Training new Managers is essential to the effectiveness of any organisation. It is amazing that many organisations put time, effort and money into training their staff, but leave their new Managers to find their own way in the world. It makes even less sense when you appreciate that the staff will only achieve results if they are led by a Manager who is effective in their role.Training the New Manager
Every new Manager achieves their promotion because of attributes they have displayed in their previous role. The role of the Manager or Team Leader is a completely different role. This is one of the most difficult issues for the new Manager, to get a full appreciation of the role of the Leader as opposed to that of the follower.If you are exploring training for your new Managers, ensure that this aspect of the training covers the full range of headings that will help the new Manager really understand the role. The following is a checklist of headings that should be included in an effective training programme for new managers.1. The Role of the Manager. What exactly is the Manager’s role and responsibilities regarding their Team, their colleagues, senior Management and the achievement of results and objectives? It is important that this is clearly defined for the new Manager, and that he or she understands the difference in positioning of this role versus their previous role as a member of staff.2. Success in the Management Role. A new Manager needs to have a clear success vision, as clear as a target in a shooting range. The clearer he or she is on the end goals, the better chance they have of making a good beginning in their role. Any training for the new Manager must give them a clear focus on success. The success vision is not a figure or result. It is a Team who can achieve the results, clients who will provide the results, colleagues who will work with you to achieve the results and Management who will provide resources and encouragement. Prior to their Management role, the staff member might use any one of these factors as blocks to achieving success. However, as a Manager, removing blocks or devising work arounds is part of the role.3. The Manager is the Owner of the role and is responsible for achieving success. The new Manager must be aware that it is their responsibility to achieve that end result. Prior to being a Manager, the person may well have taken responsibility for a lot of their role, but certain aspects were beyond their control. A Manager’s role is to remove blocks, repair broken relationships, draw down resources, inspire others, solve problems and come up with creative ways of improving. Training for new Managers must bring this point home. When the new Manager gains a full appreciation of the role from the above factors, they will then be open to working on and improving the essential skills and competencies.4. The Competencies of the Manager. The skills of the Manager include people centred competencies, process competencies and personal management. Management training should provide a range of topics on all aspects. Some training courses will favour people management as opposed to managing metrics or time management. The new Manager needs an initial grounding in all factors, to emphasise that they must learn, develop and become competent in this aspect of their role. The aim is not that they will be competent after one training event, this is not possible. You want the new Manager to be aware that this is an area they must work on and improve. It is like providing a framework on which they will build.Training for new Managers must include the role definition as well as the key competencies to be effective in the management role.
Training for New Managers – What Managers Need First to Be Effective in the Management Role
How Do You Promote Your Business? Answer: Promotional Marketing
You know that you need great marketing to get your company and its product and services in front of your target market or ideal customer. Creating an effective promotional marketing program will lead customers right to your door, website, inbox, or phone and entice them to purchase what you have to offer.What is Promotional Marketing?Promotional marketing is one aspect of your marketing program and includes the specifics of how you’re going to entice customers to take action. The advantage of a promotion is to create some buzz for your business or enterprise, to get your business to be noticed for standing apart from competition and to get your business noticed by your target market – as many people as possible.Some businesses take promotional marketing to the next level by using promotional products (also known as advertising specialties, swag, or giveaways). What makes this type of marketing so effective is its ability to influence customer behavior, to encourage action, to create goodwill, and to be remembered long after the promotional event. Promotional marketing, if done well, has a lasting benefit beyond other forms of advertising.Who Uses Promotional Marketing?Every business can use promotional marketing. A company offering a bonus, gift, or additional benefits with a customer’s normal purchase is benefitting from using promotional marketing techniques.How can we get more customers into our store? TV commercials, print ads and direct mail offers are the most common methods to offer the promotion to the target market. Think of the mailer envelopes that arrive at your home, filled with coupons and special deals. A restaurant, for example, may have TV commercials that offer a free drink with a lunch order. Or, cosmetic companies offer a free gift with purchase or a department store advertises a 50% off sale for a select type of item. The promotion calls attention to that extra element or benefit, which companies hope will encourage customers to visit who otherwise wouldn’t.Other companies