Market your business right

 Use your marketing budget wisely and be patient and persistent to see results. Here’s how

The beginning of every year offers the chance for a fresh start and the opportunity to define how we would like the next 12 months to unfold. Aside from the personal resolutions that most of us have made and are doing our best to keep, a lot of businesses also use this time of year to identify new goals they would like to achieve throughout the year.

 

What are some of the resolutions for your company in 2021?

 How exactly do you decide the correct approach to garner the results you’re looking for?

It’s easy to get caught up with the ‘hot’ trends you hear about or the specific initiatives your competitors are focused on, but at the end of the day, every brand has unique needs to fill, and thus it requires a unique marketing plan to fulfill them. 

A Great strategy

The first step of any excellent marketing plan is always a strategy. This Period of research and planning is how you can gauge what’s going to work best for your brand, and how to distribute your marketing budget.

You shouldn’t be jumping into something because you think it’s probably the right channel, because your competitors are doing it, or because it’s the most cost-effective option. A strategy outlines which channels will provide the highest  return and generate the most impactful results based on your unique value.

You’ll often hear percentages thrown around as to how much you should be spending on marketing. In reality, those numbers don’t work for most of the brands because they lack a deeper understanding  of their sales funnel. The simplest way to determine your marketing budget is to identify how much a sale is worth, or how much you’re willing to spend for a qualified lead, and base it off of that.

Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts, and massive wins don’t usually happen with a tight or unrealistic budget . Gone are the days of inexpensive campaigns, or getting to page one on google without efforts.

Encourage Repeat Visits

A significant portion your marketing budget should be used for tactics that help to drive repeat visitors to your website. Users coming to your site once are far less likely to convert or make a purchase than a user who is familiar with your brand because they have been to your site a few times before. As consumers, we do our research before making a purchase. If we’re looking for a running shoe for example, typically we’ll visit a few sites to look at styles, brands, or prices, before making our final decision and clicking “buy now”. As marketers, bringing visitors back to your site after they’ve visited once is essential to fostering a conversion, generating a lead, or making a sale.
When you already have captured the interest of the user, you don’t want to lose them.
Email marketing is one of the most effective approaches to generating repeat website traffic and staying top of mind with users that are slightly familiar with your brand.
Encourage audience to take a look at your products one more time, offer an exclusive  discount for your service, or share a case study that shows how your company has helped improve other businesses with the product or service you’re offering. Show your value through email, generate brand awareness, and ultimately drive users back to your website once again.
Retargeting advertisements are essential in terms of staying top of mind with your consumers and making sure that you’re not losing any traction with your users as they consume content on other websites. Once a potential customer has visited your site, you’re able to serve them with banner advertisements on other sites that they visit.

 

Persistence and Patience

Whatever channel you’re focusing on, understand that in order to see results from it, you need to allow time. Making decisions based off findings from a few weeks’ worth of campaign data won’t give you a clear picture of what is going on. Your budget must allow for each channel to take the necessary time it needs to start performing as you need it to. To exemplify the importance of time, consider a marketing tactic such as search engine optimization.

In the past , SEO was much simpler. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case, While SEO doesn’t require actual dollars to secure a ranking, it does take a great deal of time and effort, which is a cost itself. However, at the end of the day, the long term results of proper SEO practices are indispensable.

Paid and organic collaboration:  Using paid and organic initiatives collaboratively is the ideal marketing mix. Simply focusing on paid digital advertising spots , or focusing  on generating  only organic website traffic won’t work well, however using both paid and earned media in tandem will provide results that are much more significant and meaningful.

Consider social media, facebook, twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram are all great resources for reaching a specific audience and providing them with engaging content. However, while they are completely necessary, organic posts alone won’t get you anywhere. You need to allocate some of your marketing Budget towards promoted posts to drive real brand awareness. You can’t completely eliminate additional social spending or you won’t produce results .

 

2021 Marketing Resolutions

For all marketers doing their best at starting best their year off right and accomplishing their 2021 resolutions, a well developed business plan with a reasonable budget, milestones, and trackable events is necessary. Take advantage of digital marketing and your ability to track all of your initiatives in realtime, measure them, and shift your resources as needed to help certain areas perform better.

You cant jump into your marketing plans blindly  and throw some money as you feel it is needed. Remember that at the end of the day persistence and patience is quintessential to any successful campaign.

Crocs to open 60 stores by 2018

US shoemaker  Crocs, a footwear brand mostly known for colourful rubbery clogs with holes, entered the country in 2007 through a joint venture with Chogori Retail which was later changed into franchise operation.

Crocs has terminated  its exclusive franchising agreement for India with Chogori Retail and will now partner several companies, instead, to open retail stores in India. "We have planned out a strategy of having few but strong franchise and shedding some of the partners that don't, can't or won't want to grow with us whatever the reason might be," said Nissan Joseph, general manager of Crocs India.

Crocs, plans to open around 60 stores in the next three years apart from pushing its online initiative that already accounts for over 10% of sales in less than a year of its ecommerce entry.

Joseph said the last of the Chogori stores could go on till June. "Some will close and reopen, some will reopen in different locations inside the mall and some will reopen through new franchise partners," he said. Made with lightweight anti-microbial foam called Croslite, Crocs first hit stores in 2004 as a beach shoe and became an instant hit, thanks to its radical colourful design and lightweight, comfortable and odour-resistant qualities. 

US fitness chain Anytime Fitness to pump up Indian muscle with 100 gyms

US-based fitness chain Anytime Fitness is using the franchisee route to grow faster in the Indian market and aims to open 100 centres in three years.

Anytime Fitness wants to be a pan-India chain. “We see a long-term opportunity in the Indian market considering the low penetration levels. We find the Indian market very similar to what the US market was 15-20 years back,” John Kersh, vice president, Anytime Fitness Gym, said.

“We have grown from one centre in the US in 2002 to 2,000 centres in 50 states of the country. With a presence in 20 countries we look forward to having 4,000 to 4,200 centres by 2018 and India is an important market for us as the incidence of lifestyle diseases is higher in the country and the awareness about health is growing,” he said.

The penetration of fitness programmes in India is as low as 0.5 per cent in India, while it is six to seven per cent in Asia and 16 to 17 per cent in the US.

According to Kersh, franchising has worked well for the brand globally as the operating expenses are low in the model.

“A centre needs around 400 members to break even and most of them break even in about six months. The centres are easily accessible being located in residential areas and are open 19 hours a day. Before opening a centre, we enroll around 150 to 200 members and this too helps the centres break-even fast,’ said Vikas Jain, managing director, Anytime Fitness India.

The company will initially handhold the franchisee in order to find the location, set up the centre, source equipment, recruit and train the staff and to promote the brand. Apart from setting up new centres, the brand is also open to converting and upgrading its existing gyms. In India a majority of the fitness centres are in the unorganised sector.

Canon opens 124th Image Square outlet

Canon, a digital imaging brand launched its 10th Canon Image Square (CIS) in Mumbai. Canon Image Squares are the brands exclusive outlets. The brand has so far opened 123 stores across 64 cities in the country. Canon’s service reach extends to over 3200 towns with 18 Canon camera service centres and 38 printer Canon Care Centres. This store in Virar, Mumbai, takes the total tally to 18th Canon Image Square in Maharashtra.

The company plans to expand its retail business by setting up exclusive Canon Image Square outlets across the country.  With the objective to reach closer to the customer and to develop an engaging relationship with existing as well as new customers, Canon Image Square is further expanding its presence in western part of India. All existing CIS stores in Mumbai are located in different catchment areas and are easily accessed by a wide cross section of customers for a world class experience.

The store will offer customers the latest Canon cameras, lenses and photography accessories such as camera bags, tripods, chargers etc., in addition to exciting printing products and solutions. Customers are provided complete experience of the products; they can take prints of photographs, directly from their smart phones, tablets, pen drives, memory cards or CD’s. Canon also offers free training for all DSLR camera buyers through the CIS stores.

Gloria Jean's Coffee Cafe is all set to re-enter the Indian market

Australian coffee cafe brand, Gloria Jean's Coffees, is all set to re-enter the Indian market after ending its six-year long master franchise with Citymax, the hospitality division of the Dubai-based retail giant, Landmark Group.

According to industry sources familiar with the development, discussions are currently on for inking an agreement that will see Gloria Jean's make a second attempt in establishing a foothold in the Indian coffee retail market .

Responding to queries on its re-entry plans, the spokesperson at Gloria Jean's Coffees said: "While we can confirm that Gloria Jean's Coffees remains committed to the Indian market, we would not be able to share more details on our India plans as yet."

