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Posts Tagged ‘marketing’

Amazon Herb Opportunity Analysis: Opportunity For Everyone?

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Amazon Herb

Most people find it difficult to remain fit in today’s highly polluted earth.The Amazon Herb Company offers the natural wholesomeness of herbs and fruits from the Amazon rainforest to keep your body fit. Rainforests have amazing reserves of herbs that protect, cure and cleanse the body.The Amazon Herb Store has tapped the richness of the rainforest to make a wide range of products that are highly beneficial to the body. Come let’s explore this company and the earning potential

· Background of Amazon Herbs

The Amazon Store was founded by Amazon John Easterling, a scholar in Environmental Studies.He has researched the medicinal aspects of rainforest plants and in fact, has experienced first hand the amazing curative powers of such herbs when he was saved from a near fatal health condition. The Amazon Herb store was established as a network marketing company to propagate the product benefits personally through representatives.

· What Do They Sell? –

- Zamu – This is one of the chief products of Amazon; it uses the nutritive value of the Camu camu berry and other rainforest herbs to improve your health. The company’s proud of the Zamu drink that’s supposed to taste delicious and is very nutritious.

- Lluvia – The Lluvia skin renewal system offers natural skin care and a cleansing system that helps remove polluting agents and keep your skin fresh and youthful.

- Amazon has various other products that help in quick healing of muscles, helps in easy absorption of food and other herbal tea, shakes and medicinal products.

· Amazon Herb Business Opportunity

Amazon has an auto-ship program that requires members to pay 0 each month; once you join this program, you get entitled to commissions of 40% on your sales and other perks on hiring and motivating members.

· How Feasible Is This Earning Opportunity?

Amazon herb Store has a terrific product range; there’s no doubt about this. However, as a distributor in this company, you could face some barriers. Health products are quite difficult to market.

Though they have superb merchandise, Amazon seems to have a weak selling strategy. Like all other MLM companies, they ask reps to note down contact details of people they know or get them to approach potential customers and call them to parties. While this may work to an extent, it’s not going to fetch you a decent income.

· My Views

As an income opportunity, there’s good scope to earn from Amazon products. The simple act of launching your business online and promoting products through the net is enough to bring about a drastic improvement in your sales. Just use online marketing tools and see your profits soar. Learn to tap the resources in the internet to get best results.

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The Difficulty of Operating a Small Business by yourself

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

A quarter of a century ago, opening a retail store was much easier. Consumers were regularly buying staple items they needed. Businesses were easy to run and business was good. Store owners often saw themselves as prime examples of individuals living the American dream. The neighborhood kids knew if they ever needed a job, it could be found at one of the different neighborhood establishments: candy store, drug store or local shoe shop business. Some of the shops have been owned by the same family for generations. However, in the current economy most of these mom and pop enterprises are being forced to close their doors. They’re struggling to just keep their businesses afloat.

See also:  comfortable boots

Over the years, most of these local businesses had survived competition from large department store chains. They were able to compete because they offered individual customer service. They were able to maintain a steady flow of loyal customers. The neighborhood shoe store, for example, would allow a customer to return a pair of shoes without a receipt, a gesture based on personal acquaintance with the customer and had faith that they would be back in the future. Sometimes developing strong good customer service bonds were better for business than just offering a 10% off coupon. The ability to offer this type of personal customer service is one of the main tactics small retail outlets were able to use to gain the advantage over large department stores.

Since the development of the internet, small retail stores have had to compete not only with their local competitors, but they now have to compete with online stores. The impact from online stores may not have been clear at first, but gradually increasing numbers of shoppers have started to use the internet, they started making more purchases online; i.e., online shoe stores. There’s no more going to your local shoe store; people started buying shoes online. As internet retail stores started to see an increase in business, local vendors experienced a sharp decline. What is convenient for customers, it has begun to take a toll on once-prosperous local shops.

In today’s economy, small merchants face an even bigger challenge in order to stay in business. Also pressured by the declining economy, banks have tightened the reins by decreasing the lines of credit that merchants depend upon. This credit crunch has caused local merchants to resort to drastic measures. For instance; your local comfortable men’s shoes store owner may have to dip into his retirement fund to purchase inventory or fund the marketing campaign. The merchant simply doesn’t have a large funding base to draw on. And, with banks lowering credit limits, they has even fewer funds to work with. And with the decline in business they are looking at the strong possibility of having to restructure their lives.

Searching in Ask.com or by searching in IceRocket might yield additional resources.       

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Data Entry From Home Scam

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

If you are a stay at home mom then you might be wondering what you can do from home that can add to your family’s income. Many women are left with plenty of time on their hands with grown up kids. These women can use their talents and think of doing a home based business.

If you are considering making this your home based business then you should know where to look for them. You are likely to find such units in your area or an advertisement in the local paper. Most of the companies hold live auctions.

