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.   

10 ways to delight and retain customers

  

Most businesses spend a lot of time and money trying to win new customers, and not very much on       keeping the ones they already have. But that can be the wrong way around. It’s generally accepted that it costs a lot more to acquire new customers than to get an existing customer to buy from you again.

What’s more, the longer you keep a customer, the more they spend with you. How much more depends on the type of business you operate, but research shows that reducing the loss of customers by just 5% can boost profits by 25% to 95%.

One more point: delighting your customers can become your competitive advantage. One of the challenges in business is to create a competitive advantage that your competitors can’t copy. They can copy your products or your pricing - but the one thing they can’t copy is the experience your customers have when they do business with you. 

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.

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.”

 

Signs That your Brand is Headed for Trouble

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.

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: