How to revive your business with Bartercard
There are so many ways in which a business can go through a downturn, slow-down or just plateau out, especially if you’re in the hospitality trade. Every business faces these challenges at some time or other and, in some instances, how you deal with these times can be the making or the breaking of the business. Here are four tips on how to revive your business with Bartercard.
1. Marketing
Well executed marketing campaigns are always the strong-arm of any successful business. However, some business owners feel that if they have a website and a Facebook page, the money will just flow in. There’s a bit more involved than that. You need to have all of your bases covered – social media (including YouTube); mail-outs with offers and bonuses; email campaigns; newsletters; events and more. You can serve the best coffee in the world, but if no-one knows about it, it’s worthless. One of the reasons businesses don’t do these things is because of the prohibitive costs involved and time! However, with Bartercard you can retain your cash reserves and use Bartercard to cover these marketing expenses.
Marketing may not always come naturally to you. But it is a vital element of any successful business, so it’s not something you can DIY or allow to fall by the wayside.
2. Advertising
While this is technically a part of marketing, it’s a whole different ball game. This is where the big guns come into play and where most businesses take a hit and miss aim. Whoever walks into the office on any particular day with a special deal gets the business. This can be from television, magazines, trade journals, newspapers, radio or flyers and the like. Taking this approach often means no measurable results. A planned campaign coordinated with marketing campaigns and implemented with measurable hooks is always the best way. But this can be expensive too. However, not so if you choose your advertising carefully. There are Bartercard members that specialise in producing radio ads and television commercials and others that sell magazine ad-space.
3. Networking
The reason networking is so powerful is because word-of-mouth endorsement, reference, support or anecdote from someone outside of your business immediately raises your credibility, creating confidence and paves the way for easier interaction. Some businesses pay tens of thousands of dollars to be in the right networking groups exactly for this reason. However, with Bartercard you have an inbuilt network with thousands of other businesses worldwide and secondly, there are a number of networking organisations that can be joined and paid for on Bartercard.
4. Lead Generation
This can be via a number of different avenues, but the most popular current options are SEO, cold-calling, social media and list purchasing. There are dos and don’ts associated with each one but suffice to say that there are a number of well-regarded professional businesses on Bartercard that can set-up, organise, execute campaigns and track results so that real leads come your way as a matter of course. And the best part of course, is that it doesn’t have to cost a real-cash fortune – huge savings can be made when using Bartercard options.
So, with these exceptional ways in which to use Bartercard, your business can be revived and accelerated at any time. You don’t have to wait for a down-turn to get things moving better, faster and smarter.
If you're looking for more tips on how to deal with change and grow your customer base, why not check out Bartercard’s free eBook or visit bartercard.com.au
13th August 2019