In type at home programs, you will be asked to type advertisements. You wile be paid a commission provided some body buys your advertisement. If you are good at copywriting then you can make lots of money.

Some of the internet based home programs are type at home, Google Ad sense, Click Bank, and Pay per click. Affiliate programs, content writing etc. are also helping many people based at home to make money. The opportunities are many you have to choose the right one.

Another scam going around on the net are the paid survey scams. While some of these sites are genuine a lot of them are not. You do not make that kind of money they claim you can.

There are now more than a hundred ways you can make money. If you are employed, you even have the option of starting your home based business on a part time basis and establish on this front before firing your boss. The important thing is to take the first step.

You can also write articles for the internet. Sites like Get freelancer have many offers for content writers. Here bids are offered to those who are willing to complete the job at the client’s rate. Once the competed work is submitted, they are paid through sites like pay pal.

Think what treasure you can find when you visit an abandoned self-storage unit. You will find the most unlikely things you have imagined. Things like old records, rare books, antique jewellery, furniture, tools for the home etc.

Before you start your home based businesses ask your self a couple of questions. What business you should do? How much you need to invest?

Running a lunch delivery service is extremely profitable. Many working people these days cannot find time to cook. They love to have home cooked food. So you can be assured of plenty of business if you happen to live close to business houses and even factories.

Take help from the Internet, there are plenty of resources that will be extremely useful to you, and will help you kick start your business.

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Customer Satisfaction Surveys Work

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Why bother?

Good customer service is the life blood of any business. Although new customers are important good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and repeat business. With each satisfied customer your business is likely to win many more customers through recommendations and remember, if you are not taking care of your customers, your competition will.

A customer satisfaction survey will demonstrate to your customers that you care and are proactive in looking for ways to improve the service that you provide.

 

Where do you start?

Objective - Before you start creating your survey clarify the objectives of the survey, in that way you will find it easier to decide what are the right questions to ask.

Analysis - Once the survey has been completed consider how you will analyse the answers.

Keep in mind that ‘closed’ questions (where the respondent is asked to choose from a limited number of responses) are easier to analyse than ‘open’ questions (where the respondent can reply in anyway they want).

A great deal will depend on the likely volume of respondents, the higher the volume the more important it is to have an easy method of analysing the results.

Opportunity – As well as obtaining valuable market research data keep in mind that customer surveys are also a good way to advertise areas of your service that your customers may not be aware of.

Before you publish the survey confirm that the questions you have asked will provide you with market research data that when analysed will help you make informed decisions.

Next, read through the survey from a marketing view point, check that you have phrased each question so that every opportunity has been taken to promote your business?

The ideal question will perform the following three functions:-

  • Market research - provide valuable feedback to help you improve your customer satisfaction levels and in turn your business
  • Marketing - promote aspects of your business
  • Information/Education - advertise a service that you provide that your customers may not have been unaware of

For example:- Do you find the in-store baby changing facilities useful?

By asking this question not only will the store receive good market research feedback on the facility they provide but they will also promote their facilities and advertise themselves as a family friendly store, even beyond those customers who have a specific need for the baby changing facility that has been provided.

Warts and all – to maximise the benefit from a customer survey you must be prepared to take criticism.

A customer satisfaction survey should be designed to highlight problems so that they can be addressed; regular customer satisfaction will prevent complacency and will also give early warning on where your competitors initiatives may be losing you business.

 

What questions should you ask?

Although it is a given that each business is likely to have specific and unique factors that are important in providing good customer services there are common areas that are relevant to all businesses be they a physical store, online internet store or a service industry. The following are key areas to providing good customer service.

Communication - What do you do to make it easy for your customers to communicate with you?

When a customer telephones is their call answered promptly; are enquiries about products or services handled properly? A good business will make every effort to ensure that whatever the customers query it is resolved by the right person, politely, quickly and fairly.

If customers reported problems that cannot be resolvable immediately do you promise to respond in a given time period and do you deliver on your promise?

Use a customer satisfaction survey to confirm that all your staff are perceived by your customers as being helpful, courteous and knowledgeable.

Location – Do your customers find it easy to visit you, if a physical bricks and mortar store, is it conveniently located with good access?

Making it pleasant, making it easy - For a virtual business it is important to ensure that your website is aesthetically pleasing and easy to use.

Regardless of the store being a bricks and mortar or purely an online internet store, is the store properly laid out, can your customers find what they need and is there sufficient information and help on hand to explain how a particular product works?

The right quality products – Not only should you measure the quality of the service that you provide but you should check that the products and services that you market are what the customer wants and closely match their expectations.

Value for money – Cheap or expensive is not always a good measure, value for money is.

Do your current customers consider the products you sell or the services you provide as value for money, if not, why not?

Speed and attention – Customers want their enquiries or queries to be dealt with quickly but attentively.