As for the new Indian master franchise partner is concerned, the sources said that the former president and CEO of Lavasa Corp, Nathan Andrews is the front runner and that both parties have walked the path already. In fact, having quit Lavasa in November 2014, Andrews has been busy putting together a business plan while simultaneously establishing a new entity to take up the India master franchise for Gloria Jean's Coffees.

"In fact, if everything goes as per plans, Gloria Jean's will start brewing coffee all over again launching its first outlet in Mumbai sometime around April – May 2015," sources said.
Having already tested the India market, Gloria Jean's is likely to pursue the master franchise approach for its second stint as well but with a slight twist. Thus, bringing their 'skin in the game', the coffee retailer could pick up a minority stake in the new (Indian) entity.

The expansion strategy, however, will still revolve around opening company-owned-company-operated (coco) outlets to be able to ensure consistency in the quality of food and beverages served as well as customer experience across its cafes.

A typical Gloria Jean's Coffees outlet would occupy anywhere between 1,500 to 2,000 square feet of real estate. The cost of setting up a cafe would vary between Rs 1 to Rs 1.5 crore, depending on the location i.e. shopping malls, standalone, or office complexes.

While shopping malls and stand-alone locations are preferred options for food and beverages brands, a lot of international players off-late, are seeking retailing space in office buildings / commercial complexes. This is because such locations not only offer a very convenient eating-out environment but also a good flow of office going crowd that patronises the stores.

McDonald’s opens two outlets in Mangalore

Hardcastle Restaurants Private Limited (HRPL), a Master Franchisee for West & South India operations of McDonald’s restaurants and a subsidiary of the BSE listed Westlife Development Limited entered Mangalore with the opening of two restaurants in quick succession. These launches add to the established network of 74 restaurants across Southern India.

McDonald’s Forum Fiza Mall sprawls over 3500 sq. ft while the restaurant at City Centre Mall can seat up to 134 guests within the restaurant and 32 guests outdoors.

Ranjith Paliath, Vice President, Business Operations, McDonald's India (West & South) said, “We are proud to open two McDonald's restaurants in Mangalore. We ensure that customers who come to McDonald’s get quality fresh food at great prices. Our menu has been created using flavourful spices that appeal to Indian tastes.  The restaurants will each have a team of 50 employees to manage operations in the initial phase. Further, McDonald’s also aims to generate employment and provide international training to local residents, creating opportunities for first time job seekers while also adding to the strength of 2,500 individuals that they have directly employed across business operations in South India.”

McDonald’s operates through various formats and brand extensions including standalone restaurants, drive-thru’s, 24/7, McDelivery, Web and Mobile ordering, Breakfasts and dessert Kiosks. The menu features burgers, finger foods, wraps, hot and cold beverages besides a wide range of desserts. Several of the McDonald’s restaurants feature the in-house McCafé. 

IndiaOnline.In to Expand Its Business Via Franchisees

India’s online network, IndiaOnline.in has plans to expand its business network through 5,000 franchisees all over India. It is a one-stop shop for acquiring quality information about India and is a unique amalgamation of 350+ websites covering every state, city and town of India.

India Online Network has been in existence since the last five years and now it has brought a unique business opportunity for masses to join the Internet revolution in the country by partnering with them. IndiaOnline.in in its endeavour to create a network of more than 4,000 Business Associates from all over India, is inviting applications to join the network as Business Associate from each and every city and town of India. Smaller towns with less than two lakh population will have 1- 5 business associates per town or city while bigger cities will have multiple associates depending upon the size and population of the city.

Rahul Jalan, Director, Indiaonline.in says, “We take pride in expanding ourselves through the franchise route as we feel we will be creating a huge self-employment opportunity in every city and even the smallest of towns in India. By expanding our network, we wish to bring forward a unique business opportunity for anyone who joins our network as a Business Associate. We at India Online Network are striving hard to make India Online Network – a true synonym of the online information system India.”

Any-one who qualifies to become a Business Associate will have to pay a one-time very nominal non-refundable joining fee of Rs. 2000/- to 7000/- depending upon the city tier. It is a considerable and unique business and self employment opportunity for individuals, web designers, web marketing firms, cyber cafes, Aadvertising agencies, marketers, freelancers and even Students. The qualification needed to become the Business Associate is minimum 10+2 pass with reasonable knowledge of Internet with access to Internet connection.

The role of a Business Associate would be to promote and sell various paid membership, website and listing services among the businesses, industries and small businesses in their own city/town and also other local advertising options.