utilize a technique known as point-of-sale marketing. This helps increase the sales of products of sales that may be difficult to sell on an individual basis. For example, mobile phone companies may offer peripheral items like chargers and headsets at a reduced price if they purchase a cell phone with that item. (“Buy a phone, get a headset for half price.”) Since the customer is already there and has committed to the larger purchase (the phone), they are more likely to buy the extra item because they are enticed by the savings.Creating Your Promotional Marketing Program Step #1 – What is the Plan?Careful thought and planning is the first step of making the promotion effective. What is the objective? What results are you looking for? Increasing revenues, building brand awareness, or launching a new product are just a few strategic goals of promotional marketing. Your business can also promote from within with team building, employee recognition, or safety awareness programs.Step #2 – Who is the Target?Before you begin, you’ll have to identify your target audience. Who is the ideal customer? Who is best suited to buy what you have to offer? What are their needs, and how can your products and/or services meet them? Then generate your sales materials with this target audience in mind. The goal of any promotional marketing program is to make people buy your product or service by creating an appealing proposition that requires timely action. You may want to come up with different messages depending on which communication methods you’re using. Remember that this is a work-in-progress, so don’t be afraid to change your strategies depending on what is working and what isn’t.Step #3 – How to Make the Promotional Offer?There are dozens of ways to actually get your message out, including social media, internet marketing, custom web landing pages, promotional products, and direct mail. Remember that your target audience will dictate the method of advertising. For example, if your target market is those over age 65, you may want to rely more heavily on direct mail or a print ad; however, if your market is under age 25, you’re definitely going to want to take advantage of newer technology methods, such as online marketing, social media, and text messaging.Step #4 – What are the Results?In order to judge the promotional campaign, it is critical to measure the program. How many did you offer to? How many actually used the offer? How much new sales revenue was generated from the offer? Without measuring the promotion, there is no way to improve and set the bar higher to make the next promotion better. Promotions are a way to test the market. Does your promotion generate more sales with a discount, a free gift, or bonus? Promoting your business helps generate excitement about a current service or launching a new product.
10 Services You Can Expect From a Reputed Digital Marketing Company
When you select the best SEO Company to handle your digital marketing strategies, it needs to be well experienced in all aspects of this very competitive environment, especially if they are to deliver you the goods, at the end of the day.Innovative digital marketingThe digital media industry is always on the lookout to bring in new technology and with it technologically advanced personal communication equipment like smartphones, iPod, tablets, notebooks and other hardware.Social media marketingSocial media marketing circles encompass a very wide spectrum of social communication networks, among which the most prolifically used are Facebook, Twitter, and other similar platforms.These social networks integrate millions of search engine or internet users who engage in social activities at the different levels of society, but generally with common goals.Inroads into social circlesMarketing professionals endure to take their brands into these social circles using many mediums and one used frequently is by employing effective email marketing strategies.Ethical marketing policiesEthics in marketing is paramount and similarly since email marketing is a very personalized medium the strategy must maintain high ethical limits which the best SEO Company should endeavor to uphold.Aggressive marketing strategiesThe SEO service provider you select must follow aggressive marketing strategies in order to help you experience proven results in the long run.Referrals as a major toolIt is a well-documented fact referrals are an important segment in marketing, whether traditional or digital. It has been found that 70-80% of purchasing decisions are made based on referrals.This is very much so within selected social circles and it is to take advantage of this phenomenon that email marketing has become a very effective tool in digital marketing.Employing email marketingThe SEO company that you select would have the required databases to help you to bring the required digital marketing messages through their email marketing and other strategies employed.Planning email strategiesEmail strategies like any other marketing initiatives have to be well planned, initiated and conducted to bring the required results. Monitoring it regularly and revising it if the need be is the prerogative of the SEO service provider which would work for your brand.Implementing effective strategiesEvery marketing strategy should be qualitative and meet the set objectives of the brand. The target audience should be carefully selected and the campaign carried out. Targeting the selected audience and consistently making inroads is sure to bring results if not in the short term, could in the medium and long-term. This would primarily depend on the campaign that was carried out.Monitoring campaignsThe advantage in digital marketing is that every campaign can be closely monitored and the behavior patterns studied for deficiencies and if so corrective measures taken immediately.
