What All Entrepreneurs Need to Know About Working from Home

As a budding entrepreneur, working from home might feel like a dream come true. You won’t have to worry about long commutes, and you can even save on daycare expenses, right? But it may not be so simple. Take a look at this list of considerations all work-from-home entrepreneurs need to think about before taking the plunge.

Distractions

When you are home, you can be distracted by events that would normally not happen in an office setting. For example, if your dog barks at the mailman, the laundry goes off every hour, or if your neighbor calls to ask you to watch her child after school, your attention is being pulled away from your work. This can lead to a lot of wasted time over the course of a workday.

To work at home effectively, you need to set boundaries. Set up a home office for yourself and set firm, but not rigid, work hours. One boon of working at home is flexibility, but you need to be careful that your time is not too flexible. If you make that mistake, you may find yourself falling behind and working into the night.

Childcare

One particular distraction has to do with the youngest members of your household. If you currently have childcare for your little ones, don’t be so quick to end your arrangement. Small children require a lot of your attention, and if you plan to work from home, you need it focused on work during your set hours. You can try to get everything done while they are in school, but you may need an extra two or three hours in the afternoon after they get home.

If you want to take your kids out of daycare, consider hiring a nanny to care for them at home while you work. Another option is to work a shift opposite of your partner’s. Make sure they are able to handle all childcare while you are working.

You Will Need Your Own Equipment

When you work in an office, you normally get to use your employer’s computer, printer, paper, copy machine, and other office equipment and supplies. This is not the case when you work from home. Be sure to build room in your budget for things like printer ink, postage, and file folders. Save on office supplies by finding online deals and discounts on everything from 4inkjets promo codes to in-store coupons for pens and staplers.

Taxes

The bad news about being self-employed, is you are now responsible for an additional self-employment tax. The good news is, you can take deductions for your business as allowed by the law. Count on hiring an accountant to walk you through the process of determining which deductions you can legally take, and be prepared to pay taxes quarterly. Having an organized system is the key to keeping your at-home business on track.

Becoming a work-at-home entrepreneur can be rewarding in many ways. Just be sure you plan ahead and understand what will and will not change about your situation. With foresight and a can-do attitude, you should be able to clear the hurdles that go along with starting a new business out of your home.

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How to Create an Inventive Marketing Strategy on a Budget

We’ve all been faced with a situation in life when we haven’t necessarily got the funds to simply buy what we want or need. Being canny with a budget and creative in our approach is an important part of life. Having these skills in the business world is an essential requirement.

When it comes to marketing it can be daunting to deliver a strategy on a modest budget. Traditionally making a big noise required the budget to back it up. Large print ads, TV commercials, celebrity endorsements, radio jingles, billboards – all tools in the armoury of marketing departments and all relatively expensive.

Yet the modern world – and the technology that the world is obsessed with – plays into the hands of those looking to be canny and creative. There are essentially three things you must do to create an inventive strategy when on a budget: plan properly, embrace new technology, and share your wisdom.

Plan

If money is tight then you need to get it right. You need to be specific and you need to plan everything properly. How much money do you have exactly? What does your strategy have to achieve? Who does it need to reach? Ask yourself important questions and ask important questions of your target market so that you are clear before you begin.

Often by focusing solely on the essential goals you can deliver a focussed campaign that is successful. By setting out a good, well-researched plan you can track performance and monitor costs at all stages.

You also need to plan in advance. Rushed, last minute campaigns are likely to attract greater cost.

Digital can disrupt

One of the very best things about the technological advancements of recent years when it comes to marketing is that they have greatly reduced the cost of getting your message across.

Expensive print runs for big batches of flyers can be replaced, for example, by sending out a large batch of SMS messages. It’s quicker too. If sending too many SMS sounds like it’s going to be painful for your thumbs don’t worry. Technology exists to send hundreds or thousands of messages in seconds. People much prefer a text, too, to a leaflet pushed through their door.

Videos no longer need to be made for television or cinema screens – YouTube and social media have reduced the barriers to getting these to your customers.

You should harness social media well. This is your chance to show a human face for your brand and create content that can be shared by your customers who, in this scenario, act as ambassadors for you. It’s powerful, effective and does not come with a big cost.

In general you should think about how digital technology can deliver some of the traditional marketing methods at a fraction of the cost. Stage a virtual trade show, for example, use eye-catching poster images on Facebook instead of billboards and pay for web banners instead of print ads.

Share wisdom

Don’t confine yourself to the short term. One way to boost your marketing efforts is through content. Set yourself up as a thought leader through sound, well-written blog posts on your own website and offer your services as a guest writer for good, relevant industry websites.

In the long-term being a thought leader will establish your brand as something to be respected and will help you to have greater authority when marketing new products, services and practices. If you have a flair for writing and interesting thoughts to share, this can be a lucrative long-term way of extending your marketing efforts in a cost-effective way.

Plan properly, embrace digital and use content smartly and you’ll deliver a winning creative strategy at a cut price.

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Website Builders Empower Small Businesses

Small businesses benefit dramatically from a solid web presence and the rise of Etsyin recent years is just one indicator of how the Internet can boost their sales. But for many small business owners, creating a customized website seems daunting. The process can be costly and lengthy and many business owners don’t know where to begin.

DIY Website Builders Mean Any Small Business Can Have a Website

The recent boom of many do-it-yourself website buildershas helped to empower small businesses by reducing the barriers to entry into the digital market. To build a professional, well-designed website today requires tens of dollars rather than thousands, or sometimes nothing at all.

Building a website doesn’t have to be complicated. Most small businesses don’t need websites with an encyclopedia of bells and whistles; they need nothing more than a simple “business card” website which includes important details such as services, contact information and social media links. But even for those small businesses with extensive product lists and dozens of options, many popular website builders can provide them with just what they need. In fact,today’s website builders offer such a range of functionalities and design options that for most small businesses they are a better choice than hiring a dedicated developer.

Choosing the Best Website Builder for Your Business

There are many options on the market today. From the website builder by Wix, a platform now boasting more than 70 million users, to Weebly, Squarespace, Jimdo and dozens more who are all vying for market share.Each one has its pros and cons, but at the end of the day most charge a nominal fee for a website (from being absolutely free to $300 a month) and allow users to drag-and-drop page elements where they want them without needing to know code. Building a website is as easy as playing a game on your smart phone, so small business owners can go from no website to a live version in just a few hours.

Add Endless Functionalities to Your New Website

Whether a small business needs impressive eCommerce features which can track the inventory of a brick-and-mortar store, email newsletters, secure check out, or the ability to advertise specials in social media, website builders have really begun to push the envelope in terms of offering great tools which used to prohibitively expensive.

Here’s a breakdown of some of thesmall business tools website builders are providing… sometimes for free, thus saving businesses thousands of dollars in development costs.

  • Shopping Carts:It might seem strange to hear, but shopping carts are technically difficult to code and have many different variables where things can go wrong. But website builders provide easy-to-use shopping carts for their clients, often at no additional cost, or for just a small percentage of sales.
  • Secure Payment Gateways: Having a shopping cart is one thing, but accepting various forms of payment quite another. It used to be true that unless they were willing to shellout big bucks, small businesses with websites were limited to payment options like Paypal. But today businesses can choose from many payment options and website builders handle all the security issues for the small businesses.
  • Great Design: No one wants a template-looking websiteand several of the top website builders allow such a depth and ease of customizationthat almost no two websites will look similar. No matter how unskilled a user is, the final site can look terrific.
  • Business Emails:Setting up an business email account can be a costly headache even with the help of a developer, but website builders have taken the hassle out of the equation, and most offer an affordable business email solutionfor clients.
  • Reaching Clients: How can a business owner make sure that customers will see their new website? Today, many website builders offer great tools and information to help their users learn best practices in everything from PPC to SEO, banner advertisingand social media campaigns. Proud of your new website? The right website builder will help you promote it and bring in traffic!

Small businesses are often short on resources and also often face steep competition. It can be challenging for them to compete on the web for potential clients. Luckily, the do-it-yourself website builder platforms have helped to level the playing field, putting many of the same tools, tips, and tricks that larger companies use in the hands of start-ups, individuals and small businesses.

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Accepting Payments Online for Your Business

One of the easiest ways of liberating yourself from the many constraints of operating a brick and mortar business is to go on-line and establish a web store. At a click of a mouse you will have managed to get rid of a number of issues that are a source of concern for traditional businesses. No longer do you have to worry about locating a retail store located at a vantage position and think about shelling out expensive lease rentals every month. You also do not need to keep a bevy of sales assistants to man the sales counters or even a large inventory to please every whim and fancy of the walk-in customer. However, one vexing problem remains; accepting payments online from customers.

If you think that you will be able to operate profitably by insisting that customers pay only by cash on delivery or send checks in advance, you would be losing out on the custom of millions of credit card holders who are currently spending billions of dollars in online purchases. To the uninformed, accepting payments on-line might seem to be a very complicated affair, but in fact it can be extremely simple and open the floodgate of sales for you with just a few easy steps.

The Typical Credit Card Customer

There are perhaps just three basic types of customers that shop on-line and pay on-line. The first is the average guy who prefers shopping with his mouse on an online platform to jostling with the crowds and queuing up at the counters and then lugging his purchases back home. The second type of customer is the one that keeps on browsing websites, falls in love with an item that she was never planning to buy and purchases it on an impulse with her credit card. The third type, now rapidly increasing in numbers due to globalization, is the international customer who would like to shop for articles of his fancy from suppliers, irrespective of the country they may be located in. Credit card purchases in international currencies are now as simple and seamless as transacting in domestic currency so that acts as a strong incentive to such transactions. As an on-line business owner you would lose out on all these customers were you not to accept credit card payments.

How to Accept Plastic Money

Basically there are two ways of taking advantage of the prevailing cheap credit card processing rates and accepting payments on-line. The first is through a merchant account set up by a credit card acceptance service provider. You need to approach a payment processor operating merchant accounts and get on board by entering into an agreement with them. The agreement specifies the various rules and regulations governing card acceptance, and the details of the various fees that will be charged for setting up the account, maintaining the account and on a per transaction basis.

Using your merchant ID, you can accept or decline credit card transactions on your website; the process is fully automated with electronic linkages for card verification established by the payment processor. Online business owners also have the option of using payment gateways to accept credit card payments online. Payment gateways are independent third-party merchants that provide the service to you for transaction and other fees.

Deciding On the Best Method of Credit Card Acceptance

Each of the methods of on-line credit card acceptance has its own benefits and drawbacks so it is really up to the on-line business owner to decide for himself. Generally speaking, it can be somewhat more expensive to set up a merchant account than to tie up with a payment gateway. However, over an extended period of time, the total cost of using the payment gateway can be higher. For website owners experimenting with online payments for the first time, it can be worthwhile to engage a payment gateway. After satisfying themselves that business is booming due to on-line payment acceptance, they can go in for a more permanent merchant account arrangement.

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5 Necessary Skills for Every Entrepreneur

Successful entrepreneurship requires a certain mindset, collection of personality attributes, and a battery of skills. Each CEO and entrepreneur may have a slightly different way of doing things, but the essential elements of success remain the same. The following includes 5 Necessary Skills for Every Entrepreneur. These skills are necessary to achieve, persevere, and dominate in the world of business as an entrepreneur.

Necessary Skills for Every Entrepreneur: 1. Leadership

Not everyone has the ability to lead. Leadership qualities are more than just ordering subordinates about. A true leader inspires people to want to well for the company. This is not necessarily accomplished by ruling with an iron fist, but neither is it suggested that an up-and-coming entrepreneur take a relaxed attitude toward management.

Leadership encompasses many skills that required decisiveness, finesse, and sound decision-making. A leader needs to be willing and able to delegate tasks to employees, have a clear, workable plan fully formed before implementation, understand the financial expectations of the business, and build an effective staff by hiring applicants that will be assets to the business. An entrepreneur who can work with their staff is more likely to succeed than one that simply dictates orders without being in touch with what is actually taking place within the company.

2. Motivation

Without drive success will never occur. Slacking off and procrastination will get a person nowhere in the world of business and enterprise. Someone who starts at the bottom and works their way up by being a team player, taking initiative, and possessing a willingness to both learn and volunteer for tasks that are unpopular can create a reputation with important people who will remember the work put into achieving success.

A career or business that is stagnant or stuck in a rut will likely fail. Entrepreneurs who actively seek out new business, solutions to problems, and make the tough decisions quickly and decisively will reach their goals in a timelier manner than their lackadaisical counterparts will. It may take time to become a successful entrepreneur, but patience and perseverance will win out in the end, and last far longer. Expecting an overnight success will last just as long, and the flash-in-the-pan entrepreneur will burn out as quickly as they sparked to life.

3. Communication

Communication is essential for an entrepreneur is two major areas: within a business and outside in the business world. Effective entrepreneurs understand that communicating clearly and effectively with staff can mean the success or failure of a business. The ability to explain what is needed, and the specifics of a business plan are paramount to effective leadership. Staff should not need to have tasks explained in minute detail, but should have a good grasp on the style and focus of the business beforehand. This can only be done if management communicates these expectations from the beginning.

Networking throughout a specific area of the business world to further contacts and business relationships can only aid in the success of an entrepreneurship. Reliable contacts among people with influence can only benefit the budding entrepreneur, and possibly increasing future patronage.

4. Innovation

Some old-fashioned entrepreneurs have difficulty in keeping up with the times, refusing to modernize or adapt to changes in how and what business is conducted. This stubbornness can lead to the death of a business. A successful entrepreneur keeps abreast of new trends and technologies to keep a business updated, well maintained, and accessible to new clientele from younger generations.

In order to achieve this goal, an entrepreneur needs to be willing to accept and implement innovativeness to the business. Sticking with outdated methods and technology may be cheaper in the short term, but it will eventually lead to higher costs and loss of revenue. Embracing change in deference to accommodate the ultimate end goal of the company may help an entrepreneur realize that goal that much sooner.

5. Accepting and learning from failure

Every successful business person has a story about a failure on the way to success. Failure should never be viewed as the end of a business venture or a dream. Failure is an opportunity to learn from mistakes, and should be motivation to start again. Yes, failure can definitely hurt, and taking a hit in business can make building again more difficult, but simply giving up is never an option for a true entrepreneur.

If a business venture is struggling, it is sometimes better to cut the losses rather than trying to breathe life back into something that is never going to work. A successful entrepreneur learns to recognize the signs that something just won’t pan out. Acceptance that failure cannot always be avoided is a hard-won skill, but essential for understanding what makes a business succeed, and what will cause a business to fail.

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5 Tips to Make Web Designing Smooth and Hassle Free

Websites cater to varied needs, that of businesses they represent, users who find them after online searches, potential and existing customers, employees, and many others who stumble upon them unknowingly.

Great websites are built around a target audience and a market niche. There is no ambiguity about a strong website. It is easy for the visitor to understand what the site is about and find what he is looking for. This is one of the hallmarks of a successful website.

Ease of use, simplicity and clean layout, though they sound simple, are not easy to achieve. As soon as you create the framework, design the layout, and keep adding the absolutely necessary components, the simple design becomes complex in no time. And to make something that is complex appear beautiful, simple and uncluttered, you need to employ the best designing tactics.

Here are a few web designing tips to help you design a beautiful and useful website, without headaches and heartburns.

Web Designing: Be Organized and Structured

Organization and structure are of vital importance when designing a website.

Organization will help a user navigate his way easily without getting confused. A cleanly-organized site will follow web designing conventions that a user will be familiar with.

Hierarchy will help a user spot the main and important sections, and navigate to relevant content. Readability becomes even more important when we consider that a majority of Internet users just scan a website to determine whether it is useful to them or not.

A smart web design will break up content into bold headlines and small chunks of content that are informative and concise.

Quality websites use contrast between text and background color to improve readability. A dark background with dull color text will only drive away visitors or give them a headache.

Web Designing: Pick Correct Color Scheme

Websites need to be visually appealing and a great color scheme will help with that.

When designing websites for companies, many designers choose to stick to the color scheme of the brand logo. It helps in maintaining brand identity and appeal, and makes it easy to build and execute brand promotion campaigns.

If there is no existing color scheme to build on, browse the Web and study sites that catch your fancy. Appealing sites have great color combinations that gel well, spark chemistry and speak to one another.

Avoid garish color combinations and colors that blend into each other.

Choose a limited set of colors for the general UI, text and backgrounds. It is best if you maintain uniformity and consistency with the color scheme used in the user interface. Look up quality sites like Facebook, Google or Airbnb and you will see that there is continuity or predictability across the UI. But graphics, illustrations, videos and photographs are not bound by any color restrictions, and you can let your creative juices flow.

Web Designing: Devote Time for Planning

Most designers work in agencies where there are too many deadlines and time schedules to adhere to. It may become impossible to spend more time than absolutely necessary on planning.

Great designers say that they put in plenty of work hours into planning the basic essentials of a website. This is necessary to design a clutter-free and simple user experience.

The core content or the very essential message that a website needs to convey should be uncovered and written down for reference. Everything else you do should do justice to this core idea and help communicate it well and in the most appealing manner to the user.

Also, map out user flow in the beginning and plan the website to maximize it. If a designer keeps user flow in mind, it will be far easier to focus on the right points and design the project effectively.

Web Designing: Ensure the Client Is on the Same Page as You

Web designers either passionately agree or strongly disagree on this point. We at web designing Utah agree on this point.

Many a time, clients are clueless about how web design differs from web development, and give wrong inputs and have misplaced expectations.

It is not necessary that you involve your client in every step of designing a website, but ensure that he/she is happy with your core concept or idea, and green lights the prototype.

In web designing, time is money and you cannot spend a lot of it educating your client. You must collaborate with your client and understand what the business and marketing requirements are. There is no doubt that he/she understands the business the best and can help you get to know the target audience better.

Mood boards help you convey your visual thoughts in the best possible manner to the client. They help convey the intended look and feel of a website to a client, and help in planning the designing process better. Crafting mood boards also help you put down what you have in mind and assess whether your visual thinking is in line with the business’ needs.

Designers vouch by the fact that mood boards help win pitches and get quick sign-offs.

Build the style or mood around a main/central image. The central image is also the core theme or the mood of the website, and it should be supported by smaller supporting images, illustrations or graphics. If clients are not able to understand the meaning of an image or why it is there, you need to replace it with something more meaningful and achieve a character and style that is in sync with the business.

Web Designing: Be Friends with Web Developers

Your job does not end after you furnish the style sheets to the web development team. Ensure that you collaborate and communicate, and see to it that your designs are developed, implemented and supported properly.

Many a time, developers will have valuable inputs to provide on designing. So if possible, check with them in the initial stages and validate your vision and ideas. This will also help in better implementation.

Clean codes, a fabulous user interface and good backend programming are necessary for a fast-loading and user-friendly website. And it is the web developer who is usually responsible for these. So, be passionate about your design and team up with the developer for the best execution.

Conclusion

There are several things that go into building a mind-blowing website, and creative vision and innovative designing ability are just a couple of them. Ensure that you follow all aspects of designing and development, and collaborate and communicate with your team and all stakeholders effectively to get the best results.

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5 Innovative Social Media Tips to Grow Your E-Commerce Business

A report by Hubspot shows 365% growth of social media use in the past 7 years. Not only this is an astonishing figure, but also shows the vast number of customers that online businesses can attract. In another report, it showed that more than 70% people on social media prefer to make purchases online. This shows how the world is transitioning from a physical platform (real stores) to a digital platform for shopping and this is mainly due to the increased online presence on social media. But as innovative the social media platform is, business owners must also think of innovative ideas to attract more and more buyers and eventually turn their businesses into brands. Here are a few tips to attract the customer’s attention on social media and help grow your e-commerce business.

1. Grow Your E-Commerce Business with User Generated Content

The best way to engage your customers or clients is by encouraging user generated content. It provides a platform to your customers to showcase their creativity but also helps you promote your brand. So ensure that your e commerce platforms are equipped with social media tools that promote customer engagement. You can also look for the best e commerce platforms on websites like FinestShops and others. Guest post by select customers, photography contests and any campaigns that feature your customers not only increases their interest but will also ensure their loyalty. Maintaining goodwill is one of the most prime aspects of a business and promoting the customers is a great way of establishing yourself as a brand.

2. Inspirational Quotes

Promoting your products through an inspirational quote can be really effective if served in the right manner. In a recent study it was found that inspirational quotes by famous personalities get a 19% boost in shares on various social media platforms like twitter and Facebook. Any quote that is funny, motivational or educational is increasingly shared by social media users creating a great area for marketing. One of the great examples of this is the Never Settle Campaign by clothing brand Ugmonk that was coupled with an inspirational Quote from Steve Jobs. This not only allowed people to share their product on social media but also worked on an inspirational level rather than a promotional one.

3. Video Campaign about Upcoming Products

We all know that watching a video is more engaging than reading and hence it is also important to include a video campaign to promote your business. We are pretty familiar with video ads through the popular modes of entertainment like radio and television. As the world has moved on to the digital platform through the internet, the need for audio visual content still remains. A sneak preview video of your upcoming products not only creates more curiosity in the customers but also keeps them engaged about the product launch. Nevertheless, this should be served in an innovative manner and should not appear as a direct advertisement.

4. A Little Self Promotion Doesn’t Hurt

While the internet world hates people who brag, adding a bit of humor and cheekiness can work wonders. Showing some personality while making a self promoting statement helps the customers identify your business as an entity and not just a company. Try to have fun when trying to tell people why your brand is the best, instead of taking a more direct or serious approach.

5. Using Trending Content to Your Advantage

Using the current events to your advantage might be considered as a cheap trick for most businesses. But when done ethically, an ad campaign bundled with trending content can work wonders for your online business. Coupling your products with a trending hashtag on twitter can significantly improve your viewership. It not only promotes your products but also helps you engage in different conversations that were started by other brands or celebrities.

Not only social media emerged as a boon to the people across the world but has also opened several opportunities of business and created a whole new market. Hence, the owners of the online business must always think ‘outside the box’ to attract and engage more and more customers. The above tips can be implemented for most business that operate online and can certainly attract more customers and media attention.

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Global Conditions for a Rate Hike are Still Not Alright Said Fed

Last week, all eyes and ears were on the US Federal Reserve’s Chair Janet Yellen as markets braced themselves for the first interest rate hike in almost a decade. In a rate decision that was broadly seen by economists as something of a ‘coin toss’, the Fed’s policy-setting committee chose to keep rates on hold at almost 0%. This means that the Fed has yet to increase interest rates from their record lows of 2009.

It is clear that the US central bank is becoming increasingly concerned about global economic and financial market risks – and it is not alone.

Last week, the Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney, acknowledged that risks to the health of the global economy have intensified as China’s economy faltered. Nevertheless, Mark Carney still expects the case for beginning interest rate hikes to come into sharper focus at the turn of the year.

The Case for Raising UK Rates

The Governor’s view, however, is not shared by his Chief Economist and MPC colleague, Andy Haldane. Rarely does a speech in Portadown catch the attention of financial markets, but Haldane’s did on Friday when he addressed an audience of local business people. He said that “the case for raising UK rates in the current environment is, for me, some way from being made”. Indeed, according to Haldane, given the downside risks to growth, there is every chance that the next interest rate move could be a cut instead of an increase.

Outside the roller-coaster ride in equity markets last month, there has been a steady stream of evidence signalling that a global economic slowdown is in train. The vast majority of manufacturing PMIs around the world indicated weaker growth in August relative to July. Furthermore, 11 manufacturing PMIs (including those of China, Russia, Brazil, France and Canada) signalled contraction in August.

Over the last month it was revealed that Canada had joined Russia and Brazil in recession between April and June. Meanwhile the US economy’s trade with the Rest of the World contracted in the first seven months of the year. This is not surprising when you consider that global trade is now growing at its slowest rate since 2009.

So how is Northern Ireland faring?

Clearly, Northern Ireland cannot insulate itself from global economic developments. Whilst trade with China is relatively small, it is the wider global economic slowdown that is more concerning. Northern Ireland firms, particularly our manufacturing businesses, are exposed to markets that are very reliant on China. For instance, Northern Ireland companies that supply equipment to the quarrying sector benefited from the commodity boom that was driven by China.

Last week’s Northern Ireland manufacturing output figures showed that overall, the sector was performing better than the UK as a whole. Despite a quarterly decline of over 2%, output was up 1.6% on the same quarter a year ago. The equivalent growth rate for the UK manufacturing sector was just 0.6%.

The quarterly decline in Q2 was due to an unusually large increase in Q1, stemming from the Transport Equipment sector (which includes aerospace). This sub-sector posted a quarterly rise in output of almost 14% in Q2. Given the outsized gain in manufacturing output in Q1 (+3.8% q/q) a decline in Q2 was inevitable. What is important is that the underlying trend, stripping out Q1, showed strong growth (+1.6%) between Q4 2014 and Q2 2015.

Manufacturing output has increased by 20% since it troughed in 2009. Output in Q2 is just 3% below the levels that prevailed at the peak before the last global downturn. However, some sectors are experiencing much higher levels of output now than before the last global downturn. In particular, Transport Equipment (which includes Wrightbus and Bombardier) output recently hit a record high, with output more than doubling relative to its trough in 2009. In Q2, output was one-third above its pre-downturn peak seven years ago. The Chemicals & Pharmaceutical Products sector (which includes Randox, Norbrook and Almac) has posted declines in output in recent quarters. However, output is still 27% above the levels that prevailed even years ago.

Lower Levels of Output

There are only two sectors within Northern Ireland’s manufacturing sector that are experiencing lower levels of output in Q2 2015 than during the trough of the global economic downturn.

These are the Food, Drink & Tobacco (FDT) sector and Wood & Paper Products. According to last week’s figures, FDT output amongst NI firms was 18% lower in Q2 2015 than six years ago. Conditions for this sector are much less favourable today than six years ago. The Euro / Sterling exchange rate for one has moved from 91.5p in Q3 2009 to 72.3p today. The collapse in milk prices, alongside Russian sanctions on EU food imports, has also hit the dairy sector.

Looking ahead, the second half of 2015 is likely to see more subdued manufacturing activity amongst Northern Ireland firms. The Ulster Bank PMI indicated a notable slowdown in manufacturing output and new orders growth in August. Over the next two weeks, financial markets will be closely watching the manufacturing PMIs for September, which are expected to show a further slowdown in activity. Northern Ireland is expected to follow the same trend.

Overall, mounting pessimism concerning global growth is drawing more and more comparisons with 2009. From a Northern Ireland-perspective, the economy was more insulated to a global downturn six years ago than it is now. Public expenditure growth and a deferral of austerity shielded Northern Ireland more than elsewhere. Back then the economy enjoyed political stability with the economy set as the number one priority. Comparisons between then and now couldn’t be starker on all of these fronts. Furthermore, households and corporates benefited from the Bank of England slashing interest rates to 0.5%. Linked to this exporters benefited from the sharp depreciation in sterling. This time around, however, Northern Ireland faces more headwinds than tailwinds. Northern Ireland would love to be in China’s position of being able to slash interest rates and unleash a fiscal stimulus. However, the UK played these cards already in 2009.

Post by Richard Ramsey, Chief Economist, Northern Ireland, Ulster Bank Group Communications. Article appears in today’s Irish news Business Insight.

This article is also available on www.ulstereconomix.com

Recent posts include:
NI heading for recession? Podcast with Richard Ramsey and John Simpson 
Unemployment falling but NI is still working less
Are we sustaining the unsustainable with welfare spend?

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3 Ways To Increase Your Marketing Reach

Many business owners associate additional costs with increasing their brand’s marketing reach. But with the right tools and know-how, a business can increase the impact of their marketing efforts with minimal to no cost. Here are 3 ways a business can extend their marketing reach to targeted audiences across the globe. Let’s look at some ways you can expand and increase your marketing reach.

Categorize Your Audience & Their Respective Behaviors

It can be almost impossible for a business to convey the right message to the right people at the right time. If not entirely impossible, the process tends to be time-consuming and labor-intensive. Nonetheless, it should be your marketing goal. You’ve probably already launched a few marketing strategies, from organic searches to Pay-Per-Click, on search engines or social networking sites. These are all tested and proven strategies in the realm of marketing. But to generate good returns on investment, you cannot execute such strategies so blindly and hastily.

A solid grasp of the fundamentals of your targeted audience is necessary. Age, gender, ethnic background, and any other demographic information you can recover from your audience will play an important part in keeping your marketing approach fresh and relevant. Having a more thorough insight of their activity and behavior also allows you to make more reliable forecasts for your business as well as a more effective follow-through.

