This is probably the most asked question in business courses. Why do businesses exist? Why are they created? Because they want to launch a product or want to provide great service? Some teachers would answer NO.The right answer, apparently, is always money. But I would like to suggest a different view on this.

Businesses exist to satisfy needs.

Everything we do, every decision we make is based on satisfying our own personal needs. This might sound a little selfish but it’s true. Every time we make a decision, we choose the one that will bring most satisfaction to our needs, be it helping others, sleeping, not studying and going out with your friends to have a drink, whatever you decide is only because you believe that decision will satisfy your needs the most.

In life, business and in marketing you have to have this present all the time. Remember that we are selfish beings and that the best way to reach a customer is by making them believe your product will satisfy their needs the most.

Another question I want to throw out their. Why is it that demographics, technographics and psychographics exist but their isn’t one that is solely centered on needs? Anybody up for the challenge? 

Run for the hills. Facebook is taking over our lives! Well maybe not our lives, but it is definitely affecting how we experience the web, which let’s face it, IS some peoples’ lives. Here is a list of reasons why I think people will never leave Facebook in the future even if they do leave Facebook.

         1. The most important reason is that the Facebook platform is so customizable that many businesses will start building their sites on Facebook pages. You can include everything that a normal website needs to have, with the added incentive that you are right in the middle of the groundswell.

Takeover scheme: Never having to leave facebook to visit another site.

         2. Facebook Connect is an obvious reason. Connecting on other sites with your Facebook account is amazingly comfortable and very social. I definitely see all businesses including this on their sites.   
Takeover scheme: Facebook knows where you are all the time.

         3. Facebook allows businesses to have their online retail store right on their fan page. This not only lets people buy things without leaving facebook, but it also gives us a very convenient way of letting our friends now that we bought something and then review it or “Like” it.

 Takeover scheme: Facebook will decide how we buy things online and how we share that with our friends.

        4. The Facebook Open Graph API is a huge step in taking over the WWW. Here’s an explanation of what Open Graph is directly fromFacebook’s developer wiki:

 ”The Open Graph API will allow any page on the Web to have all the features of a Facebook Page – users will be able to become a Fan of the page, it will show up on that user’s profile and in search results, and that page will be able to publish stories to the stream of its fans.”

Takeover scheme: Even when you are on another site you are still deeply connected with Facebook.
        

       5.  And the last and most important piece of the puzzle is: the social factor. With over 450 million users on Facebook, this platform is the ultimate social machine. Facebook will soon become like going to the mall with your friends, but without the chinese food.           

Takeover scheme: Facebook controls how you communicate with your friends.
But there is no need to fear. Facebook has been known to have a great interest in protecting your personal information. ;)

Forget Fortune 500 companies. Small is the new big. Small companies everywhere are taking over and with good reason too. How is this happening? One word: versatility. Let me ask you a quick question. How long does it take a fortune 500 company to start a new marketing strategy or to simply tweak an existing one? Months. Now how long would it take an entrepreneur? Minutes.
When big companies start thinking locally and hurdle-free they will have the upper hand, but until they do the world is an oyster for people starting their own businesses.

About the advantage
The biggest mistake an entrepreneur could make would be not to harness this great advantage. And what is his greatest weapon? Viral marketing. Use Twitter to reach out to your customers, give out coupons, start contests, ask for feedback, give your followers tips on how to use your product. Use Facebook to share videos and pics about your products. Connect with your customers and most important of all, talk with them, not to them.


About the product
The greatest minds in marketing and advertising have always said, it is not necessary to have a super innovative product.  In fact, they recommend that you don’t sell an innovative product because there is nothing more difficult than trying to start a non existing market. Build on the success of bigger businesses, but give your company a personalized touch.

Bottom line is, starting a business must seem like a daunting task, but if you take it one step at a time I promise you that it will make things seem much simpler. Have a vision, a big one, but have small objectives that take you to that vision. That is the secret.

Just something to think about.

If seasoned marketers read my headline they would just laugh and flip the page or I guess its close the window now… First of all I hate everybody who starts off explaining what something is not. Why do they do that? We want to know what something means not what something doesn’t mean. It just seems a little off to me but oh well, marketers will be marketers. I just wanted to get that off my chest because it ticks me off that people do that. Where’s the meat people?!

All right now lets get back on course. Let me tell you how to do your own free market research.

To start building a business you have to have a profitable market right? So here are two steps to get you on your way.

STEP 1: Find a profitable market
To do this you have to do one or all of the following:

1. If you have a market in mind go to Google (the ultimate market research tool) and count how many Google Adsense ads there are on the right hand side of your screen. If there are more than three you have a nice market if you have more than twenty you have a hugely competitive and profitable market. To get into this second one you will need a different set of skills. Anyway, if you do find more than three ads then you can rest assured that people are willing to pay to sell in that market and you may even have a niche market in your hands.

