Issue 13

I s s ue13•Nov e mbe r / De c e mbe r2015

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Cont e nt s 0 2 MessagefromtheEditor 0 3 TheValueofOnlineMarkengforYourNewBusiness 0 5 HowareYouPosioningYourselfasaMajorPlayer?

0T hi ng st oCons i de rWhi l eCr e ang&Be f or eL a unc hi ngY our 0 72 We bs i t e

1 1 5ReasonsWhyServicedOfficesCon nuetoBoom owt oDe s i g ny ourOffic ef orMa x i mumHe a l t ha nd 1 3H Pr oducv i t y

1 5 5WaystoRewardCustomersforAcons 1 7 HowtoPlanandMaketheMostOutofyourBusinessEvent

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I tt a k e spae nc e , pe r s e v e r a nc e , t e na c i t ya ndc ons i s t e nc y .

Us ey ours uc c e s s e st omo v a t ey oua ndk e e pt hemome nt um g oi ng .

Ma k es ur et oc e l e br a t ey ourv i c t or i e s , noma e rhows ma l l .

Awi ni sawi na ndne e dst obec e l e br a t e d.L e a r nf r omy our e x pe r i e nc e sbet he ypos iv eorne g av et oma k ei te a s i e rne x t me .

T oy ours uc c e s s , Sand r a

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By Daniel Sarath

The Value Of Online Marketing For Your New Business

The Value of Online Marketing for Your New Business The first few months are the hardest for any small business. Generating buzz about your brand new company, earning your customers' trust and establishing yourself in a particular industry are difficult steps to overcome. One way to make this stage far less strenuous is by implementing a robust online marketing strategy. With 61% of users initially researching products online and 44% using search engines to begin their customer journeys, no small business can hope to survive in the current consumer climate without an excellent online presence.

unfeasible for many new businesses.

Having just begun, they may not initially be generating a great deal of revenue - at least not the amounts to be able to afford the staff, technology and time needed to do it.

Committing to an online marketing strategy may therefore seem like a risky investment.

But, contrary to what you might believe, there are some simple, cost-effective tips one can follow to begin establishing your new business as a worthy contender online.

However, the demands of an allencompassing marketing strategy could be

Many people think of online marketing as a net in which to catch potential customers

Meet customers where they are shopping online

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as they browse the internet for what they want. However, one of the most effective ways to market your business online is the opposite: going to meet your customers where they already are before they even need your products or services. One particularly successful way is to reach customers through daily-deal sites like Wowcher, which has close to 5 million subscribers looking for new discounts.

Businesses can contact Wowcher to offer a deal targeted at exactly the customers they want to attract. If the customers like it, they may tell their friends or return to you in the future.

Maximise your website's SEO With a small bit of reading and learning you can easily build a simple website. The challenging part, however, is actually getting it seen. Search engines like Google tend to rank websites based on a very complex and constantly updating algorithm when users input various terms (i.e. "fast food in London", "best hotels in Edinburgh"). The pages are organised by

design, mobile compatibility, text, word count, page speed, incoming links and much more. You may be able to improve your website's SEO (search engine optimisation) by taking these into consideration and researching some online guides, such as this one about Google snippets.

Pay per click advertising If search engine optimisation sounds too complicated and you want instant results you could always investigate Pay-Per-Click advertising. Essentially, this places an advert on Google which pays the search engine every time someone clicks it. In exchange, these advertisements appear in prominent positions for whatever words or phrases you want to target customers from.

This allows you to contend with your biggest competitors and get far more traffic to your website. It does require some extensive planning though. If you don't do proper research (e.g. looking into what search terms your customers are using) you may not see a return on the investment.

About the Author Daniel Sarath is an online writer who studied journalism at the University Of Central Lancashire. He has published articles about business, technology, retail and pop culture. His work can be seen on websites such as Buzzfeed, Yahoo and Number Direct. Follow Daniel on Twitter.

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China is clearly having a dynamic financial impact on global trade and commerce.

With a population of approximately 1.4 billion according to (populationpyramid.net) this nation exceeded the US$4 trillion mark in 2013 as reported in its official data. This achievement made China the largest trading nation on the globe. In September 2014 the trade surplus was US$30.96 billion and in September 2015 it increased to US$60.6 billion with imports falling much more the exports.

When a nation attracts such large amounts of foreign investment it, therefore, has billions to invest both at home and abroad. Here are a few examples: * US $100 million to the African Union to help create an immediate response to emergencies.

* Promised donation of US$1 billion to the United Nations peace and development fund announced at the recent meeting of the organisation in September 2015. * Pledged US $20 billion in foreign aid for countries on the African continent throughout 2015. * The expansion of business ventures on commercial terms in places like Trinidad, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Argentina and the Bahamas which include the use of migrant Chinese labour plus expertise.

Business relationships also extend to the UK and the USA alongside many other countries.

The role of China as an influential, important and necessary trading partner is indicative of the strength of what they have to offer. This is why so many

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countries need to do business with China because: China is good for business. How are you positioning yourself as a major player / trader in your field? What is so desirable about your product / service that forces others to seek you out and do business with you? Are you establishing yourself as a market leader / expert in your industry?

I'm not suggesting that you seek to imitate the financial clout of China in any way. I am suggesting that you learn from the value of building strategic alliances, the power of philanthropy and the good business sense in delivering services / products more effectively and efficiently than most of your competitors.

The strength of your brand, product or service is predicated on its ability to attract investment, stimulate business or fulfil a need. Louis Vuitton's parent company - LVMH - is the luxury goods consortium that also owns Givenchy, Don Perignon and Christian Dior. The LV logo is known globally and its bags are highly

desirable. A handbag from Walmart, Primark or a low cost store in your country may be as functional as any LV bag but it doesn't FEEL the same in the hands of the owner. LV is aspirational and soothes the psychological desire of the owner to be portrayed in a particular classically stylish manner. In this sense a bag isn't just a bag.

The similar principle applies to your business. What makes what you do or deliver so desirable to your local, national or global market? It goes way beyond your unique selling point to a place that makes others genuinely want to do business with you and / or use your product and service. China, in spite of its anomalies, perceived human rights violations and other criticisms, is a lesson in the benefits of how to create then execute a clear business strategy. Another lesson lies in the ability to respond to market conditions in a flexible way while staying true to your value system. The third lesson is in the power and influence that generates from engaging in mutually beneficial joint ventures.

About the Author Malik Muhammad is a Self-Empowerment Specialist, radio presenter and author of 'Empower yourself to succeed'. He was raised and educated in Jamaica, read law in London and enjoys quad biking, vegan cooking and jazz. https://twitter.com/thoughtexchange http://tropicalfm.net/shows/the-next-level

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20 Things to Consider While Creating & Before Launching Your Website David Park A website is the most important tool for any company in the online world to build reputation and sell products or services. It is very important to have a well presented website that allows smooth user experience and offers additional benefits to traditional advertising and marketing techniques.

To get the most out of a website, it is essential to be effective and that all important aspects of the website design are applied correctly. For example, the website should be easy to navigate, preferably with 3-click rule, have an aesthetic appeal and provide a clear message to your visitors. The following is a list points you should consider before creating and launching your website in the online world.

1 – Create Favicon The symbol of your website favicon in the browser window or tab helps visitors to identify the pages of your website. It is simply a file of 16×16 pixels in GIF format and should be renamed as favicon.ico.

2 – Test All Forms Generally, we tend to forget to try the contact forms of our website while we take care of design and development.

You must ensure you have all important fields such as name, email,

phone number, etc.

3 – Titles and Meta Tags Titles are very important for SEO positioning, facing search engines robots and also for visitors, as they refer the content of the page they are visiting, so ensure each and every page of your site has an adequate and appropriate title. Meta tags have a somewhat lesser importance in the SEO positioning for search engines, but it is always good to include them, because it provides more information to search engines about the page.

4 – Navigation To ensure easy navigation, ensure the most important site links are easy to find. You can also have an accessory with a sidebar menu to accommodate the links of sub-categories of the main links, or a core tablet with direct links to content that you want to highlight.

Do not forget to repeat the navigation in the footer to make it easier for visitors to find the content they are looking for on your website, preferably in text-only mode for those browsers that have JavaScript disabled mode.

5 – Search Engine Friendly URLs Search Engine Friendly URLs represent an advantage of SEO positioning in the search engines and ensure assistance in gaining quicker

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rankings.

6 – Install Google Analytics Google Analytics offers extensive information about your website and, most importantly, the behavior of visitors on it. With the service of Google Analytics, you can monitor progress of your website in real-time and study how really the changes really affect you make.

7 – Register Your Website in Google Webmaster Google Webmaster Tool will help you manage your website, so ensure you have checked the robots.txt file and .htaccess so that search engines can crawl your site. You must also submit the sitemap to webmaster tools to facilitate traceability.

8 – Robots Exclusion Protocol: Robots.txt With the robots exclusion protocol what is sought is to prevent certain folders on your website to get indexed by search engine robots. It is very useful when it comes to ‘hide’ certain information within the directory structure of your website for the search engines.

9 – Sitemaps A sitemap lists the pages of your website, along with some additional information such as how often the page changes its contents, when was the last update and how important are some other pages of the same site.

You must generate a sitemap and register it in Google Webmaster Tool. It is a fundamental part, among others, for effective SEO.

10 – Check All Links on Site Always ensure that all links on the site are working and are directed to the designated page. You can check all the links on your site with W3C Link Checker.

11 – Validation The website should aim to achieve 100% W3C validation. The tool W3C Validator helps you validate the site and will indicate those parts of HTML codes, XHTML, SMIL, MathML, CSS that do not meet the validation criteria.

12 – Consistency in Design The website should be consistent in its

design and this must necessarily provide visitors navigating the site. With the latest Google algorithm update, this point has become more important in the way of getting a good SEO positioning.

13 – Set Redirect 301 & 302 In case your website is a new version of an older one, and that its structure has changed, you must have the inventory of your old site before removing the server. Mapping URLs presents the URL of the previous site is very important. Your site must have the right

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kind of redirects 301 or 302. In the Google webmaster tools, you can check which pages to include in the trace 404 so you can redirect them to the correct pages.

social networks. Both for popular CMS, designed as HTML websites, there are easy insertion components that will save much time, because they are very easy to use.

14 – Configure Page 404 To avoid broken links, you should set up a proper 404 page and offer additional links to other relevant pages to navigate on 404 page.

18 – Compatibility between Browsers You must test your site across multiple browsers to ensure aesthetics and functionality are similar in the most popular browsers.

15 – RSS Feed If you have a blog on your website, do not forget to provide a link to the RSS feed. This will help people register to receive updates and stay connected to your site.

19 – Website Loading Speed Last but not least, once this process takes place, you must verify the loading speed of the website. This depends on many factors starting with web hosting (shared, virtual, dedicated, etc.), the platform on which it is created, graphics, flash animation, banners, compression of CSS and the way it is drafted with the code. Optimization of loading speed of your website is extremely important in SEO positioning.

16 – Disable JavaScript You must ensure your website is functional even with JavaScript disabled. Many visitors have JavaScript disabled functions for security reasons. In particular, check if the contact forms are fully operational with JavaScript functions disabled.

There are many add-ons for browsers that allow this function.

17 – Social Media

20 – Revise, Correct, Re-revise and Re-correct Content Despite of having corrected your content, revise it one more time before making it live. You must correct spelling for at least 2 more times usually recommended. Split large paragraphs into small paragraphs and insert some graphics because too much text makes readers bored.

About the Author

The most effective way to publicize the content of your website is that it possesses links to share content on

David Park is a professional digital media marketer with a dynamic personality and skills. Creative designing and writing are his passions and he enjoys being an active part of the online world. At present, he is managing all the creative works for One Logo Design You can follow him on Twitter

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5 Reasons Why Serviced Offices Continue to Boom

By Rochelle Lazarte Today, having a business and running a company doesn't mean the same thing it did a couple of decades ago. Innovations such as serviced offices and virtual offices, cloud technology, and lightningfast internet speed have changed what it means to have a workspace and run a business.

These days, entrepreneurs can transition from working from home to having a fully -furnished office at a prime location in a matter of weeks. With no major investment. No moving-in woes. Hasslefree turnovers. And these are all thanks to serviced office providers. But exactly why are so many entrepreneurs and even huge businesses trade their conventional offices for serviced offices?

It's more cost-effective than conventional office At the core of it all, serviced offices sell more than a great company address for businesses. More than that, it offers efficiency and accessibility. And for a lot of entrepreneurs and small businesses, these are crucial considerations. It means a lot when you are just establishing your business that you get to start out at a small office that has everything you need and aren't tied down by a three-year contract.

Leasing terms are flexible from one month to two years And this is one of the major reasons why so many serviced offices continue to pop up in major cities worldwide, giving businesses more room for flexibility. The changing

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business design demands a change in the office structure as well. And serviced offices are able to cater that and more to these businesses that are looking for something more than a space where they can do their work.

Other professional services are provided Apart from a fully-furnished office, serviced office providers also offer professional services because they understand that some of their clients are sole entrepreneurs who will need occasional help with the secretarial and admin work but aren't exactly looking to hire anyone soon.

Take it upon yourself to believe that you can, and you surely will. Be reminded of what Henry Ford once said: If you believe you can do a thing, or if you believe you cannot, you’re usually right.

The office layout is cleverly done to boost productivity One noteworthy thing about serviced offices is that when you enter an office, you immediately get what the interior design is for--to optimize creativity and productivity.

With conventional offices, you need to figure this out for yourself, and although some may consider an office layout to play a minor role with people's productivity, it's actually the contrary.

How you arrange the equipment and furniture in your office can affect that way you work. According to studies, a conducive work environment not only increases productivity but also boosts people's overall motivation and uplifts their mood.

No investment on assets means fewer risks for businesses And given all these, from the flexible leasing terms to the smart office layout to having an accessible office building at a prime location, the bottom line is that businesses still have minimal risk by choosing a serviced office compared to a conventional one. For one thing, there is no need to buy new office equipment, enroll for an internet service provider, and deal with so much paperwork just to rent an office space. For another thing, it will always be about efficiency. This fastpaced age of businesses will always be about efficiency. And serviced offices are all about that.

About the Author Roch Lazarte is a copywriter, social media strategist, spoken word poet, and teacher. On a good day, she writes features on business and management. On a bad day, she writes poetry. http://www.ceosuite.com/

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How to Design your Office for Maximum Health and Productivity

By Andrew Maxwell

Did you know the average person spends a staggering 90,000 hours at work during their lifetime? With such a huge proportion of our lives spent in an office setting, it stands to reason, companies of all shapes, sizes and industries should be striving to create healthy, dynamic working environments to optimise employee productivity and morale.

making workers feel happier, more energetic and beating the negative effects of spending eight hours a day sat in an office.

Modern businesses are increasingly looking for ways to incorporate healthy living into their office design. If you are an employer and are striving to make an office a healthier, more industrious environment to work in, take a look at the following ways you can design your office for maximum health and productivity.

You can ‘kill two birds with one stone’ by constructing a shower and bike store on the office premises. Having a place to privately shower, change clothing and store their bike securely is an effective way to encourage employees to ditch the car for their bike and feel happier, healthier and more productive as a result.

Build a shower and bike store In recent years the government has been encouraging businesses to implement ‘cycle to work’ schemes to promote going to work by bike instead of car or public transport.

Cycling to work has many benefits, including

One of the biggest deterrents that are dissuading employees from cycling to work is the prospect of having no shower when they arrive at work and having nowhere safe to put their bike.

Rethink office furniture It stands to reason, being hunched over a desk for hours on end sat an uncomfortable chair at an incorrectly positioned workstation, isn’t going to be conducive with maximum employee productivity and soaring

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morale.

Replacing outdated and uncomfortable furniture with ergonomically correct alternatives is a fairly simple way to maximise the health and productivity of your office.

Lighting Studies have repeatedly shown that natural daylight reduces stress and fatigue and increases productivity amongst humans.

For maximum health and productivity, an office should ideally be designed with plenty of windows, to ensure natural daylight floods into the working space. However, if windows are not possible in the office design, installing full-spectrum tube lighting that emit a balanced spectrum of light which are the closest you can get to natural daylight instead of fluorescent tubes, will go a long way in enhancing the wellbeing of your workforce.

Heating and air conditioning

The temperature of an office is a key factor for employee health and productivity.

Working in an office that is too cold will not do your annual sick day reports any favours.

Neither will forcing employees to work in a stifling hot office that’s a breeding ground for germs to circulate.

It is therefore within an employer’s interest to be diligent about the temperature of their office space. The ideal office temperature can be achieved through having an efficient heating and cooling system installed in the office.

As employee health and productiveness is intrinsically linked to how comfortable workers feel in their surroundings, introducing wellbeing-enhancing features into the design of an office, such as shower rooms that enable workers to freshen up after exercise, natural lighting opposed to artificial lighting, and maintaining an ideal temperature through efficient air conditioning and heating systems, should be on every employer’s agenda.

About the Author This article was written by Amspec, a workspace construction company in the North West. Combining innovative design with traditional construction methods, Amspec provides organisations with a bespoke working environment that is tailor made for their individual requirements. www.amspec.co.uk @AmspecUK

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5 Ways To Reward Customers For Actions

By Lilly J Adams For many years, rewards and loyalty programs have been great tools for companies to help create a stronger bond between them and their customers and provide stimulation for wanted behavior.

the program.

These are some of many excellent examples on how to reward customers for actions: 1.

Donating to charity - an American multinational food manufacturing company, Kellogg's, offers their customers an option to reward others by redeeming their Kellogg's Family Rewards points for a cash donation to schools or featured charities. These donations will be used for providing books and teaching tools, new technology and art supplies for schools.

Also, they support various charities including Feeding America, Action for Healthy Kids, FRAC's Campaign to End Childhood Hunger and many more.

2.

Suggesting ideas - a well known coffee company and coffeehouse chain, Starbucks, actively engages customers for more than five years through the My Starbucks idea website. It encourages customers to submit ideas for better products, improved customer experience and community

In exchange for purchasing certain amount of products, customers receive points that are redeemable for many benefits including free flights, discounts, prepaid visa gift cards, product samples, event tickets, toys, t-shirts and many more. Although some critics say that these loyalty programs offer discounts to people who are already loyal to the company and who are buying their products anyway, loyalty programs are still widely used.

Over the years, loyalty programs have evolved from purchase-based point systems to incentives for actions. Customers are much more likely to engage with brands today than ever before, but they want more interactive and creative reward systems. Companies have to invent new, exciting ways to obtain loyalty points. The act of purchasing yet another product is not nearly enough to create strong emotional bond between the company and the consumer. Rewarding customers for actions such as leading healthier lifestyles, donating to charity, creating promotional content for the brand and suggesting ideas, engage them on a deeper, emotional level. Therefore, these customers are much more likely to stay loyal and even include their friends and family into

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created the Balance Rewards program to award points to customers for completing certain healthy actions.

Points are earned for different activities from walking and running to recording blood pressure and blood glucose readings. Participants redeem points for discounts on in-store and online merchandise. Balance rewards program was a great success, with more than 82 million active members.

involvement. Starbucks combined concepts of change, experimentation, customer engagement, social media and market research and made the results key components of their brand.

This was one of many successful campaigns that has made them the largest coffeehouse company in the world and one of the most well known brands in the world.

3.

4.

Creating content that promotes the brand - competitions are another proven and efficient way to engage new customers and reward existing customers. With the rise of social media and digital technology, involving customers from all over the world while achieving free publicity has never been easier. For the past couple of years, many well known brands used largest social media site for artists, DeviantART, to host contests. In 2010, Japanese company Wacom, created a 'Bring Your Vision To Life - Dreams' contest where thousands of artists competed for a chance to win one of their graphics tablets. One of the reasons why this contest was particularly successful was because the prizes were very valuable, which led many artists to make an extra effort to create a digital masterpiece.

Healthy living - largest drug retailing chain in the United States, Walgreens,

5.

Involvement in advertising and promotions - a great way to get customers involved in promoting your brand is to directly involve them in your advertising. Two years ago, Freelancer website launched a Create a TV Commercial contest asking their users to create a fun and memorable video commercial. Many of these commercials went viral and the winner took home $20.000. Not bad, huh?

Emotionally based loyalty has become a powerful asset against fierce global competition. It is up to a company, no matter how small or big, to make strong bonds with their customers in order to survive.