SEO Tips For Small Business
With over 10 billion web pages on the internet, and with 70% of all buyers researching on the internet before they buy, it makes sense for a small business to make their website “search engine friendly” as a key first step to improved traffic and business opportunities.
There are a number of web page elements that help search engines determine whether your web page is relevant for the topic/service/product you are writing about.
Because the web page-seeking programs run by search engine companies (spiders, spiderbots) can only understand text elements, it’s important to take a look at all the ways text is used in a page.
1) Webpage URL (URLs=Universal Resource Locators)
The first URL a spider sees is the name you have given your website i.e. www,yourwebsite,com. Many companies use their company name (www,ford,com) because it is part of their brand. Other companies will include a word that helps describe their business (www,OttawaRealEstate,org).
Beyond the home page, the spider follows the links to the other pages in your site. This is a great opportunity to use creativity in naming your other webpages by using words that describe aspects of your business
Example: if your business is about chocolate and your name is Carol, rather than have your page link “about us” go to a page URL “about-us.html”, you could use “about-chocolate-lover-Carol.html” as the link destination, and you have now used a key descriptor for your business “chocolate” built into the webpage address, something that the search engine will read and document.
2) Page Titles
The Page Title is the string of text that headlines the webpage in the search results and becomes the name shown in your web browser tab once you’ve clicked through to the page.
If you decide to bookmark the page for future reference, this is the descriptor that will be used when bookmarking the link.
The title of the page is your first opportunity to convince the person scanning the search results that your page is relevant to what they are looking for.
By way of example, if you are selling homes in Toronto, then a Page Title might be:
“Toronto Homes for Sale by ABC Real Estate”
3) Page Description
This is the sentence of text (about 20-25 words, 200 characters) that appears below your Page Title in the search results. If the Page Title attracted attention, then the Page Description represents your opportunity to convince the person that clicking on your link will give them the information they seek.
Following along on the real estate example, a Page Description might be:
“Luxury three bedroom homes in Toronto. We are your best resource to find those real estate listings that fit your home buying needs, with access to competitive mortgages to help you secure financing.”
Combining the above examples (for someone searching for “real estate Toronto” in a search engine) would have a search result similar to this:
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Toronto Homes for Sale by ABC Real Estate
Luxury three-bedroom homes in Toronto. We are your best resource to find those real estate listings that fit your home buying needs,….
www.abcrealestate.com
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4) Headers
These are the titles of paragraphs, tables and lists, usually formatted differently than the detailed information content. Often fonts are used that are larger, coloured, bolded or italicized or even a different style of font.
5) Text Content
This is the actual readable content that is (hopefully) providing your visitor with the information they seek.
6) Graphic Content
Images such as pictures, logos, charts are objects that search engines cannot decipher for content – if the graphic contains text as part of its image, the text will not be recognized.
There are two ways to add information so that a graphic contributes meaning:
Rather than calling a picture of house “image1.pg”, make the name of the picture descriptive i.e. “3-bedroom-bungalow-in-toronto-ontario.jpg” would add relevancy to a real estate web page.
Graphic objects can have a text attribute – the “Alt Tag” whereby text can be attached to the image – hovering your mouse above a picture will usually result in a text box popping up – this is the information entered into the Alt tag during web page setup.
With respect to points 4, 5 and 6 above, here’s what Google has to say:
Our search engine analyzes page content. However, instead of simply scanning for page-based text (which can be manipulated by site publishers through meta-tags), our technology analyzes the full content of a page and factors in fonts, subdivisions and the precise location of each word. We also analyze the content of neighboring web pages to ensure the results returned are the most relevant to a user’s query.
Knowing how search engines look at your web pages is a huge step forward. Deciding what it is you want to be discovered for is a topic best left for an article on keywords.