Marketing Ideas For Family Business
Marketing is a huge and very important part of family business. Nowadays, there are many different ways you can market and advertise your business. All of those marketing strategies are evolving each day, and that’s why you have to stay updated. In order to have a good marketing plan, you have to have some innovative marketing ideas that will stand out and get the attention from people. Here are some really good marketing ideas that you can try out for your family business.
Make Promotional Partnerships
A very creative way to market your family business is to cooperate with other local businesses that are in your area. Find a business that is willing to promote some of your products for their customers and you do that for them. That way both of your businesses will benefit because some of your customers will buy their products and his customers might come to your place. Of course, try to find a business that sells similar types of products. For example, don’t cooperate with a toy store if you are selling vehicle parts.
Social Media
Nowadays, every successful company or business has its own website, some of them even have social media accounts. That is quite normal these days because everyone is using some type of social media. The best way to target that many people are by making accounts for your business on some of the most popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Make sure that you put as much information and detail in that account as you can because that way people can understand what is your business. After you have created those accounts and filled them with a lot of information about your business, then you can start building your follower base.
The best way to get followers is by telling your loyal customers or friends to share your business on their social media accounts. That way all their followers and friends will see your business and they will check it out. Unfortunately, there is to guarantee that you will build a huge follower base, but you have to stay consistent and update the account regularly. You can even post something from time to time and get engaged with the people that follow your business.
Don’t Forget Traditional Local Marketing
Because it is an old method of marketing, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work anymore. It is always good to give out a business card to people, that way you will know for sure that they have heard of your family business. Make flyers to promote your business around the whole city, make them interesting, put some special code on them that will give customers, for example, 10% off some of your products. You have to try out as much marketing methods as you can otherwise, you will never succeed.
The Best Ways to Save Money on Holidays
We all need a holiday from time to time, an opportunity to unwind from the rigors of the daily grind, and to reset the stress levels to somewhere near normal. However, the problem with a lot of holidays is, they are quite pricey, and can stretch a family’s finances to the limit. That being said, there are a few ways you can reap the benefits of having a holiday, which will not necessarily bust the budget, leaving you in the red for the rest of the year.
Consider Mid Week Flights:
The vast majority of people, when booking flights, choose to fly out to the destination of their choice on a Saturday. This makes sense – they finish work on a Friday, so it works out nicely to fly on the Saturday. However, weekend flights can be a lot more expensive. Consider flying on a Wednesday instead. You will find that flights are a lot cheaper. Sure, you may have to sacrifice some extra day’s of your annual leave allowance, but if these are paid days off, then you are not at a loss (rather, you’ll have made a great saving).
Consider the Location:
Have you got your heart set on Japan as the location of choice for your holiday this year? Why would that be? Could it be that someplace such as Thailand may also tick all of those same boxes? Alternative locations could end up much cheaper for accommodation, eating out and other holiday activities. Flights to other similar locations, in similar areas could make you some unbelievable savings. But if you have your heart set on a specific country, maybe consider heading away from the major tourist hubs. Let’s say you want to head to Ireland. By avoiding Dublin, and going to say, Sligo or Galway, you will not only make a saving worth a huge chunk of change, but you will be enriched by a more genuine experience of what the country is really like.
Avoid Re-Visiting Airline Sites to Judge Prices:
Have you ever visited an airline page, and seen a price that seemed ok or favourable, only to go back a few hours later, and find the price has jumped up? The price of the flight won’t have magically gone up in price. The website for the airline has tracked your IP address, and as you have visited again, you are obviously interested in this particular flight. So, they up the price! If possible, use a different computer or your cell phone to first gauge prices, and if they are agreeable, you can then book using your home PC.
While On Holiday’s, Eat Like The Locals:
Many holiday destinations have food havens for tourists, and have price lists specifically geared to this incumbent travellers. Keep an eye out, or ask around, for where the locals go to eat. You will find that the food is more authentic, and the prices a lot more favourable.
Tips On Running A Successful Family Business
To successfully run a family business, you have to have a lot of experience and knowledge about some important things. Without experience and knowledge, you will be struggling to run your family business. One thing that can have a huge impact on family businesses is the connection between those family members outside the workplace. We will use out experiences to help you and your family business to be successful. All you need to do is to read carefully through the whole article and implement some of the tips that we will now present to you.
Manage the Family Dynamics
This means that you must avoid taking your personal family problems to the workplace. The environment in the workplace must be totally different from your home environment. The relationships of family members usually are the thing that is keeping a business from succeeding. If you want to run a successful family business, you must learn how to leave some of the problems and issues at home. When you are at work, you should never mix your personal feelings in because that will lead to the breakdown of the business. Sort every problem out at home, before you go to the workplace, that is the best tip we can give you.
Have Someone Out of the Family Circle
It is very important to have a healthy balance in the business. If only family members are running the business, that can lead to some bad decisions because most likely that all of you will be thinking the same way. If you engage another person to have an opinion on how you should run your business, you will be balancing out the business. That one person can share his personal experience with you and give you some advice that can avoid conflicts between family members.
Put the Best People in the Right Roles
This is a very common problem in family businesses. They will put their family members higher up in some position just because he is a family member, even if he doesn’t qualify for that job position. That can be very bad for the business and for the other employees that are below that one person. In order to have a successful business, you have to make good and smart decisions. If your family member is not the best choice for a position, then you should not give him until he is ready and prepared to take over that position. Until then, put there someone that is experienced and knows how to operate. We highly recommend to never hire a family member just because he is a family member, that will never lead to you having a successful business.
The Best Budgeting Tools for Families
These days, it is harder and harder for families to get by, with the cost of living rising ever higher, while it seems that pay packets have stagnated, and don’t match the rise in the cost of just surviving. And we know it can be hard to come up with the funds to even just have a little well deserved treat for the family every so often. It is for reasons such as these that having an effective budget is essential for families. Here, we take a look at some of the budgeting tools you can use to help keep track of finances, plan expenses better, and maybe even find additional funds for those all important treats. Best of all – they are all free to use.
Mint.com
Seen as a lifesaver by all that use it, Mint.com has been around for a long time, and for good reason. This is an online tool that you can link to your financial accounts, so it automatically updates in real time. You can even use this tool to work towards retirement goals! With their easy to understand graphs and visual tools, making a keeping to a budget becomes easy.
Moneytrackin’
If you seem to be haemorrhaging money and cannot pin point exactly where this money disappears to each month, then this is the tool for you. With Moneytrackin’, you can monitor outgoings and see exactly where funds are going, making it easier to change behaviour. You can even use this tool if you run a small or home business.
My Spending Plan
My Spending Plan allows you to make better choices for your outgoings. Creating a plan is easy and quick, allowing you to set short term goals, and to plan for upcoming special events that require additional expense, such as birthdays. As well as this, the bill tracker keeps you totally up to date, emailing you reminders of bills that are upcoming. And perhaps best of all, you can also get coupons and money off vouchers through this service, that will better allow you to live within your means.
SavvyMoney
SavvyMoney is for those looking to take proactive steps to creating a budget. It will first provide you with an understanding of what your current situation is, finances wise. From there, you can create a plan to repay debts better, and to budget far more efficiently.
PocketGuard (Mobile)
For those looking to manage their budget on the move, PocketGuard is available on both iOS & Android stores. Linking your accounts and cards to this app (over a secured connection) means that PocketGuard can keep track of, and categorise your outgoings, showing you how much exactly you have remaining to spend, which allows you to avoid going into the red.
These are just a small number of tools that are available to families out there who could do with creating a budget to better track and plan their finances. Truth is, we could all use a budget to plan out our financial comings and goings.
The Best Financial Based Apps For Your Smart Devices
I don’t think there’s any of us out there that could not use a little help from time to time with managing of finances, preparing budgets, or any of the other monetary challenges placed in the way of today’s family units. In this article, we break down some of the better apps you can get for your smartphone or tablet, that will make the monotonous task of personal financial management that little bit easier to deal with. And best of all, these are all free in their respective stores.
Level Money:
Level Money is one of those apps that once gotten used of, becomes an essential tool for managing your finances. It allows you to calculate your remaining spendable money, after essential bills and other outgoings have been addressed. You can connect it directly to your accounts for real time updating of information, as money enters or exits your accounts. There is even a web version available, to give a better overall view for when you get back to the PC.
Qapital:
If you are hoping to keep track and manage your savings a little better, then Qapital is the app for you. Purely mobile based (no web app), Qapital also links directly to your accounts, so you can see at all times just how your savings are building. This app motivates the user to save even more, by making small daily changes to their routines. You can even set a budget target, and at the end of the month, if you are above the range set, the app can auto transfer the surplus to your savings account for you. Job done! Look this one up.
Venmo:
One of the best overall apps for making or sharing payments is Venmo. An alternative to PayPal, the fees for making or receiving payments are a lot more favourable at just 3%. And as you can link your debit / credit cards and bank account info into the app, you will have all you need to make and receive payments, right in the palm of your hand.
Stash Investment:
If you like to dabble a little in certain investments, such as stock market shares, then Stash Investment could be the app you didn’t even know you needed. Enabling you to both buy and sell through it’s easy to use interface, Stash Investments is perfect for keeping track of your portfolio. If you are only just getting started, all you need is $5 to start investing (there is a test account service available too, so you can see exactly how it works).
Mint:
I have detailed the Mint app before in a previous article, and this app comes highly recommended by all that use it. The online reviews speak for themselves with regard to this app. Surely one not to be overlooked.
These are just a few of the huge range of options available out there when it comes to financial based apps.