Reza Rad

Most small businesses understand the importance of a business plan, but today an online marketing strategy is just as vital. From gaining new customers to getting your SEO on track, our new SmartCompany short course, Powerful online marketing: 10 essential lessons for SMEs, brought to you by Sensis, will get you on track. Lesson #1 Online marketing fundamentals: set your strategy Identify your goals, define your target market and examine the online marketing fundamentals you need. Lesson #2 Combine functionality and design for a killer website Learn how to create a website that not only looks good but is straightforward to use. Lesson #3 User experience is essential to the success of your site We look at how the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) can make a big difference to your results. Lesson #4 Embrace mobile technologies and boost your sales Learn why optimising your website for smartphone and tablet users is vital for customer conve...

when somebody is talking about strategy, he is not talking about like a miracle, it is about one of the most realistic activities in the company. It is all about what the company needs, why needs to have this and how will plan to keep the track. I saw many companies, which were trying to preparing a strategic plan, and some of their managers smiles and will tell you," hey, you know, you can prepare them, they are really necessary for us, but, you know who wants to implement its tools and use them?" These kind of questions show you that they don't believe on what you are talking about, it is as simple as what I am telling you. And after a while, the company spends million dollars for implementing its plans and there is no result, just paying money, using the best software and nothing! Because it is not all about software or hardware, it is just because of lack of trust. Trust to change and its necessity of change.

In their book Start Your Own Business , the staff of Entrepreneur Media Inc. guides you through the critical steps to starting your business, then supports you in surviving the first three years as a business owner. In this edited excerpt, the authors explain the simple steps involved with creating a marketing plan for your new business. Everyone knows you need a business plan, yet many entrepreneurs don’t realize a marketing plan is just as vital. Unlike a business plan, a marketing plan focuses on winning and keeping customers; it's strategic and includes numbers, facts and objectives. A good marketing plan spells out all the tools and tactics you’ll use to achieve your sales goals. It’s your plan of action—what you’ll sell, who'll want to buy it and the tactics you’ll use to generate leads that result in sales. And unless you’re using your marketing plan to help you gain funding, it doesn’t have to be lengthy or beautif...

3 June 2015 Russ Fradin As a B2B marketer, you probably actively engage on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to tap into their broad audiences. But if you’re haphazardly present on LinkedIn — or not there at all — you could be closing the door to massive brand reach and leads for your company.   Both Facebook and Twitter are valuable tools for staying on your audience’s radar, but when it comes to nurturing real business connections, LinkedIn should be your social media platform of choice. Why LinkedIn? LinkedIn has managed to establish a network for users driven by thought leadership. It’s become the go-to publishing platform for brand marketers in the B2B space to share their knowledge and expertise in a public forum — one that’s completely integrated with past and present colleagues.   But an active LinkedIn presence also allows marketers to drive engagement, interest, conversations, and ultimately l...

Social media is starting to take off its short pants. It’s becoming all grown up. In fact, Facebook is now over 11 years old and heading towards platform puberty and is still the standout leader of the pack. Google with its Google+ platform (with a development cost of over half a billion dollars) tried to take Mark Zuckerberg on, but it has become an incidental social network that isn’t taken seriously by many marketers. They play there but don’t want to work there. There are even rumours that Google is going to break it up into separate digital products by segmenting the components that got traction… like Google hangouts and photos. The emerging trends The biggest trend over the last 12 months has been the move from earned marketing attention (sometimes called free) to “pay to play”. Another is the impact of social messaging platforms such as Snapchat and Whatsapp that have become “quasi social networks” in their own right. It’s a social web shift that is d...

Many years ago, I met an experienced business analyst and explained him how I was proud of my documents which I had prepared regarding a big project. He smiled at me and told me"not always everything is related to what you have prepared, sometimes, the project will go its way and your documents will not handle anything". That day I was angry of him, ant thought how a famous business analyst could be a man like him. But now, after this long journey I believe on what he mentioned and I understood how a manager can make his/her decision without caring about what you have prepared and how much time you spent on it.

by Anne Fisher   Yes, people really do get paid to taste ice cream. Or play video games. Or fly a blimp. When it comes to low paying drudgery with a dismal future, newspaper reporter and lumberjack have been called the worst . On the other hand, some jobs seem more like play. Just for a lark, the folks at London-based shopping site Savoo scoured postings on U.S. job boards, help-wanted ads in American media, and other sources stateside to find the occupations that sound like the most fun. They came up with this ranking, listed in ascending order of average salary: Disneyland “face character” – $32,000 Job description: Dress up and perform as a famous Disney character Requirements: Strict rules regarding height and appearance, plus some acting ability. “Must be good with children.” Video game player – $50,000, plus newest game releases Job description: Assist other players to achieve higher scoring levels in games Requirements: Love for video games, plus som...