Lilly J Adams has worked for six years in different marketing agencies across Australia. Her specialties are advertising, digital marketing, marketing for small businesses and consumers behavior. She loves art, books and watching crime TV dramas. Twitter | Facebook |Google+

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How to Plan and Make the Most Out of your Business Event

By Derek Lotts Organizing business event is a great way to generate good PR and attract new customers. This way of marketing is much more effective than regular commercials and internet ads, since attendances have the chance to try out company’s products or services and listen to presentation directly from the company management.

Although some companies have great

marketing campaigns, people will always prefer something materialistic over good and informative article, or interesting audio or video content.

There are plenty of causes for organizing business events. Some of them are:  

Promotion of new product or line Opening new company sector (and

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similar ribbon-cutting ceremonies) Meeting and rewarding loyal customers and business partners Introducing customers with company’s production process (open day) Educational purposes (seminars, conferences, workshops etc).

When organizing an event for any of these reasons, company PR needs to make sure that this happening will have high attendance and perfect flow. In this article we will concentrate on 5 things we think are the most important for organizing business events.

1. Invitations One of the first difficult questions when it comes to organizing events is who to invite.

Companies definitely need to focus on their target audience and business partners, but the invitation list should be much wider. PR manager needs to share invitations to the press. Local press is often the best option,

especially if company’s target audience is in one specific area. Local authority figures and famous and influential people from the neighborhood should also be present, including influential bloggers, and owners of popular Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Some events also include a celebrity guest appearance. This can largely benefit company’s business because event audience will think that celebrity guest is also buying company’s products or services, which is a very powerful understatement and it really helps in branding.

Unfortunately, celebrities can’t be lured only with complementary drinks and snacks. They sometimes ask for free products or even money to attend certain promotional events.

2. Event Management Event management is a very important, since it ensures that even goes as planned.

Holy bible of event management is an event timeline. Document that needs to be composed few days in advance and that determines when each part of the event is going to start and end. Nobody likes waiting, and that is why accuracy is one of the aspects in which companies can earn some extra points from both customers and business partners. On business events everybody needs to know their duties and

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both service and the program should go exactly as planned. If company doesn’t have enough employees to cover all event duties managers should think about labor hire.

Since event’s promotional value is very high, even after the happening, companies

need to hire good photographer who will make lots of good photos of guests that will be posted on company’s social media pages.

This is the way to promote company even further in social circles of the event visitors.

business partner will make them all feel equally important and ready for further cooperation. Guest may receive name cards, and some interesting material to read before the program starts. It can be a simple leaflet, but it shouldn’t be too promotional. Ideally, material handed over at the event should contain some interesting articles and photos, and a few unsuspicious commercials (for example articles like : “How to make the most out of business event” from the guest’s point of view). When it comes to name cards, these are not necessary, accept for the members of the press and influential and VIP visitors.

4. Event Finale

3. Welcoming Committee Every guest needs to feel welcomed, that’s why there needs to be a welcoming committee at the entrance, which should include company’s highest officials. Entering a room after the guests and shaking hands with only few most important business partners is not an option here, especially when it comes to small business events.

Welcoming every potential customer and

Event program depends on the type of the event company is organizing. Although whatever type they choose program should contain several important acts: 

Greeting- guests should be greeted by business owner or other higher company official;

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5. Guest Comfort

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Introduction- part where more important guest should be mentioned, including: members of the press, local authorities, influential bloggers and basically everybody who is widely known to the whole crowd. Also in this part speaker needs to present the program to the audience and introduce key speakers.

Main act- this mainly depends on the type of the event in question, it can contain: speeches, ribbon cutting, handing out awards etc.

Music, or anything else that will make guest feel comfortable while waiting in between these sessions and socializing.

Companies need to make their guest feel comfortable and the best way to do that is with an interesting and relaxing side shows.

These can include music, performances, stand up acts or even short videos. Drinks and snacks are also very important. Most companies decide to hire professional caterers for this task. Finger food is the best option, but it needs to be something tastier than a bowl of chips, since business events are not sophomore parties.

With the right program even can serve as a great promotional tool. Photos, videos and posts from business event can make a great splash in visitor’s social circles, which can attract even more potential customers. In addition to this, organizing events, handing over free product samples, food and drinks is one of the best way to keep customers and business partners loyal.

About The Author: Derek Lotts is a writer that aspires to get recognition for his writing skills. He has an utterly curious mind and is always on the lookout for fresh and trendy topics. Follow him on twitter.

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