Determine The Right Channels

Different marketing channels are accessible for a business. But this doesn’t mean you should dive into every possible channel in the hopes of maximizing reach to your target audience. If you do participate in every available marketing channel, you end up with more monthly costs and more pipelines to manage. Instead of being a jack-of-all-trades, research and focus on 2 or 3 marketing channels that suit your type of business.

Social media is perhaps one of the best marketing strategies to date and is a vital component for every business who wants to compete online. However, not all social media platforms are cut out for your particular business type, model, and target audience. Do the necessary work and research to identify the right platforms to best reach your market. Have a strategic approach when dispensing content on these platforms instead of hastily spamming articles and blog posts. Doing so may affect your brand’s integrity and professionalism.

Work On Your Content

In an attempt to reach the most customers quicker than their competitors, many businesses neglect content quality thus failing to convey the right message to their consumers. Quality marketing content may be trickier or more expensive to acquire, but over time you’ll be able to recover upfront expenses through reduced customer acquisition cost and higher customer retention rate.

So how do you beautify your marketing content? One way is to incorporate subtitling into your marketing videos. Customers have grown more accustomed to subtitling options due to recent advances in entertainment, such as Netflix. Prolonged exposure to films and TV shows that have subtitles in them have trained consumers subconsciously to simply read what the characters on their screen are saying rather than pay close attention. Having subtitles encourages web viewers to keep the video running since they can understand it better.

There are several good reasons why subtitles are the strongest add-on for video marketing. One reason is that having subtitles make your video more visible to web viewers. YouTube and Vimeo captions are itemized by Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. Furthermore, subtitled videos in a native language have a higher chance of getting shared between friends and family members.

If you have sufficient marketing budget, you can implement both voice-over and subtitled video formats to reach a broader audience. Giving users the flexibility to choose how they view your content gives them a more personal experience and makes it more accessible to web users around the world.

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SEO Tips – If You Build It They Will Come

So you’ve got the new shiny website that you have spent an age designing and developing to get just right. You’re finally happy with your website and it has gone live. Well done, you’ve got this far, but your work in getting search engine optimization for your website has just begun. Good SEO, content and social media are crucial to you getting your desired results. Read on for some invaluable SEO tips…

Good content needs to be planned and continued throughout the website’s life. The website design and development is just the start, the future of the website needs to be mapped out, according to the whole point of the website, why the website was created in the first place and how you are going to get results.

Have clear objections

What are your objectives for your website? Do you need to drive sales, create awareness, influence or educate?

SEO – Get the Google love

First things first, you need to get found by google, set up google webmaster tools and google analytics. Verify your website with Google, add your google sitemap to the root folder and to google webmaster tools. As your website gains traffic you will be able to analyse what your website is getting found for and how you can improve upon this.

Promote, promote, promote

You need to promote your website with a mixture of SEO, content and social media. With the right mix and a lot of hard work and perseverance you will get your site ranked by google. Your aim is to get ranked close to these and hopefully above these with good SEO, content and social media so that you will get found by your customer base. To be successful in this you need to have a sound technical infrastructure for good SEO.

Google webmaster tools have some great checklists and blogs on SEO that you should really immerse yourself in. You also need to provide fresh, new content consistently and always. Good quality content related to your website is what you really need to work on, this takes a lot of time and is pretty relentless. Just think your website is new on the digital scene, competing for google love with a plethora of already well established brands. How to even start to compete with them might be mind boggling. With the right mix of SEO, content and social media and sheer hard work you will get there eventually!

Blog

You need to have a dedicated blog as an intrinsic part of your website. You need to have regular blog posts related to what your website specialises in. You need to understand your customer base, who are you targeting and what for and with the right blog content you will succeed in getting these to your site and get results. Blogging once you get started has a way of gaining momentum as you write your first couple you will then organically come up with content for more blogs.

How to best equip yourself for blogging, become a voracious reader of everything related to your specialist subject, do the research, check out the competition, what are they providing content on, and what are their target audience interested in reading more on. Be ahead of the game in new trends and developments and blog regularly on these, providing unique content that informs and gets results and you will have your target audiences attention and keep them coming back for more. It’s not nuclear science but once you do get content right you will reap the benefits.

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