Are you doing everything you can to avoid delays?

Good businesses will try to treat each customer as an individual, does yours? Customers appreciate attention but only if it leads to a quick and satisfactory resolution of the query.

Demographics and Specific issues – Take the opportunity to profile your customers, for example their gender, age group and where they live?

Understand your customers more and you will be able to better target your business.

Within the survey allow customers to highlight specific problems and provide contact details.

 

What next?

Having completed the survey analyze the results.

Trends – Identify specific and common areas where the service needs improving.

Ask yourself if any criticism is valid and is there anything that can be done to resolve or minimise the problem?

Training – Are the staff properly trained and do they have sufficient knowledge?

Where staff training programmes have been implemented have they had a positive impact on the business?

Follow-up – If a customer has raised a specific issue through completing a survey ensure that they are contacted and that their complaint is properly addressed.

Do not lose the opportunity to resolve a problem and keep a customer.

Continuously Monitor - Make changes based on the survey results and then re-measure by issuing further surveys.

If you are concerned about customer satisfaction and what to view a sample survey for a store that will demonstrate some of the above advice please visit:- Sample Customer Survey

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Writing Effective Surveys Top Tips

Monday, May 25th, 2009

How to create a survey using Survey Galaxy

Designing surveys is easy; isn’t it? The truth is that creating surveys is easy but creating effective surveys is more difficult. The following tips will help you write more effective surveys.

1. What is the purpose of the survey?

There are many reasons for conducting surveys. By correctly phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in a multitude of ways and for a variety of reasons. When compiling a survey don’t lose sight of the survey’s purpose.

2. Title the survey

The survey title is an opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents are going to invest time in completing the survey so make them feel that their investment is worthwhile.

3. Do not make the survey any longer than it needs to be

Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Focus on ‘need to know’ questions and minimise ‘nice to know’ information.

4. Use plain English, avoid terminology and acronyms, be consistent and ensure that the questions you ask will not result in ambiguous answers

Care must be taken in wording a question. If a question can be interpreted in more ways than one then there is a risk that any analysis of the survey results will be meaningless or at the very least misleading.

5. Avoid questions that are long

Use short sentences wherever possible. Long questions can cause a respondent to lose concentration and lead to them abandoning the survey.

6. Ask only one question at a time

Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like tennis and football?’

7. Do not influence the answer

Do not load the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell tobacco to minors be prosecuted?’ is likely to have no value.

8. Make sure that the chosen answer format allows the respondent to answer the question being asked

Allow the respondent to answer how they really feel or they may be less inclined to complete the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “No comment”, “Don’t know” or similar response option.

9. While you are compiling your survey consider how the survey results are going to be analysed when the survey is complete

Appreciate that questions that allow for a free text open ended response is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider grouping answers. For example “Indicate your length of service?” - ‘less than 1 year’, ‘between 1 and 5 years’ and ‘more than 5′.

10. Try and ensure that the questionnaire flows

Group questions into clear categories as this will make it easier for the participants completing the survey.

11. Target your respondents

Sometimes you will want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t control who responds to your survey consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents who don’t match your target profile.

12. Provide a channel for your respondents to expand on their answers or make comments

Allowing respondents to make additional comments will increase their satisfaction level and the comments will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember that for large sample collections free text open ended responses may prove difficult to analyze.

13. If you are conducting a confidential survey ensure that your pledge for confidentiality is honoured

If you have assured the respondents that the survey is confidential ensure that the individual data is not to be shared with anyone and not used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times and any identifying information destroyed after the survey is complete.

14. Weigh up the benefits of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable

If your respondents are to be anonymous then you will be unable to follow up or match “pre” or “post” surveys. There are advantages to allowing respondents to remain anonymous for example it would allow respondents to respond without possible peer pressure.

15. Give careful consideration to the best response format

Being consistent with the format used for responses is good practice. When creating your survey keep in mind that when analyzing the data radio buttons are easier to analyze than check boxes that offer the respondent multiple responses. Do not use a check box format if a radio response format would do.

16. Provide the respondent with an estimate as to how much time the survey will take

Respondent drop out can increase if the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions. It is good practice to indicate how long the survey is likely to take so that the participants can choose the best time to complete the survey.

17. Inform the respondents of the survey end date

Encourage your invited respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise the respondents of the survey’s end date so that they have the opportunity to schedule the necessary time.

18. Pilot the survey

Before publishing a live survey publish a small pilot survey to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to ensure that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.

19. Before publishing the survey proof read the survey several times

Check and then check again that a survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If possible get someone else to proof read the survey before you publish, if you are unable to do this then take a break before checking again.

20. Thank your respondents

Respondents devote their time when completing surveys and should therefore be thanked at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider incentives such as a prize draw or reward.

For more information please visit Survey Galaxy

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