Understanding how marketing works and the general best practices and functions of a marketing strategy for any business are essential tools for every type of business manager. This is most important for those who are involved in day-to-day marketing decisions, but even those who aren’t should be aware of some standard best practices. Marketing should play a large role in your overall business plan, and we advise that every manager keep an eye on marketing trends so you can help lead your team and your brand toward success.

In today’s post we’ve highlighted some key marketing trends, and general guidelines that we think every manager should know about marketing.

Aside from offering quality products and services, your business undoubtedly relies heavily on customer service. Ensuring customer satisfaction through the sales process is one thing, but as you already know, customer service can't end there. You need to ensure that all the communication channels provide stellar customer service. Email may not seem like the “go-to” customer service option, especially in the face of Live Chat assistance options. However, it remains a primary form of customer service communication — in point of fact, 72% of adults prefer to interact with brands and retailers through email.

In today's post, we'll be discussing five ways you can improve customer service with better emails.

While running a business, you've likely come to understand the importance of having a functioning, informative, and easily found website. Of course, just having a website isn't enough — you need to be using it to reach your sales goals and to bring in more customers.

As with most things in business, integration is key. Despite the fact that 95% of retailers agree that digital and physical consumer experiences must be interconnected for one seamless experience across multiple channels, many stores still act like online and in-store activities are separate. Consumers already expect this intuitive level of convergence. Some aspects of this convergence may sit outside your reach for now (i.e., a new POS system that offers real time understanding of in-store and online purchases and stock inventory), but in this article, we're going to focus on in-store and online. 

If you're starting to plan a business, or if you've just started a business, that focuses on retail sales, you're probably trying to structure the right kind of sales environment to attract good salespeople. Of course, getting them to start working for you is the challenge. Do you know how you're going to keep them once you've hired them? In this post, we're going to discuss nine different ways to retain salespeople and ensure you've got a dedicated team for your business.

Good salespeople often have the gift of gab. It’s important for them to be able to engage with customers and speak eloquently about what their selling. But to be truly great, knowing when not to talk is just as important. In this post we’ll go over some ways to help you become a better listener, and how doing so will improve your closing rate with clients.

If your business doesn’t use Facebook, or your page lacks in presence, it’s time for your team to come up with a killer social media strategy. While you may not have hopped on the social media bandwagon yet, millions have. Many of these Facebookers could be potential customers. Can your company afford to neglect this growing and active audience? Below are 16 reasons why your business can’t ignore Facebook any longer.

Your business is unique, and so are your clients. Instead of setting out a wide-reaching net, forget the idea that your product or service can be everything to everyone. Those successful with customer outreach and retention have a focused strategy to understand, track, and please a targeted consumer. By creating an ideal customer profile, your business can begin to build a community of clients that will bring you the most important thing: loyalty.