4 Ways to Access Your Creative Genius

Creativity may be in more demand than ever. With the rapid rise of the internet economy, creatives have begun to make unique work opportunities for themselves. Online entrepreneurs are making things up as they go because the commerce and industry we experience today is still a new frontier. U.S. jobs and contract positions are now easily outsourced to overseas locations where the cost of living is less.

The low wages paid to virtual workers edge out the chance of Westerners competing with those prices. These overseas workers are highly skilled and educated, and often don’t possess the entitled attitude that many of us do in the U.S., so they are appreciated and sought after.   

What About Marketing?

Banks, in most cases, have always been profitable and it has been easy for the banks to get clients to open accounts. Even though the banking industry is very competitive, banks have always had the customer coming to them for banking facilities. Banks hardly win customers by going to the consumer; with a presentable branch and great customer service, the customer is easily won.

Now bankers are being threatened by the likes of retail outlets such as supermarkets that have so much information about their customers. Most of these customers would visit these outlets whether offline or online than go to their local banks. Some banks are struggling to get their customers to log on to their websites and use the online banking facilities but these same customers will be found online visiting online retails sites such as amazon.com.

Making the Uniqueness of your Brand Known

Imagine this; you have finally been called for an interview you have been looking forward to for months. Now is the moment of truth and you do not want to miss any detail;  you bring out the new skirt suit and shoes you have been saving for this special day; all necessary documents set and confidence hoisted;  you are indeed poised and set for action. You get to the organisation’s premises; you are ushered to the waiting room and then boom! It happens; two other candidates, all but their faces, are rocking the same outfit as you are. This was totally unexpected and you do not have any backup plan. What are you going to do? For some people, this will be like the derailing moment of their life or more like the Titanic sinking slowly with just twenty lifeboats onboard. Now the question is; how do you convince your prospective employers that despite wearing the same outfit as the others, you have something unique your fellow applicants do not possess? This is where advertising comes in. You need to create awareness about yourself; enough for your potential employers to take action, in other words, choose you!

Finding Innovative Ways to Play the Name Game

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, organizations hate missing an opportunity to leverage their assets. It is an instinct that has led many to consider whether they can get more out of their names – that is to create corporate brands in addition to their product brands.

The question is particularly relevant for companies in the consumer-goods industry, which typically market their wares under a variety of different names such as Kasapreko’s Alomo Bitters, Unilever’s Dove soap or Nestlé’s Maggi Mixpy.

Ambush Marketing

2014 is here with us; bringing in its wake the FIFA World Cup tournament. This is possibly the biggest sporting event in the world. Everyone is talking about the World Cup; who made the list, who is tipped to win, etc. Even me, a sworn anti-football fan is writing about it now. 

Well, while some people (very few), like me, want to run away from this event, others are over the moon about the opportunities that come with it; footballers are eager to show what they are made of, countries are doing all it takes to make sure their teams have the right preparation that will help them win their matches, fans are excited to travel to Brazil and cheer on… In the background are marketers and advertisers, who will be taking advantage of this global interest to advertise and market their brands.

Real Time Marketing - The Power of Now

Some years ago, it was rare to get information or news around the world just when it happened. When an event happened in one part of the world, it took days or sometimes months before the news got to the other part of the world. However, the story is different today, the world has become, what some experts call, ‘a global village;’ information reaches people from one continent to the other within a blink of an eye. Now you can get access to information concerning new inventions and you do not necessarily have to be in the country where it took place. Why? Because we live in a real time now.

Good Product vs. Good Marketing

The ultimate goal of a company is to deliver a product or service to its consumers. Having a good product is a given. Consumers expect your product or service to be good. But having a good product is almost certainly not enough to ensure success. As a general rule, sales and marketing success is a function of how your product or service is perceived by customers. It does not matter what you think about your product or service. It ONLY matters what customers think about it.

 

The Future of Branding

Brands are more like “best friends” – they form an important part of our lives, carry specific meaning for every individual and are accepted or rejected based on how well they keep promises. Brands are so ingrained in our daily lives that we cannot do without them.

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.”

 

Personal Branding: You Must Build Your Digital Empire

The Digital Era of Going Viral

 
 
 

If you have ever studied the science of cross pollination, you would realize that the plants that use this mechanism to reproduce need certain agents to achieve this goal. These agents are mostly birds and insects and it is the flowers that have certain features; colorful, sweet scented and sometimes contain nectar that that are polinated. When the birds and insects settle on the plants and feed on them, they carry pollen on to the next plant; fertilization takes place, leading to reproduction. If you are to explain this in the language of marketing, you would say the pollen has gone viral.

Consumer Psychology

                                                                             

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The key object of every marketing strategy is to develop lucid customer-specific solutions that are superior to competing solutions. To achieve this objective with precision involves understanding the psychology of the target markets who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of that solution.  Developing the solution is only one part of the equation, the target market needs to be aware of the solution, they must believe that it is unique to their needs and also have faith that it is superior to competing ones available. This part of the equation even makes the relevance of understanding the consumer’s psychology more crucial.

Customer Service: Hotlines and Their Myths

 

Customer service in Ghana is as real as the Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth. No seriously, think about it. How many times have you not felt like a service provider was acting like they were giving you freebies when you are actually paying for the service? Sometimes you enter a shop to buy something with YOUR money and the attendants make you feel like you are some homeless beggar asking for handouts. Usually, these people get away with this.

Today, however, my rant is not about customer service as a whole, it is a little targeted at hotlines and the seriousness and attention companies pay to them. It is like most Ghanaians take the name of hotlines seriously… it is actually so hot that no one dares to answer these lines lest they get burnt or scalded. I live in the technology era where I believe everything should be a click, email, text or phone call away, but no! Companies are good at frustrating their clients.

How to Successfully Launch Your Brand

A subject of interest in today’s world is branding and more importantly, what differentiates an outstanding brand from others.

When successfully launching a brand, it is imperative to define the brand.

Karl Speak, the global expert on branding, posits that “when most people think of a brand, they visualize a slogan, a logo, a campaign, a promise or a product. A brand is much more. A brand is “a powerful relationship fueled by a loyal belief system and knotted to the principle of providing exceptional value."

The Business Creator - Spiritpreneur

Randy is a young vision-minded, Ghanaian-based entrepreneur who is passionate about making an impact in his generation. He belongs to a new breed of entrepreneurs whose motivation for going into business is not just to satisfy a need and get rewarded for it, but most importantly, to use business as a tool to change the world and advance the kingdom of God on earth. Hence, he refers to himself as a “Spiritpreneur” (Spiritual and entrepreneur).

Mr. Randy Osae Bediako, the Spiritpreneur, lets us in on his business: