5 ways banks are attracting more customers

For a bank, getting customers are pretty difficult these days; launching great bank account offers is a plausible way to get new customers, but having great programs alone is not enough; you need to get your hands dirty and be active.

Since what you are offering are pretty much similar with your competitors, your bet way in soaring above the competition is by adding value to your conventional banking products. One of the most effective ways to add value is via rewards.

unique bank ad
Image by IK’s World Trip / Flickr

If you are involved with any banking institutions here are some ways banks can attract more customers to give you an idea or two:

1. Offering unique – even quirky – rewards

Giving new customers rewards are quite common (and still effective, somehow.) However, sometimes banks need to spice up their offers. Offering something unique that has never been offered by other banks will surely make a bank stands out above the rest. For example, Hanmi Bank has given customers a bag of rice (!) for opening a checking account (source: MyBankTracker.com) The sky is the limit!

2. Ask customers for referrals – and reward them

Customers are banks’ best evangelists. If a bank’s service is top-notch, chances are customers will likely to tell their friends and colleagues about it. How about encouraging your customers to get you referrals by giving them rewards – shopping vouchers, etc. ?

3. Partnership

A good partnership is always crucial for any type of businesses – including banks. Partnering with, say, an education institution can allow you tap onto a strong customer base (students, teachers, etc.) How about cross-selling with a, say, department store to give customers special discounts if they have an account with your bank?

4. Use social media

Just like many traditional industry, banks are slow to adopt social media. According to The New York Times, banks are slow to embrace social media. Given the success of others in social media arena, banks should embrace social media more.

5. Go back to the basics

This is probably the best way to attract customers to your bank: Build a relationship in a good, old fashion way. Help customers with their needs – nurture and care them well. No advertising budget to spend; just focus your efforts in serving your customers. Local customers are indispensable, indeed.

So, there you go – some of the most effective ways for banks to attract more customers. Of course, there are many other (creative) ways a bank can do to get new customers; so if you have any please share with us by leaving your comments below.

Factors to Consider When Thinking About Starting a Business

Starting up you own business is often seen as a way of achieving a very comfortable working environment and making a lot more money than if you stay working for someone else. All of this is very often true, and a lot of people do make a lot of money from their own businesses.

There are also a number of advantages, from being your own boss and setting your own working hours to longer holidays, picking the jobs and contracts or type of work that you want to do, (rather than being told), building relationships with your customers and your staff and the satisfaction of building something that contributes to your community and provides for your family. These are all great advantages and all possible for anyone who does start their own business. However, a lot of people start out with rose tinted glasses and don’t weigh up the other side of the coin – how risky it can be going out on your own and what a massive decision it is to leave a career and work for yourself. Being your own boss also means the buck stops with you and there is no safety net.

Entering startup
Image by dierken / Flickr

If you are thinking about making the leap, here are some of the questions you should ask yourself first:

1. Can You Afford the Risk You Will Be Taking?

Starting your own business is a lot easier when you are younger and don’t have so many dependents. If you’ve got kids and a mortgage, outstanding debts and not much leeway financially, then you should think long and hard about starting your own business. You must weigh up what would happen if the business was to fail and how such a failure would affect you financially. Then work out how it would affect your family if it failed. Additionally it is necessary to weigh up how long your family could cope with a smaller income (or none at all) that would inevitably come with the first few months of starting your business.

2. Have You Got A Financial Safety Net?

If you have a family and people that depend on you for your income then the only way to start a business safely is with a financial safety net in place just in case things don’t work out as well as you hope they will. A financial safety net could be anything from a large amount of untouchable savings to stocks and shares to a family home that is fully paid off. Make certain that your family home and savings are fully protected from any potential failure of your business (talk to an accountant about this) and that you have something set aside should everything go wrong.

