How Marketing Has Evolved Through the Ages

From the beginning of business, marketing has been an invaluable part of a company’s success. As long as people have been selling goods, marketing has been there. You might not think marketing has evolved much over the years, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, marketing developed through various stages and eventually came to the modern industry we know today. The first five eras of marketing are the traditionally identified ones, but recently two more have been proposed for modern times.

Simple Trade Era

Arguably the longest marketing era, the simple trade era revolved around goods in limited supply and harvesting what you need on your own, or trading something you have to get an item someone else harvested, which meant there was very little marketing. During this time, exploring the world became prevalent in order to find new resources and trade them.

Production Era

Once the Industrial Revolution began, marketing and business began to rapidly change. Products became more readily available and technology drastically advanced. There wasn’t much competition amongst businesses, so marketing was not very sophisticated at this point.

Sales Era

As competition amongst businesses increased, the sales era began. Companies now must work to sell their products to consumers. People searched for the best deals on similar items and they were able to purchase items that were not necessities. Businesses realized that they must cater to consumers more, which lead to rapidly developing marketing techniques.

Marketing Department Era

After World War II, businesses realized that consumers were not responding well to the former methods of convincing them to purchase certain goods. Customers began to have more power and influence on companies as they gained more disposable income to spend on goods. Though marketing had always been present in some form, it was at this era that businesses recognized its importance and began creating entire departments dedicated to marketing products.

Marketing Company Era

As more and more people realized the absolute necessity of marketing, entire companies emerged, focused solely on the consumer and catering to their needs. Everyone began focusing on the customer and how to appeal to them; every person in the company participated in marketing in some way. This era was initially identified as the last marketing era, but with the rise of the internet and technology, that has changed.

Relationship Marketing Era

As marketing developed even further, companies began focusing on developing quality relationships with the consumer. Customer service became a focus, as well as learning what marketing and advertising methods best appeal to consumers. Businesses now wanted to build up customer loyalty and prove they were better than their competition.

Social/Mobile Marketing Era

Now, we focus even more on social interactions and using mobile connections. Marketers understand the importance of connecting with consumers in real-time and responding as quickly as possible to customer interactions. Even more so, the customer is the focus and businesses know it’s important to develop trust and a strong relationship with the consumer. There is constant communication between business and consumers, relevant information being consistently shared, and marketing evolves further every day.

4 Tips for Creating a Fantastic Morning Routine

It has often been said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. However, some studies suggest that crafting an entire morning routine can help one find success throughout the rest of the day as well. You need to start your day off as well as possible to set yourself up for a great day. Successful business owners have increased their productivity adding these steps to their morning routines.

Choose a difficult task

Many people prefer to start their morning by warming up with relatively simple jobs that don’t require much effort. But there is an inverse relationship between the length of the workday and self-discipline. As the day extends, a person’s ability to focus tends to shrink. One way for someone to tackle daily tasks is to start with one of the most difficult jobs; if an employee completes this task at the start of the morning, most other work responsibilities seem comfortable by comparison. This tactic is a stable version of starting the day strong.

Keep the morning routine consistent

For many nine-to-five workers, the weekends are a time where they can change up their mornings. Simply sleeping in late or changing how they start their mornings altogether are just some ways that make the weekend routine separate from the weekday one. However, if a person is just beginning to alter their morning habits to improve their overall performance and success, it’s best to stick with this new routine during the weekend. This means getting up at the usual time if possible and doing everything short of going to the office.

Create a list

To-do lists for home chores or errands to run are a popular and effective way to manage time. This fact is no less true for leading a successful workday. Creating a list of some top goals for the next day can help anyone achieve success each morning. Many successful entrepreneurs and business owners develop a list of goals each night that they can reference in the morning. This helps them start the morning strong and is a tip that can work for anyone.

Match routines and personalities

A person’s morning routine is significantly impacted by their personality type. If one is social, they can find strength and encouragement in starting their day around other people. Practical people need rigid structure and goals. While everyone has a mixture of many personality elements, it’s essential to find the one that is most prevalent and stick to the routine that best matches your type.

6 Skills You Learn from Entrepreneurship

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If you are debating whether or not to become an entrepreneur, it can be overwhelming. However, there are various benefits to pursuing this career path. It can be more challenging than a typical career, but with pushing through you can get many benefits. The struggle is certainly worth the end goal if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

Planning

Entrepreneurs have to plan constantly. There is a lot of demand on their time, and critical issues are always coming up. If they don’t create a schedule and stay consistent with their obligations, then things can quickly get out of hand. As an entrepreneur, you will be forced to learn this skill set or hang up your boots.

Focus

One of the critical skills of an entrepreneur is the ability to focus. They have to clearly see their goals in their mind and be capable of cutting out distractions. This task is easier said than done, particularly with the way modern society is so distracted on a daily basis with phones and the speed of everyday life.

Teamwork

You can’t do it alone if you want a successful startup. The best strategy is to get others to work with you and for you. Teamwork is the best way to make your dreams a reality and succeed as an entrepreneur. You need to trust other people to be able to do their part and work toward a goal together.

Persistence

You might easily give up on things you want to accomplish. As an entrepreneur, you will learn how to keep pushing no matter what. After all, the only thing holding you back is how many times you are willing to get up and try it all over again.

Goal Setting

Successful entrepreneurs always set goals. As you go on your journey to success, you learn how to set goals you can sufficiently measure and that have specific timelines attached to them. It instills discipline in you.

Overcoming Fear

Overcoming fear is a big part of business. Entrepreneurs have to face risk and adversity every day, but be able to push through it. Eventually, you will see fear and overcome it by facing it instead of backing away. When you can face your fear, you will know you’re a real entrepreneur.

Being an entrepreneur can give you a lot of advantages in life. The six above are some of the main benefits you can enjoy. However, it is not going to be easy. If you want massive success, then you have to focus on your opportunities and utilize the skills you have. Then, you can enjoy more profits and peace of mind only after you’ve put in the work.

6 Tips for Online Sales

For any company, especially if it’s just starting out, increasing sales is the main goal. Thanks to the age of digital technology, most businesses now make sales online. More and more consumers are shopping online, thanks to the prices and convenience. Any company would like a way to increase their sales, but sometimes it can seem challenging to find ways to make this goal a reality, especially if you’ve tried many tactics before. Here are a few tips to use to boost your online sales and increase business.

Think about target audience

You could use the best methods when trying to increase online sales, but if you aren’t connecting with your target audience, your efforts will not produce much. Take time to identify your target audience and then research what marketing methods work with them. Figure out what designs, language, and products work best with your target audience and implement this knowledge.

Redesign your store

Chances are, if you’ve been using an online store for a while, that some aspects of it are a bit outdated. Any website can benefit from a fresh look, so take time to tweak the appearance of your online store or website. Unless you’re rebranding, you probably shouldn’t completely overhaul it with a completely new color scheme or logo, but small changes can go a long way. Make sure the site isn’t cluttered, product images are high quality, and descriptions are clear. Make your site as aesthetically pleasing as possible.

Increase social media presence

If you’re not currently using social media sites for your company, it’s time to start. Regularly posting on these sites helps direct traffic to your online store and spread the word about your products. Advertise sales or new products and interact with your followers.

Check out other companies

If you’re trying to make your site and social media accounts more appealing, take a look at what other successful companies, especially those in your industry, do. While you should never directly copy the methods of another business, see what types of colors, language, and tricks they do to generate sales.

Use persuasive techniques

If you want people to purchase from your company, you need to use language that persuades them to get your product or service. Feature call to action buttons and advertise your products. Include the benefits; show the customer why they need what your company is offering. Highlight any sales or other incentives they’d get for purchasing an item. If you’re offering a discount, make that clear.

Listen to feedback

Consumer feedback is a vital resource for increasing your sales. While you cannot please everyone and make any change a customer suggests, if you see major trends in suggestions or there seems to be a recurring issue, try to fix it. Customer satisfaction is the best way to guarantee return customers and increased sales.

5 Reason You Should Get a Smart Speaker

Over the last few years, more and more people have begun investing in smart technology. Now, you can find many items designed to make your daily life simpler and aid in doing more mundane tasks. Every smartphone has a personal assistant on it, whether it’s Siri or the Android version. You can easily speak to your phone and send messages or get important (and sometimes not important) information. Recently, smart speakers have become increasingly popular on the market. There are various benefits to getting one of these devices and using it in your home; here are just a few of the perks a smart speaker provides, though some features depend on the specific brand of device you choose to purchase.