2. Go to Amazon.com and pick a category, then go to the best sellers section of that category and see what’s selling. Then you could possibly sell info products for that product or brand, or maybe even start selling the product itself.


3. Do the same thing for ebay.

4. Do the same thing on Twitter. Yes, Twitter. Check to see if people are tweeting about this product and if they are, get involved!

STEP 2: What do your potential customers want?
This second step is very important especially if you are in an over-saturated market. Now that you have decided on a market, choosing your product is next. A great guerrilla tactic is to go to forums related to your market. People love talking about what features some products need. Build on this and you will have a nice product. Also go to product review sites like: cnet.com or review centre.

When you figure out what they want, they will thank you for it.

These simple strategies will let you know if the market you have in mind is worth getting into or not.

I found this great video conference about micro-branding or how David Armano puts it Brand U.0.
   What really got me thinking was the fact that people everywhere are creating their own brand image and they don’t even realize it. I sure didn’t when I started to use Facebook. But now, with all the amazing tools that the internet provides us with (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Blogger, Wordpress, etc) branding has become second nature and a near neccesity. 

So how do you brand yourself successfully? Well what it all comes down to is, like David says:

1. Be Ubiquitous
2. Be Social
3. Be Interesting
4. Be Remarkable
5. Be Yourself

I was reading Groundswell by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li while I was doing my laundry and stumbled upon a very interesting bit of information. There is a way to see what people think of your brand, or rather how they categorize it.
If you are familiar with del.icio.us then you know where I am going with this. For those that don’t, del.icio.us is a site where you can  bookmark the sites you feel are interesting and then choose keywords that represent what you think of that bookmarked site. This way people can quickly find a wide range of websites that others think are very interesting. Del.icio.us can benefit a company in many ways to, especially in finding out what people really think of your brand’s personality. 
When people bookmark a site on del.icio.us.com they assign tags or keywords to that site. So for example, if you sell persian rugs, you would tag your rugs as soft, high quality, or exotic, but your customers might really think that your rugs are stainless or durable. Then by knowing this you will be able to either strengthen this brand image or change it towards what you think is best. 
The best thing about it is that it’s FREE.

Plain and simple: Twitter is the ultimate marketing tool. And best of all it’s free. Here are a few suggestions on how to use twitter to your advantage.

1. Market Research

• What do people think about your brand?
  • Search your company’s name and see what people have been saying. Remember that positive comments are great but negative comments are even better. That means you can improve a lot more, get more customers, and ultimately get more money!
• What do people think about the products themselves?
  • If you are barely starting to run your business or have been doing it for a while without much success, this point applies to you. Search the Twittersphere using keywords closely related to your market. For example: If you are in the customized clothing business, search for custom shirts, or customized clothes. Then read up on what people think about this market. This is one of the best ways to make your existing product or service even better.

• Spread the word
  • When starting out using twitter, you should offer a lot of rich media resources to your followers. This could include videos on how to use the product, pictures and links to blogs talking about your product. 
• Hook’em
  • Now that you have a few followers you start the giveaway stage. In this stage your main goal is to use your followers to get even more followers. You can’t get more viral than that. The way you do this is to start a retweet contest or give away coupons.
• Make them love you
  • It is every marketers dream to have loyal customers. To do this you have to tweet interesting and relevant things about your products. If you are a B2B company, tweet about your new whitepaper and where they can download it or tweet about a seminar you are going to hold. If you are a B2C company then tweet about discounts or deals that are exclusive for twitter followers. 
• Rinse and Repeat.
  • Remember that viral marketing is not a sprint, you can’t expect to have thousands of followers just by doing this once. The trick is in doing this over and over again.

• Help them out
  • Remember to always give customer support through twitter. If you give this one-on-one service, your customers will love you for it, and their friends too!
• Help them help you
  • Tweeting a simple question could go a long way. If you ask your followers how the product has worked out for them you will get a lot of feedback. If you get negative feedback make sure to tend to these cases personally. You never know which follower will turn you into yesterday’s news.

Maybe that headline wasn’t the best title for this post but I made you read it didn’t I? What I basically mean by this is that if your business is on Twitter, repetition is king. You don’t want to treat your Twitter strategy like a super bowl ad: a huge commercial once a year. You should rather do small contests or send low quantity coupons several times throughout the year.

I was reading Colin Klinkert’s post on one of his Twitter contests and I just thought it was the perfect example of what i’m talking about. What Klinkert does here is hold several retweet contests where a small lump sum prize is awarded. Doing this several times is much more effective than holding only one big prize contest every year.

So remember, repeated exposure plus attention getting tweets (and money) is the fastest way to your customers’ hearts