08 Sep

Welcome to September!

Posted in News, Synergy Suggestions on 08.09.16 by John Meloche

Finally, we have arrived at the month of September. With Labour Day passing by this weekend, we all had our last long weekend of the summer to  recharge for the busy upcoming months. Interestingly, many retailers and businesses have utilised this Labour Day to keep their stores open as many customers have time for more shopping. As for students, school starts back this month and back to school promotions are hot targeting students and their families.

 

As we are soon to say goodbye to a great summer, here are few things to look forward to this month heading into the fall season:

 

APPLE iPhone 7 Release:

iPhone 6 was released in September 2014 and is due for a major update this September. With rumours floating around the internet, Apple is expected to reveal the next generation of the iPhone in the next Apple event held in early September. iPhone 7 is gaining a great deal of curiosity from their customer base and it is a very anticipated product that the customers have long been waiting for. In case you are in the market for a new phone upgrade or other apple products, here is a comprehensive Apple store buyer guide, helping you make the best and timely decision possible.

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#iPhone

 

MLB end of regular Season:

Through the end of the month, you can enjoy your favourite baseball teams ending the regular season and heading off into the playoff season in October. Don’t forget to watch and support your favourite baseball team this month. Catch up with the latest baseball news at http://mlb.com/news/

 

UNIQLO Announces 1st Canadian Store Opening Dates

There is good news for Canadians this fall, as first Uniqlo (Japanese Fashion retailer) is opening their first store is coming to Eaton’s Centre September 30th. With their massive success in United States and Asia, Uniqlo attempts to break into the Canadian Market. Be ready to upgrade your fall fashion this year with the arrival of Uniqlo.

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25 Aug

Should Your Business Be Using Lead Generation?

Posted in Small Business Advertising, Synergy Suggestions on 25.08.16 by John Meloche

Now we intrude on a very heated debate in the business world. Should your business use lead generation? Throughout this blog we’ll be exploring both sides of the argument. We’ll be exploring the advantages and disadvantages of lead generation. The question now is, is lead generation a valuable service or disservice to your business?

Let’s explore its benefits first. Yesterday we mentioned how it’s a great compliment to your digital marketing efforts. Well that’s true, lead generation has been proven to increase the effectiveness of your digital marketing campaigns. It’s an ideal tool for expanding your e-commerce platforms. It further justifies the implementation of e-commerce platforms as it essentially enhances your online marketing presence. We mentioned the ways in which email and content marketing feed into your company’s digital marketing efforts. They both ease the online shopping process and thus further enhance your company’s digital marketplace.

With all this being said, there are always pros and cons to anything. The cons may be somewhat overwhelming for lead generation. These cons typically relate back to one extremely prevalent issue: finding serious leads. According to the B2B Technology Marketing Community, many B2B marketers have expressed their biggest challenge as “generating high quality leads.” Finding quality leads is extremely difficult. Many of your leads gathered from lead generation are not sales ready. The majority of leads you find, will likely be dead ends. That’s the main problem with lead generation. That inconsistency amongst leads is such a huge deterrent for businesses. Certainty is something you cannot get with lead generation, and that ambiguity creates doubt about whether it’s worth the cost.

Lead generation is an anomaly to say the least. It has the potential to be extremely effective, or it can be a bust. It’s a high risk, high reward marketing medium. So depending on how comfortable your business is with taking risks, it may or may not be ideal for you. If you have the resources, you’re confident in your leads, and you have patience, then lead generation could be good for you. It’s is a big mystery, but some businesses have cracked the code to lead generation success, can yours?

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02 Aug

Are Online Markets The New Norm?

Posted in Small Business Advertising, Social Media, Synergy Suggestions on 02.08.16 by John Meloche

Over the past couple of years, we have seen an emergence of online transactions and E-commerce. It appears as though those fears people once had about online shopping have vanished. This sudden spike in E-commerce demand has sparked the debate over whether or not online markets are the new norm. So today we really look at the question: are online markets the new marketplace?

Let’s start this debate by looking at the facts. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that there will be $92,801 million in sales strictly from online shopping in the first quarter of 2016. Compared to $80,569 million from the first quarter of 2015. This is definitely a sign of prosperity for online shopping however these numbers are small when comparing it to the total market. Those numbers only represent 8 and 7 percent of total sales respectively. It’s clear online shopping is on the rise but when you look at the market as a whole it only represents a tiny sliver of all sales.

Now let’s look at some other compelling facts. But instead of looking at North America, let’s analyze different markets across the globe. Specifically let’s look at the major markets that impact the global economy the most. China is a huge country that’s a compelling figure in the global economic scene. Online shopping is practically the norm in China now. According to Statista, China had 46 million online shoppers in 2007, now they have over 400 million. Almost ten times as many people shop online compared to the number from 9 years ago. This trend is expected to continue at an even more exponential rate. It’s fair to say online shopping has skyrocketed in popularity in China. So with this information being present, it begs the question: If such a giant like China focuses on online shopping, then is it just a matter of time before online shopping really hits the North American market?

The debate of E-commerce becoming the primary marketplace is a good one. It’s very easy to argue on behalf of both sides. But do you actually see the North American markets adopting E-commerce? If so, when do you think that would happen? Let us know what you think. You can tweet us at @synergymkt or you can check us out on Facebook (just Synergy Marketing), and we’re on Instagram @synergymkt.

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27 Jul

5 Ways to Gain Twitter Followers Without Paying

Posted in Small Business Advertising, Social Media, Synergy Suggestions on 27.07.16 by John Meloche

Going along with our social commerce theme, we are now looking at another huge social media outlet: Twitter. Twitter is extremely popular and is still growing in size. According to DMR stats, 310 million people use Twitter and 100 million people are active daily users. What does that mean? Well just like Facebook, there’s a large crowd of people you don’t want to miss out on. Even with the enormous audience, businesses still struggle to expand their reach and connect with potential clientele. So today we’re looking at 5 free things you can do to increase your Twitter following:

  1. Post a lot. This is consistent across all social media outlets. You have to actively post in order to catch and keep the attention of new fans. Just make sure you’re actually posting consistent quality material.
  2. Connect with Similar Accounts.  Go out and explore Twitter and search for similar accounts like yours. Or even search for people who are interested in your industry’s work. Retweet, favorite, or comment on posts relevant to your company and start conversations. Not only is this a great way to bring people to your account, but it’s ideal for starting new relationships with fans over social media.
  3. Follow more people. This could be the simplest thing you can do. People take notice to new followers and occasionally you’ll get a follow back.
  4. Make Sure your Bio is good. Your bio is often the first thing a customer will see when they see your Twitter page. Not only that but it’s the first piece of info they will receive about your company. That little blurb of text is your businesses’ first impression. First impressions definitely matter, so make sure your bio is professional, informative, and intriguing. Don’t go on about your business; people don’t want to read a long paragraph and there’s a limit to your text.  Include all the info you believe is necessary for the twitter user to know. Again, I want to emphasize that a short bio is more effective; people have a short attention span and that attention span is even shorter on social media.
  5. Control your Hashtags. Although Twitter is the origin of hashtags, it’s not the most hashtag-friendly social media medium. It’s been proven that tweets with hashtags are more effective in terms of reach. however, too many can reverse that effect. How many is too many? Well according to Buddy Media, a tweet with one or two hashtags has 21% higher engagement than tweets with three or more hashtags. Not only this. but tweets with three or more hashtags have actually shown a 17% drop in engagement. It’s actually crazy to think that an additional hashtag can cost the reach of thousands of people. So your ideal tweet should contain one or two hashtags in order to optimize the reach on your posts.

 

While there is a lot of meticulous details with tweeting, it can open so many doors for your business. According to Jayson DeMers from Forbes, 36% of marketers say they have gained a customer by using Twitter. There is so much potential in social media and Twitter is just one of many social commerce opportunities for an expanded clientele base. So get on Twitter, follow these steps, and see your followers number and user base increase.

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26 Jul

5 Ways To Increase Your Facebook Reach Without Paying

Posted in Social Media, Synergy Suggestions on 26.07.16 by John Meloche

This week we are dedicating our blog to social commerce. We are finding ways to improve your presence across all the major social media mediums. First we are starting with one of the most famed and biggest social media outlets: Facebook. Right now more than 1 billion people are on Facebook. It is one of the most popular mediums, if not the most popular. With the immense audience present, you want to make sure you’re getting the most out of your posts. So here are 5 ways to help you increase the reach on your Facebook posts.

  1. Create a lot of Content. This just makes sense. You have to post a lot to actually get people’s attention. If you constantly create quality content, then expect the number of likes you have on your page to increase.
  2. Mix it up. Don’t just post pure text all the time. Include some pictures, links, interesting graphics, etc. Posting interesting content coupled with eye catching graphics can be critical for reaching new audiences.
  3. Incite Comments. A great way to get people on board with your Facebook page is to get them involved. Encourage your followers to comment on your posts; ask for their opinions. A great way to achieve this is by starting your posts off with a question to your followers.
  4. Get involved with Other People’s Pages. This is a great way to build social media relationships with fans. People and other pages love it when you notice and share their material. So when you do stuff like that, people appreciate it and are more inclined to return the favor.
  5. Don’t use Hashtags. This might come as a shock to you, but believe it or not hashtags aren’t too effective on Facebook. In fact, they’ve been proven to be the opposite. According to research from EdgeRank Checker, hashtags on Facebook have no positive effects on your posts’ reach. Posts without hashtags have actually been found to have a better reach than those containing hashtags. While hashtags may be ideal for other social media sites, it has not yet found its place on Facebook.

Reaching audiences on Facebook can be difficult but when it comes down to it, it’s all about building relationships with your fans. Showing them love will only lead to them doing the same.

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15 Jul

5 Ways To Strengthen Your Social Media Presence

Posted in Small Business Advertising, Social Media, Synergy Suggestions on 15.07.16 by John Meloche

Did you know that YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter serve as the 2nd, 3rd, and 8th most visited websites respectively? There’s such an immense audience present on social media, but still businesses struggle to direct traffic to their social media pages. Well, fear no more, cause here are 5 ways to strengthen your company’s social media presence.

  1. Constantly Post. This is kind of obvious. People don’t want to follow a plain and boring account. They want to see a consistent stream of interesting content. At least a post a day is good, but if you can post more then that would be ideal.
  2. Change it up. It’s good to post consistently but make sure you’re changing the material. People don’t want to see the exact same post every day. The whole point is you want to keep people interested, steady similar posts doesn’t really achieve that.
  3. Make the Content Relevant. You have to make sure the stuff you post actually relates to your business somehow. Ideally you want to explore different routes that help reveal your businesses’ niche in an interesting way. Also when you post, you want to portray a realistic image of your company. You have to realize that your Facebook page, Twitter account, Instagram account, etc., are all your virtual representatives. You need to post stuff that your business would otherwise be interested in. You have to conduct yourself in a professional matter over social media in order to maintain a beneficial/good image of your company. People look to social media for pretty much anything, you don’t want them to develop a poor image of your company because of some irrelevant posts; that’s a large market you don’t want to miss out on.
  4. Like Random People’s content. Believe it or not this is a pretty effective strategy. There’s no better way to appear on social media, then on someone’s notification page. People are obsessed with getting likes, some would even go as far to buy likes for their posts. When you like a person’s post, they notice it, and some would even get so happy that they’d maybe even follow you back. Neil Patel, from Quicksprout, used this strategy and found that for every 100 likes he made on random people’s photos, he got 6.1 followers.
  5. Take Advantage of Hashtags. Hashtags have made many marketer’s dreams come true. With a simple hashtag, you can reach millions. However, there is a caveat to hashtags. It’s extremely easy to misuse hashtags. It’s important to stress quality over quantity for hashtags. Make sure your hashtags are actually relevant to your company and posts. Irrelevant hashtags can easily confuse your audience and throw them off your posts. For example, #followforfollow probably isn’t the right thing to say when you’re posting about a big sale.

Social media can open so many doors for your business, but it’s all about using it the right way. Your posts need to be relevant and interesting, otherwise you can say #goodbye to new followers.

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14 Jul

How Intelligent is Your Business?

Posted in Synergy Suggestions on 14.07.16 by John Meloche

We keep on mentioning the impact of the advanced technology around us. Lately on our blog, we’ve analyzed the effect this technology will have on conducting business. However, we haven’t really looked at how this technology affects the internal operations of a business. Technological advances have lead to increased efficiency across the supply chain. New systems are being developed to essentially run a businesses’ internal operations. With the virtually unlimited data available on the internet, it may be easy to overlook relevant data; experience a sort of data overload.

Business Intelligence(BI) software gathers data from all over and turns it into information that your business can use to be more successful. It essentially translates relevant data into useful information that your business can use for making good business decisions. Historically such software has been used mainly by bigger corporations, however, the growth of Internet technology has enabled small businesses to utilize these BI solutions as well.

BI software is becoming more and more prominent as businesses are turning to computerized BI systems to filter out useless data. BI is becoming part of our business world, and its usage is only expected to grow. According to Elizabeth Mazenko, the BI and analytics market will grow to $20 billion by 2019. It is clear businesses are switching to BI for their data needs. The question now becomes, how intelligent is your business?