Easy media access

The most common use of these smart speakers is usually to listen to media. Having a speaker makes it easy to play, pause, or change music and have it audible throughout your home. While using more traditional speakers is fine, smart speakers allow you to manage music or other media with simply your voice so you don’t have to stop whatever task you’re currently occupied with. You can play music, podcasts, or the news while you’re getting ready in the morning, cooking, or doing something else around your home.

Invigorate your morning routine

A smart speaker can serve as your alarm, music player, weather and news update, and task reminder in the morning. While you’re getting ready, you can have the speaker remind you of what you need to get done that day, read out your calendar, send important messages, or simply let you know what traffic is like on your way to work. You can save yourself precious time that you’d spend looking this information up on your own.

Communicate in your home

Most smart speakers allow you to connect to other speakers in your home and often include the capability to use the speakers to communicate. If you’re in your garage or basement and you need to tell someone else in the house something important or need help with a task, you can simply call for them through the device instead of pausing your work and looking for them. This feature can save you minutes and help avoid having to stop in the middle of an important project.

Sync other devices

Besides other smart speakers, you can often sync these devices to other smart technology in your home. Many speakers can be synced to lights, security systems, thermostat, or other smart appliances. You can make your smart speaker the hub for managing your homes features instead of worrying about every individual device.

Aid in other tasks

Your morning routine is not the only way a smart speaker can help you out; if you’re cooking and need to read a recipe, but don’t have the time to pick up your phone, you can simply ask the speaker to read you the directions. You can send emails or other important messages using your voice or locate important information while you’re occupied doing something else. If you’re working on some other project but don’t have your hands free, the smart speaker can read out instructions. You can also listen to podcasts or audiobooks while doing something else.

7 Ways to Avoid Common Mistakes When Starting a Podcast

Starting a podcast is an exciting project, but there are a number of mistakes that new podcasters often make. Unfortunately, these mistakes could seriously harm the future success of your podcast. However, there are simple ways to avoid these mistakes when starting a podcast that will help you save money, start quickly, and retain listeners.

Plan the work

Nobody should start a podcast simply by talking into a smartphone and hitting publish. Planning out the general length of each episode, what segments you might have, and having your research done will help you stay on topic and on time. Having a rundown sheet while you record helps significantly.

Pay attention to quality

Nobody is expecting NPR sound quality right out of the gate, but do pay attention to barking dogs, trash trucks, or static on your Skype line while recording. These are quick ways to lose listeners. Take time to edit out these noises and make sure your listeners aren’t distracted from what you’re trying to say.

Perfect is the enemy of good

A good rule of thumb is that editing an episode should take twice the time it took to record. If it’s a 30-minute episode, spending more than an hour or 90 minutes editing is going to be counterproductive. Taking out every single pop or hiss, or adding too many sound enhancements makes the task too big for you to sustain. No one expects your podcast to be immediately perfect, so stop aiming for immediate perfection.

Schedule your time

The best podcasts come out on some sort of standard schedule, which makes it easier for your listeners to stay up-to-date. Weekly episodes are most common, although biweekly and monthly are certainly fine so long as you communicate that. Make sure you reserve the proper time in your life to keep to whatever schedule you’ve set out for yourself. Plan for vacations and off weeks by banking episodes to keep to the schedule.

Bank some episodes

Before you publish your podcast you should record at least three full episodes. This serves two purposes. First, you can work out any kinks with your rundown and you can also be a week or two ahead in case an emergency happens and you can’t record for some reason. Unless it’s a time-sensitive episode, always try to have a few in the bank or at least a few ready for editing.

Be flexible

Don’t feel like your first idea will be your best idea. Be flexible enough to change segments, styles, or even co-hosts if something isn’t working. Allow your podcast to evolve over time and listen to the feedback from your listeners.

Have fun

Podcasting, even at a professional level, should be fun. If it stops being fun or starts to feel like a job, review the project again to make sure it’s still something you want to do. If you feel stuck in your podcast, find ways to mix it up or change direction to something you’re more passionate about.