3. Have You Budgeted Enough Money for Your New Start Up?

However much you have budgeted for your new venture, it probably wont be enough. There are always costs that people forget about or underestimate so it is essential to have a good business plan and then get a financial expert to look over that business plan and critique it. Think about the startup costs of everything from leasing an office to buying furniture and stationery, computer equipment and setting up utilities. Then there will be website hosting, website design, SEO, copywriting as well as the cost of creating business brochures and cards and other forms of advertising. Once you’ve thought about all that you need to consider how much to pay yourself (and other staff) as well as the cost of business rates and other expenses. Lastly, there will be the costs of your lawyer and your accountant, both necessary when starting a business.

4. Can You Commit the Time to a Business Start-Up?

Again, if you have a family or a busy social life, are you willing to make the necessary sacrifices to make your business work? Almost certainly in the first year or two you will have less time available to spend with your family or to socialize with friends. If you don’t feel you will be able to commit nearly all of your time to the business and will be able to drop everything when an emergency, or big client, comes along, then starting your own business might not be for you. Similarly, make sure your family is ok with your decision too, as this will affect them as much as it does you.

About the Author: Esther is a business blogger and writer. She blogs every week about business and finance issues covering everything from business loans to credit cards and from small business marketing to SEO. She also blogs about consumer finance and short term loans for a payday loans uk blog.

Because the Best Things Come in Beautiful Packages

With how the internet has made the world so much smaller, the World Wide Web has essentially become one giant marketplace where buyers and sellers can meet. Online shopping has become all the rage and online merchants have increased in numbers by leaps and bounds. With all this, the shipping industry has also cashed in on this phenomenon.

Internet sellers are aware of the costs of shipping not just in terms of fees but also in the risk of tarnishing their reputation in case something wrong happens to their shipments while in transit. Savvy merchants know that there is more to packaging than just mere wrapper. Here are the advantages of using only excellent quality packaging materials in your business:

Puma reusable bag
Image by Rob Stinnett / Flickr

1. In tact products = happy customers.

Despite the fact that your freight provider is liable for any damage, nobody wants to go through the hassles of contacting the shipping company to ask for a refund and waiting days (if not weeks) to get the money, and you certainly do not want your customers to go through that very taxing process if you want to land on their good side. The popularity of mailing bags has increased throughout the years especially since they were designed to withstand shipping being durable enough to resist tears and are water resistant.

2. Go green and make more green.

With a growing sector of society being more environmentally conscious, consumers have become more discerning of the businesses that they patronize, making sure that they choose only those who use reusable materials. Using paper packaging can spark outcry from customers who think that the world can do better with less trees being cut to be made into envelopes. Mailing bags that are made of synthetic material with self-sealing flaps ensure that that every package you mail out is sealed tight while transit but still easy to open. And these bags are reusable, too.  

3. Win them over with their presentation.

Just because you’re an online merchant doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start building your brand by treating your customers to a kind of experience they won’t get with any other internet seller. Mailing bags come in different colors and may even be customized without their quality being compromised. The visual impact of using colorful mailing bags may be underappreciated by some online merchants, but just imagine how excited your customers will be when they get that particular, familiar pink package in the mail?

About the Author: Adeson Deon writes about excellent business packaging through the use of mailing bags

How The ‘One Technique’ Will Take Your Business To The Next level

I know it might seem wise to be doing hundreds of things at once, but you are actually spreading yourself out too thin. Having hundreds of items to sell is a silly tactic. You might think you’ll make more money by giving people more options, but it doesn’t work this way. And you can’t learn multiple traffic methods and expect to be great at all of them.

You need the ‘one technique’ to become successful. To take your business to the next level. To make lots of money and become rich so that you can vacation whenever you want. So you can run your empire while lying on the beach somewhere in the Caribbean. But what is the ‘one technique?’ Let’s look at the technique that will take you to the next level.

one technique
Image by andrechinn / Flickr

One product

Yes, only one. By having only one product it means you can pour your heart and soul into it. You can make it the best product you could possibly make. By giving it absolutely everything it will guarantee it’s going to be better than any of your competitors products. That’s what you want to be aiming for. Make it so good people come back when you bring out the next one.

There is also a physiological advantage to this. Basically, if you give someone too much choices they won’t know what to do. Instead of buying any of your products they will just leave your website. Instead they will go to your competitor who only has one. After all, why would they trust you if you have dozens of products? Your competitor believes in his enough to only sell one.

