Achieving Cost-Effective Growth through Sponsorship

If you’re looking for a way to differentiate your business from the other firms in your niche and increase its visibility across your trade area, sponsorship may be your answer. There are many ways to use sponsorship to drive your sales, but its most effective uses are often its most obvious. Regardless of your company’s size and sales goals, you can use the following primer on corporate sponsorship to take your business to the next level.

Consider Your Audience

As a small business owner, your trade area may be fairly circumscribed. While you’d no doubt prefer to expand your business beyond its current narrow confines, you can use sponsorship opportunities to your advantage while you’re still small. Look for manageable, community-focused organizations and events that need sponsors, like youth athletic tournaments, high school plays and county fairs and parades. You’ll generate tremendous goodwill by sponsoring such events, which don’t usually register on the radar of major corporations. Regardless, state athletic tournaments, minor-league sports clubs, and civic construction projects are all worthy investments.

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Budget Considerations

Generally speaking, the size of your advertising budget will be proportional to your annual revenues but the reality is more complicated than that. When choosing between sponsorship opportunities, first determine whether you’ll be an exclusive sponsor. You should avoid buying into the lowest rungs of tiered sponsorship opportunities: There are so many businesses down there that it’ll be difficult for yours to gain separation from the pack.

Just as importantly, you’ll want to confer with the sponsored event’s organizers beforehand to work out a hard-and-fast budget. Draw up some type of contract outlining your duties and expectations as a sponsor, with exact fees laid out to the extent possible. You don’t want to publicly air dirty laundry and squander the goodwill that your sponsorship has generated.

Marketing Strategy

You’re sadly mistaken if you think you can just pay for a sponsorship and then sit back and watch the sales roll in. Successful sponsorships require aggressive legwork before, during and after the sponsorship’s active period. Common sponsorship support activities include:

  • Merchandising: If you’re sponsoring an athletic tournament or other such discrete event, consider releasing a line of clothing or kitchenware that tastefully promotes both the event and your business.
  • Invitations: Again, you don’t want to be seen as crass, but inviting your most reliable clients and suppliers to the sponsored event will go a long way towards growing your business. Be sure to highlight other your other community-building activities when you do.
  • Coordination: If you’re not the event or organization’s exclusive sponsor, pay careful attention to your co-sponsors and try to coordinate with them as much as practicable. If you especially like the way any specific co-sponsors do business, approach them after the fact to gauge their interest in future partnerships, even if your businesses have little in common. Good companies make everyone with whom they interact look attractive by association.

Securing favorable sponsorships for your business can be more difficult than it would appear, especially if you’re a local concern with a limited advertising budget. By sponsoring realistic events and organizations, using your sponsorships as a promotional platform to grow your sales, and working closely with fellow sponsors on future partnerships, sponsoring a local soccer team or civic organization may turn out to be the best business decision you’ve ever made.

About the Author: Linda Rhimes is a freelance blogger and occasionally writes for Delivery.com – a site she loves using to find Pizza Delivery Local.

How to Make Your Own Business Cards

As a business owner, it’s essential that you have a business card to hand out to potential customers anywhere, any time. Creating a unique, eye-catching card doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive. All it takes is a little imagination and some decisions on how best to produce your cards.

Templates

One of the easiest ways to start creating a card for your business is to browse templates for programs such as Microsoft Publisher and Word. These can be downloaded for free from the Microsoft website and imported into programs on your computer. From there, you can add custom text and images to make the card look just the way you want.

Be sure to include your business name, physical address, phone number and e-mail address on the card. If you have specific contact numbers or extensions for customer service, product inquiries or technical support, you may wish to include those as well. And don’t forget to put your company logo in a prominent place so people will remember at a glance who they got the card from.

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Image: Lenore Edman / Flickr

Specialty Paper

If you’re going to be printing your own business card designs, choosing the right paper is important. You should seek out sturdy, high-quality paper so that your finished cards appear clean and professional. Companies such as Avery make special business card stock just for this purpose. You might also be able to find card stock that is already divided into individual boxes, so all you have to do is print your designs and punch the cards out along a set of perforated lines.

Online Services

A wider selection of templates and printing options may be found online. Many services offer an initial free run of business cards. This allows you to get a small number of your chosen card for just the cost of shipping so you can see your design in practice before investing money in a larger run. It always pays to shop around, so take the time to research the different options to find one that’s right for your business and your budget. If you still prefer to print your own cards and just need a user-friendly template selection to get you started, a service like Business Card Star can help in your design efforts.

Having all of your information on a concise, attractive card makes it easy to connect with potential customers and remind others that your business is always there when they need it. With the variety of templates and services available, you can have the perfect business card printed in no time.

About the Author: The article is written by Jo Turnbull. There are many different printing services throughout Australia which offer affordable business card design and printing. For printing and web design services, visit your local printing company.

Affordable Web Design – Does it Exist?

The answer is of course yes. If you are starting out on your own you need a website, but you will not have the budget to build an expensive one. You may need to manage your own website expectations to ensure it is within budget. Here are a few ways you can have the website you want without breaking the bank.

1. Create a brief

This is important so that you clearly lay out what you want and do not want in your website. It does not have to be a large document, just clearly lays out your objectives of the website, the functionality which you can sometimes forget when you are in the middle of creating your site

2. Use off the shelf packages

It is not cheating if you use content management systems (CMS) like WordPress or Drupal. Personally, I would recommend WordPress as it is much easier to use than other CMS. Plus you will always be able to download the latest update so you do not have to worry about your website being out of date.

