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Doing your "PEST control" ensures good health and a strong pulse for your business. P.E.S.T analysis essentially means macro environmental evaluations such as Political & Legal, Economic, Social and Technological.

Economic environment could make or break your business. In 2008, the US sub-prime issue has become the main trigger for global financial crisis which not only affected the housing market but nearly every facet of the economy by virtue of its spillover effect. The interest rate at time of writing, is 2 percent, a far cry from 4 percent a year ago. Banks tighten their lending belts and business loan borrowing become more difficult to obtain. But if you manage to get that business loan, you should be incurring a much lower interest repayment.

One Social factor which is rapidly growing in importance is the environment. And making money does not have to be at the expense of the planet. Investors can still prosper while incorporating factors such as climate change, sustainable development, human rights and labour laws into their investment decisions.

Business consulting companies have sprung into the scene with business models dedicated to integrating environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) considerations into management and investment processes. And nearly every large corporation nowadays are involved in one way or another in reducing carbon emission to the ozone and in dealing with climate change.

Oil, gas and mining companies were amongst the first to seriously consider these issues within their business strategies, but it has taken a fast track beyond strategies. As business landscape evolves, the companies have begun evaluating their initial success and failures, tweaking the evolving business model for the best fit. For instance, Shell is executing plans in energy security, to be a socially responsible corporate citizen. Many more industry related companies are jumping on the bandwagon in Social responsibility investment and business management .

And in view of the changing business landscape, investors are collectively beginning to incorporate these factors into their investments, henceforth, forcing existing businesses in related industries to adapt. They term this as Responsible Investments and are confident that environmentally conscious corporations are better placed for out performance in the long term.

Understand that climate changes and energy management could well be the next wave for mankind as well as a key business potential area for your business.

And the future wave of investment trend would be Socially Responsible Investment . We are entering an astoundingly fast pace of change within the responsibility industry with investors from every region taking action on environmental, social and governance issues.

So, is Embracing the Environment Your Investment Prerogative yet?

The Product Life Cycle describes the life path of a product, somewhat like the life stages of a human life. All products go through four stages, namely the Introduction, Growth, Maturity & Decline stages . Every product has a life cycle.

The Product Life Cycle helps you to identify the current life stages of your products. As a marketer, you need to thoroughly understand your product life cycle for purpose of planning to phase their life-stage.

For multiple products life cycles , the marketer’s task is more complex as he or she needs to map the various life stages of each of the products to stagger and phase them across the product universe in order that each product life cycle is fully optimize for cash generation across the business horizon.

This analysis is a fluid document which needs to be revisited annually for planning purpose. The reason being that most product life cycles do not follow a straight line path throughout . Unforeseen factors namely sudden changes in need of your product increasing your business risks could shorten the cycle, or even force the product to skip its stages. Conversely, favorable circumstance such as changes in government regulations as could also lengthen the cycle and extend the various stages.

Hence, certain life cycles have potential of being extended and if you truly believe that your product has other potential uses not maximized currently, and particularly so for Cash Cow products as in BCG Matrix , you should pro-actively look to rejuvenating the life cycles of such products at their matured and declining stages.

Product development is an absolute critical tool in rejuvenating the life cycle. Ideas could be generated from the various components of the product development process namely from enhancing or changing the product features, adding new usages for the product, enhancing the product manufacturing process, product packaging technological innovation, creative and unique channel delivery process etc.

An example is baking soda, which is traditionally used for baking cakes and facing decline stage in the product life cycle. The innovative product development and marketing departments worked together to discover a creative and very practical new usage of utilizing baking soda as an odor-removing agent. This has since enhanced sales leap and bounds.

The eventual success of Product Life Cycle Rejuvenation largely depends on various factors namely the level of innovation, extent of re-positioning of the rejuvenated product, degree of penetration into new market segments.

As a smart marketer, you must carefully weigh the pros and cons of product rejuvenation. The ultimate decisions whether to rejuvenate a product and extend its life cycle depend largely on costs associated with the process as well as the ability of your company to successfully re-position the rejuvenated product and convince potential existing and new customers of your new product usages and value add.

A new multi-media trend, the Visual CV concept is giving at least one recruitment search firm a new channel to attract Internet savvy job seekers via an integrated multi-media approach to self-expression. This could probably become the fut ure trend for recruitment search firms to rejuvenate their "not so exciting" fraternity.

This is what I would deem as the "Digital Personal Advertising Tool " for job seekers.

According to the email I received recently, the said recruitment firm has spent a surmountable amount of money to create a "VisualCV". This opens up a one-stop avenue for the internet savvy individual to display his or her personal, academic and professional achievements.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the "VisualCV… lets job seekers create an online resume that can include work samples, references’ video testimonials and a visual for accomplishments , such as a chart showing surpassed sales targets ."

And the awesome power of the Visual CV lies in its ability to link with LinkedIn, Facebook page, blog and email signature in the form of internet bio that makes you searchable to any interested party.

While there are obvious advantages to adopting the Visual CV, more private or the less internet savvy personalities would be largely disadvantaged should the Visual CV mode of self representation becomes an "industry norm".

In addition, the attraction of the Visual CV would appeal more to the up-and-coming, aspiring mid level managers trying to impress recruiters of their web networking skills. On the contrary, as we all know in the recruitment fraternity, top notch managers could either be too taken up managing their corporations then maintaining a very personal Facebook account of themselves or LinkedIn with others! In any case, most of the top notch managers are sought after, not out their seeking career changes…

Having said that, the VisualCV is touted as the latest excitement for the quiet and slowly evolving recruitment industry, a handy self-marketing tool for internet savvy job seekers, and a hassle for the less internet exposed ones. Well, one man’s meat is another man’s poison…

Job seekers, food for thought…?

In any type of business, at least about 60% adopt niche marketing approaches. How then can we leverage upon the true power of niche marketing?

The trick is to find your niche within your 4Ps marketing mix, propagate your niche offerings and ensure sustainability. Niche marketing is a subset of marketing, meaning that you adopt similar principles of marketing and "find the niche" using the 4ps marketing mix, components of which are Product, Pricing, Promotion and Place.

Let us assume that you are in a brick and mortar business, carry a me-too product, me-too pricing, and has limited promotion budget. Are you still able to niche your business? Sure, when You Dominate Your Market Space, of course!

You can create your niche in "Place", or namely the "Location". Choose your Location or your Market Space carefully and dominate your Niche Market.

There are 5 Key Niche Business Approaches to Dominate your Market Space:

Go To Your Niche Markets &/or Create Your Very Own Niche Market

• Define Your potential location
• Do the necessary market research
• Confirm unmet need gaps of your niche target market that your business is capable of fulfilling
• Confirm the sustainability of demand for your niche business
• Locate your business within that defined targeted segment of your community
• Example - Setting up an cyber-gaming arcade near a cluster of high schools within a unexploited suburb

Ride on Others with Your Business Niche

• This pertains to complementary product offerings that your business provides to your defined niche target segments.
• Locate your business in a Market Space where you complement other related products, henceforth fulfilling the supply chain sufficiency.
• Remember, Complement. Do not Compete!
• Example - Setting up a café next to the cyber-gaming/arcade in the above example, with the assumption that no complementary cafés are within the vicinity

Continued Dominance of Your Niche Market

Of course, continued dominance of your niche market is more than the above. You must ensure the following:

Your business must have Sustainable Competitive Advantage

• Ensure that your Unique Selling Points are long term and true propositions to your niche target segment fulfilling real needs

Your Business must have Strong Dominating Branding

• Differentiate your Business with "Addictively" Memorable Mind-Share Elements namely Unique product offerings, Services or cost leadership strategies which provides a strong sustaining "hook" on the niche target

Your business must "Annihilate" All Potential New Entrant Threats

• Provide vertically integrated and comprehensive product offerings such that there is limited or no opportunity for competition or complimentary business lines to co-exist

The Kissing Fish Therapy - Another innovative alternative wellness business idea brought to you by BusinessFast4ward for budding entrepreneurs and marketers out there..

Imagine yourself floating in a wonderfully warm spa of 35 degrees at a hot spring resort. Then imagine yourself being nibbled & gnawed by hundreds of tiny garra rufa aka kissing fish . And imagine emerging from the spa totally refreshed with glowing skin … The magic?

The Kissing Fish of course! There are endearing terms for these kissing fish the Cyprinion macrostomus (Strikers) and Garra rufa (Lickers). And the amazing healing process begins when these strikers and lickers starts feeding on the flaking skin which are actually a buildup of dead skin cells which appears on any skin surface, though the knees, elbows, scalp, and trunk are the most common locations. The feeling is something like hundreds of tweezers and tiny suction cups pecking away at your skin. Couple this with the conducive warm circulation of the hot spring spa, and you get rejuvenated glowing skin!

It is said that repeated course of treatment over a 21 day period for more serious cases of skin disorders such as Psoriasis and Dermatitis.

Kissing Fish Therapy converts, be them patients or wellness seekers have heeled the globe searching for the perfect kissing fish therapy with hot spring spas in Japan, South Korea, China and Europe being the most popular. In the Far East, Singapore, Qian Hu Fish Farm & Underwater World in Sentosa and The Kampong Fish Therapy are the new kids on the block.

So, Take a break, go spa with the fishes!

* Note : Patients with open wounds and weak immune systems are not encouraged to pursue this alternative approach in view of possible bacterial infections

marketing

Demographics denote the hard statistics like age, income, geographical details etc. Psychographics essentially denotes a person’s interest, attitudes and opinions. Technographics is a new term, an approach of consumer analysis categorizing the behavioral usage and ownership of information, communication & entertainment technologies. This segmentation approach is more of a focused category of the psychographics which is becoming increasingly important to marketers.

You need to gather or purchase direct mailing lists with the capability to drill down to not only the demographics but also psychographics which are namely life style and life stage behavioral needs. Better still, if the lists include data information on technographics.

Mapping your demographic Direct Marketing listing with psychographic as well as techno-graphic characteristics give much greater accuracy and hence effectiveness.

In fact, marketers will have very distorted perspectives of their Direct Marketing subjects otherwise.

Let us explore this with an illustration:

What would you have sold to your prospect simply with the information that your subject is limited to - Age 50, income group US$200,000 per annum?

And what would you have sold him if you had also known that this person is enjoying an early retirement with a $200,000 per annum investment income, lives in downtown Manhattan, is a digital products fanatic, frequents 5-star Italian restaurants, travels 4 times a year, is a philanthropist, plays golf weekly, and does Pilates twice a week with his 2nd wife (who is 20 years younger)

Indeed, Food for thought for serious direct marketers…

"Thank you for your feedback. We truly appreciate your valuable opinion and will revert to you within one working day… "

Whenever someone takes the trouble to write an email to lodge a complaint to you, you should be glad for the opportunity. You should always revert to complaints promptly within 24 hours. This is the standard response time frame for call complaints as well as email complaints.

Set Your Complaint Management Process as follows:

• Set your response time to within 24 hours for email enquiries. Never keep the person waiting.
• Empower you staff with comprehensive Complaint FAQs to attend to call or email complaints or queries.
• Over-deliver with an earlier revert within half a day
• Delight them with a solution to the complaint together with a complimentary product or service voucher.

If You Are Unable to Provide a Solution Within One Working Day:

• Still, take the initiative to revert to customer within 1 day with an interim message such as "We are in the midst of reviewing your feedback, the outcome of which might require more time. We appeal to your understanding and will revert to you immediately after we have come to a conclusion."…
• Make sure you keep the customer updated throughout the process . Your customer-centric efforts will pay off.

At Closure:

• At your final revert to complete the process, send the complainant a thank you card for feedback (regardless of whether you are in the wrong) together with a complimentary gift or free voucher . This will keep them coming back to you.

Below you will see the original email from an XXX head hunting firm from which I received a couple of days ago, suggesting that I link up with them at Facebook or Friendster.

Companies of all sizes and across all industries are leveraging upon the ripple effects of social networking platforms . They are latching onto the bandwagon of Social Networking, and even P&G leveraged their product promotions in Facebook.

Many companies are re-creating products with feedback collated from online social communities at the same time generating awareness, build brands with the eventual objective to generate revenue over time.

Therein lies great business opportunities for avid online social networkers, so leverage this tool wisely.

So start marketing and branding yourself (albeit tactfully) in social networking communities and turn Leisure into Business Opportunities!

Now Who Says You Can’t Mix Business With Leisure??

–

The email :

Career Opportunities from XXX-Search : We are on FaceBook and Friendster

Hi,

Hope this email finds you well. I am Jane Doe from XXX-Search.

We have created Facebook and Friendster account for XXX Search. If you already have a Facebook, Friendster account then do add us at JaneDoe@xxx-search.com . If you are not already on, do open an account.

We are trying out to use FaceBook and Friendster to provide alerts on new positions from time to time. It would also be an excellent way to keep in touch till a really good position for you comes up.

See you online!

In the meantime, do check out our Career Gallery for possible positions. www.xxx-search.com/_careers.html

If by any chance that to some, this idea has caused a certain degree of discomfort, I sincerely offer my greatest apologies.

But the above mentioned literally in the heading of this post, is a relatively new concept for the eastern and zen communities of the world which I felt compelled to share with my readers.

This concept could have been a morphing process adapting the western concept of virtual churches.

The Virtual temples have sermons, blogs and forums with even prayers’ rooms to boot. Some include an e-commerce marketplace to sell related spiritual items.

Advantages of Virtual spiritual worshipping sites literally helps to save travel time and storage space, are very convenient. The biggest disadvantage is of course, reduced physical interaction with members of the specific institutions.

The lesson to take home here is, if your business has anything to do with transiting or expanding from brick and mortar to a virtual world concept, the concept of virtual temples may be an inspiration to you.

As I build upon this concept, I draw parallels to the potential (or already existing) in Virtual Pet Cemeteries complete with Virtual Niches…. Well, morbid but it is food for thought…

How often are you tempted to adopt a broad niche market segment, hoping that more visitors will find your website or blog either through search or from referrals and links. The facts run contrary to the expectations. So hold your horses if you are hoping that it is easy to generate to your site focused traffic driven by very niche target segments as there are some real facts you need to understand.

Always remember, for some things, it’s better Less than More !

To understand why online niche marketing has sprung up as a euphorically huge topic of discussion within the internet fraternity is equivalent to understanding as simple as how people search the Internet for information.

Let us use a comparison to illustrate. Take for instance, you own a brick and mortar shop called The Brick, a physical entity tangible and locatable. Now visualise how people search for directions and arrive at your The Brick. People within a certain locale take out a street directory, or a tangible map of your county to physically search out The Brick. And once there, you shop the aisle like no tomorrow with all the time and money to spend.

Now, take for instance you own a website called OnlineNicheMarketing.com … a new site which I do own and only recently started building.

Again, visualize how people search and arrive at your site. In actual fact, people Do Not Search for your site!

To start, if they are searching for materials on niche marketing on the internet, they could be trying the following key phrases in quotes "internet niche marketing", "niche marketing online", "online niche marketing", "niche web marketing" or simply "niche marketing". For each key phrase, they get a long list of search returns with some variations, and with some luck, your site is listed within.

Needless to say, with such a long list of search returns, your web timeshare is scaled down to mere 10s of seconds before they switch to the next site for good if your content is not specific enough or impressive enough to retain them!

There are several variables in this very different paradig m , the more important ones being - The probability of "your niche" chosen as key phrase and being searched, the number of similar topical websites competing with you, how well you niche your topics and articles at your site, how well you do your site ranking homework, etc…

Let’s hope the above experiment has convinced you that by way of how people search the internet, it is critical to select an appropriately narrow niche segment with sufficient demand and unfilled supply which you are confident in dominating .

But most importantly, as I have mentioned in my last article at onlinenichemarketing.com, choose a niche that you have passion in building and bonding with . This makes online niche marketing all the more exciting.

So do it with a passion!

Good Luck!