhibition has a theme and so you do not really have to worry about trying to identify a particular set of prospective clients. For instance, if you’re part of an exhibition for Education, it is safe to say that most person’s that will be available there will be education-based to some extent, and your product should be relevant to most.

Attracting these leads is another thing. I’d like to break it down into two ways:

Direct Marketing, and
Visual Marketing.

Direct marketing involves you walking up to prospective clients to begin a conversation. Advance preparation is required here to know exactly what to say and how to act. Note that it might not be necessary to put forth a business proposal at this stage, the main aim is to establish a relationship such that they are comfortable with you enough to engage in further conversation even after the event.

Dress the part, first impressions matter. Visual marketing requires that you set up an attractive booth that would draw people over. Some have found that using colourful banners, catchy copies and catchphrases, and side attractions draw the attention of the public.

Exhibit At TOSSE 2021

Remember the aim of the effort you’re putting in: to generate leads. Therefore, you would need to be able to get the contact information of these ones you meet. Have a viable system of doing this that would not be awkward or make them reconsider. Now you’ve got these leads, what next?

Following Up On Leads

This is the part that should eventually yield results: sales. This is also the tricky part. There are a few tips that can make this process go smoothly:

Separate your leads. Not all contacts you make will require the same level of correspondence. Some might require immediate and constant communication while others might not need so much. Identify these early and strike as necessary so that you don’t get tagged as too pushy or too nonchalant.
Get in contact early. You do not need to wait for too long to get in contact with these leads. It doesn’t have to be an elaborate call, as little as a “thank you” email or text message can do the trick. This will help impress you and your business in their minds.
Personalise your correspondence. Include personal names of the recipients in emails and text messages. Don’t just push out these messages in bulk, it will sound faux and wouldn’t help boost your stock. For direct phone calls, sound friendly on the phone, and engage in conversation rather than giving mechanical responses read off a handbook.
Be consistent. Sales are usually not made at the first contact. This is where consistency comes in. Make sure to always be in contact if you see the prospects of closing a sale on a lead, whether it immediate or not. Persistence would not mean “spamming” these leads as that would be counterproductive. Create a pattern that works.
Know when to abandon a lost cause. Not all leads will become customers/clients. Identify this on time and save yourself a world of stress. To determine this, check for their ability to make a purchase, their motivation, and their level of influence if they stand as a representative for a business. If you determine that they would not be able to patronise you at the time, you’d be better served striking your blows elsewhere. This doesn’t mean you discard their contacts altogether however. Add it to your database of contacts, they might be customers for another product of yours.

Chasing and closing leads might be tedious, but it is usually worth the effort

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