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13 Jul

3 Reason Why Your Business Needs a Mobile-Friendly Website

Posted in Small Business Advertising, Synergy Suggestions on 13.07.16 by John Meloche

We’re living in an progressive technological period. Our technology has been advancing at such an exponential rate, we’re pretty much walking around with full powered computers in our pockets. That being said, these technological advances are surely to leave a mark in modern business operations. We’ve talked about the expansion of social commerce in detail. While that is certainly going to be a trend in the future, we also need to direct our attention to another line of E-commerce. Mobile commerce will become a staple in our business world (some would argue it already is) and will become our primary means of processing transactions. Here are 3 reasons why your business needs to develop a mobile-friendly website:

  1. Future Trends. We’ve discussed it already in the paragraph above. We are trending towards a mobile future. We’re already seeing a shift to mobile payments. According to eMarketer, the total value of mobile payments transactions in US will grow 210% in 2016. These numbers are only for 2016 alone. This trend is expected to continue as Statista predicts that global mobile payment revenue will exceed $1 trillion by 2019, compared to $450 million in 2015.
  2. Millennials. We mentioned how mobile payments are expected to grow in the future, well this is a pretty significant reason why. There is no group of people that spends more time on their phone than Millennials. There are literally people wandering the streets right now with their heads faced downward towards their phones, looking for Pokemon. Millennials are going to become the primary demographic soon. They will have the largest influence in the market. Meaning that the time spent on their phone will likely translate into the business world soon enough.
  3. It’s just the easier way to shop. Mobile commerce lets you do something that no other type of commerce offers: buy things on the go. It’s kind of like walking around with a portable store in your pocket. Not only that, but you can access stores of any variety. Rather it’s like a portable mall in your pocket. People are starting to realize they literally have an unlimited selection of products at their fingertips and are starting to take advantage of this.

Mobile commerce is becoming such a dominant payment method in our marketplace and it’s importance is only going to grow. Building a mobile-friendly site will let your business make a lot more money and remain competitive. Mobile payments are going to be such a huge factor in the future, and if your business doesn’t see that, then the future might not be so friendly to you.

 

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07 Jul

What Corporate Social Responsibility Means to your Business

Posted in Customer Service, Synergy Suggestions on 07.07.16 by John Meloche

Yesterday we talked about the Synergy Team: the local soccer team we sponsored that’s representing their country in Turks and Caicos right now. We discussed the benefits of such charitable actions. Today we’re going to elaborate more on the ethical side of a business and how good morals can improve your business in all sectors. Now this all has to do with Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR). What does CSR mean? Well, Corporate Social Responsibility is essentially what your business does for your stakeholders, meaning what your business does for anyone who’s impacted by your operations.

Now that we know what CSR is, why should businesses practice it? Why should businesses be motivated to being proactive partners in their community? Well for one, when you are kind to your community, then your community will give back. We mentioned this yesterday, if your community knows that you’re trying to help them, then they will support you. Now by community we’re not just talking about potential customers. Employees are also included in this conversation and when they see that you’re trying to help them out, they will dedicate more effort and work to your company. This in turn strengthens your operations and makes your business more efficient.

CSR also serves as a superb promotional tool. It’s a great way to get your name out there and make your brand known. The publicity you receive from these CSR activities are extremely beneficial to your company as they only help you reach new clientele. The best part about this, is that your name is out there and it’s in a good way: it’s all good publicity!! The result is you gain more respect throughout the community because of your kind actions.

CSR is a dynamic tool that can trigger growth and additional success for businesses. It has a significant impact across all functional areas of a business. Putting money into the community could be the best way to garner further customer support. So the best investment, is the one in your community.

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05 Jul

The Declining Effectiveness of the TV

Posted in Social Media, Synergy Suggestions on 05.07.16 by John Meloche

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve touched upon social commerce and the amplified importance of social media for businesses. We discussed how strategic social media can be when it comes to advertising. Not only that but we mentioned how it can allow your business to be more efficient with its spending. With this in mind, we’re looking at another big advertising medium: the TV.

TV advertising has always been used and has long be known as the most effective advertising medium. Its mass reach hasn’t ever been matched, until now. The effectiveness of TV advertising is definitely declining. It all starts with the deteriorating TV audience. Streaming media platforms such as Netflix, Crave, etc., play a large role in the dwindling TV audience. Alexis Kleinman, from the Huffington Post, wrote about the impact Netflix and other video on demand services have on the TV. She wrote that in the US, there was a 40% decline in TV ratings during the third and fourth quarters of 2014 and it’s all a result of people spending more time watching streaming TV online.

The TV was once a famed place for advertisements, however, times have changed and new trends have brought forth new norms and more reliable and effective advertising mediums. There are serious concerns about the mass reach TV ads offer. TV’s competitive advantage as an advertising medium is fading and it’s now becoming more ideal to pursue different advertising options. We have a rapidly changing business world and it appears as though the TV just can’t catch up.

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