3. Keep it simple

You may want to have a fantastic website that has lots of images, videos and sharing widgets. You may also want a unique colour on your site, not one that other people have. Although this may sound good, it all makes it far more complicated and hence expensive. Choose a Pantone colour that already exists, that way you can easily recreate it off line as well, such as in a business card or any other marketing material. Use only a few relevant images, having too many on a website will slow the site down. If you want a video, don’t host it on your site, have a YouTube channel and host it there, just embed it on your website.

4. Hire graduates

If you really want to build a website from scratch, contact local Universities and ask them if they know any students who are studying web design if they want some experience working for you. Many students will have to complete a final year project as park of their degree in which they have to design and build a fully functioning website.

There are many affordable web design options out there in the market, you just have to look a bit harder to find them. Think out of the box, perhaps if you have time but little funds, work with the graduate developer you have hired. Or teach yourself how to use WordPress. There are many different themes you can use once you have got to grips with this CMS.

About the Author: The article is written by Jo Turnbull. For those in Australia, Snap provides affordable web design services throughout the country. They also offer affordable printing services in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide.

5 Steps To Set Up Your Own Business in Australia

After much planning, you have made the decision to move Down Under. You want to set up your own business in Australia to allow you to take advantage of all what Australia has to offer including sun, sea and surf. Here are 5 steps to help set up your business in Australia.

1. TFN

This is your Tax File Number, which is the same as a National Insurance Number in the UK or a Social Security Number in the US. Everyone needs a TFN which is issued by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) before they are able to work. It shows they have the legal right to work in Australia and are paying taxes. Everyone has a different TFN and it stays with you your whole working life so that the Government can identify your tax records. If you do not have a TFN, you will be paying emergency tax which is 46.5%.

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Image: marc falardeau / Flickr

2. ABN

Every person that is self employed and is running a business, has an ABN (although it is not compulsory). You will need to use your ABN when dealing with other businesses, (when doing work for them), when filing your tax returns, if you are registered for GST (goods sales tax). Once you have your TFN you can then apply for your ABN, which can take up to 4 weeks. The ABN will be used when you file your tax returns at the end of the financial year, which runs July to July.

3. Contact An Accountant

It is important to get in touch with an accountant at the earliest possibility. This will help you to sort out your tax before you start bringing in a lot of business. The last thing you want to doing before the end of the tax year is finding out you have not been paying enough tax. The amount of tax you pay is dependent on your earnings and whether you are classified as an Australian resident. If you have to buy products for your company and travel costs, you can claim these as an expense.

4. Set Up Your Website

As you have just come into a new market, you will need to do a lot of advertising to promote yourself and be seen in Australia. The best way to do this is to set up your own website. If you already have one, then you will need to amend the details to include your new location. If you do not yet have a site, there are many companies in Australia that offer affordable web design solutions.

5. Print Your Business Cards

Once you have your website, you will need to ensure you have some business cards printed with your website address, new Australian mobile and landline number (should you have one).

About the Author: The article is written by Jo Turnbull. There are many printing services in Australia. Visit your local printing company to see what’s on offer.

5 Tips for Small Business HR Outsourcing

In a bad economy, companies are turning to a variety of money-saving methods. From cutting a few days out of the work week, to eliminating positions, many companies are in a tough position. If you can’t cut down your work week or eliminate a position all together, however, it would be wise to consider HR outsourcing.

Not only does outsourcing your HR team result in one less in-house employee, it takes the stress of workers compensation, health insurance, payroll and tax filing off of your hands. According to CPEHR.com, “In place of current management, the HRO firm takes over some of the cumbersome administrative functions relating to employment.”

To make the most of this cost effective service, consider the following tips.

Set Goals

When you’re outsourcing an in-house position, it’s important that it’s making a difference for your company. The only way to measure that is to benchmark the progress by setting goals. Goal setting is valuable in any business setting as it increases productivity and purpose. In outsourcing, however, it’s an effective way to keep all your teams working together.

  • For the company: One of the benefits of outsourcing HR is cost savings in insurance, lawsuits and recruiting. Set savings related goals to be sure you’re getting the most ROI.
  • For your HR team: With your HR employees out of house, you want to be sure they are staying on track. Set up goals for the week, month or quarter.

Maintain Open Communication

When you can’t have a department meeting or quick chat in passing, it’s critical that you make communication a priority. Outsourcing-Center.com suggests, “… It is important to merge them through open, honest communication steeped in realistic expectations around how things are going to work.” Be sure to utilize various forms of communication to make it effective:

  • Set an email checking schedule to ensure emails are being received and read.
  • Set up phone meetings; weekly, daily, whatever you need to stay on the same page.
  • Utilize new technology such as video chat to maintain a face to face relationship.

Have a Team

Although you should be wise to choose an HRO company that you trust, it’s important that you have an in-house team working closely with your far-away employees. For important projects, having in-house hands involved can ensure that the job is on track and in line with your over-all goals for the company as a whole, not just the HR department. Thus, choosing the right team will be crucial.

  • Include one member of each department involved; IT, Accounting, etc.
  • Choose employees that will work well together. For an important project, you want your employees, in-house and outsourced, to be productive and open.
  • Only include your outsourced HR employee when necessary, as a significant benefit is allowing them to focus strictly on HR without being pulled into side jobs and projects within the office.

Outsourcing your HR employee or team will be cost effective for any sized business. By taking HR duties out of the office, you’re reducing your costs and risks involved. Be sure that you’re making the most of these services with goal setting, communication, and team work.

About the Author: Jessica Sanders is an avid small business writer touching on topics that range from social media to business management. She is a professional blogger and web content writer for ResourceNation.com.