One traffic source

Contrary to popular belief it’s almost impossible to learn multiple methods of traffic generation at the same time. If you try to learn five it means you are only putting in 20% of the required work for each method. It means it will take you 5x longer to see any results. It also means you will be eating food out of a tin until you get your act together.

What method do you think would work well with your business? You have to think seriously about that question, because if you try the wrong one it could end up in disaster. Once you know which one you can get stuck in and learn all the ins and outs. Pay for a course so you will get up to speed much faster.

One sales funnel

It doesn’t matter what one you choose. Just have one and you can send your customers down the exact same path. When you only have one, guess what? Once again you can pour all your energy into the one thing. It means it’s going to be absolutely fantastic and your conversions will go up. You also have the opportunity to easily test it constantly until you hit the sweet spot.

One year

You heard me right. You can’t just expect to build a successful business in a day. Sometimes it takes a long time to eventually guarantee success. You know how long Twitter was around for until it became the huge beast it is today. It means you will need to take something and spend a long time on it until you get success. If you don’t you’ll just be that guy who changes ideas every few weeks and never hits the big time.

One million

This should keep you working hard through the long, tiring days. The whole point in having a business is to make it as great as possible. This also includes profit. Keep in mind that as soon as you get going you should constantly be tweaking all the stages to make sure you are making as much money as possible. You need it to put food on your table, or hire that private jet. Don’t worry if you don’t make it to a million, but dream big.

About the Author: Hi, I am Matt, I like writing about business tips and techniques that can resolve business problems at once! I offer you packages of Company formations from Stanley Davis and a superior customer service based on many years of experience in the industry.

Why an Online POS System is Good For Your Business

A point of sale system plays an important role in retail business. If you wish to streamline your sales, it is essential that you choose a POS system that is efficient. When compared to the traditional systems used in stores, cloud POS systems are more efficient, and offer a number of benefits to the business owner. Besides convenience and improved efficiency, the cloud or online POS can help you save a lot of money in the process. Here is a note on some of the many advantages of switching to the cloud-based point-of-sale systems for your store:

cloud pos software

Reliability

When you choose the POS cloud system, which is offered in the SaaS or software-as-a-service model, the system downtime reduces drastically, as any problems in the system are usually fixed by the vendor immediately. This means, you wont have to worry about POS failure at rush hour, when your best customers visit the store to spend on your products.

Security

Another notable advantage of choosing a cloud POS is security. In the cloud-based systems, all the data related to the sales, the customer details etc. are saved on the remote servers of the cloud. When compared to the traditional systems, where the data is stored on hard disk of your computer, the online POS system is much more secure, as it removes the threat of data loss due to system crashes.

Compatibility

When you choose a specific POS software, there is often an issue of compatibility with the hardware that you use. But the cloud-based POS system is accessed online, through the internet, and is compatible with almost every device that is internet-enabled. This means you can access the POS system from your laptop, tablet or desktops, and even some of the smartphone models. So as long as the device you use has an internet browser, you should be able to access the system.

Easy Access

The data in the cloud-based model is stored in remote servers, which enable easy access online, no matter where you are. This is a big advantage for business owners who are frequently travelling. With the online POS systems, you don’t have to be tied up to the store any more. You can access the details and monitor the transactions and even rectify any issues in real time, round the clock. This not only improves the quality of service you provide your customers, but also ensures that you don’t lose them due to technical flaws.

More options with POS online

The online point of sale model gives businesses the freedom to choose the hardware of their choice, as long as the devices are WI-Fi or internet enabled. Not only that, business owners can focus on other aspects of the company instead of worrying about security of the data in their systems. More than anything else, the cloud-based POS model is designed to remove the technical difficulties that bog down retail business owners on a day to day basis.

About the Author: Claire Coulson is an expert associated with Triquestra, offering powerful business management solutions to retailers. The company offers Infinity Cloud, an online POS system that can support complex business models and structures, and reduce costs too.