How to Use Skype to Enhance Business Profitability | A Waseem Saddique Marketing Guide

Skype has recently announced that its users spend 2 billion minutes per day connecting, this equates to enough time to view approximately 16 million videos or journey to the moon and back at least 225,000 times.

This represents a massive global audience for businesses to tap into and Waseem Saddique Marketing Services has issued some essential information for business owners on how to use Skype to enhance business profitability.

Vital Information

•     Use Skype to cut costs
•     Use Skype to grow consumer audiences
•     Use Skype to do business with other businesses
•     Use Skype to host seminars and charge a fee

Waseem Saddique asserts: “Skype is free and enables businesses to call and conference anyone, immediately eliminating the cost of calling mobile phones and landlines. This already represents a significant decrease in financial outgoings for the majority of companies.”

Companies can also utilise ‘Skype Numbers’, which allow potential consumers, current clients  and other callers to contact one centralised ‘Skype Number’ from anywhere in the world. This allows for significant financial savings to be made as it eradicates the need for numerous telephone lines and purchasing mobile phones excessively.

However, should telephones be an integral part of a business, Skype calls can be routed through current phone systems without disruption and tying up telephone lines.

Waseem Saddique comments: “Skype not only improves productivity, but it eliminates so many costs involved with running a business. The money saved can be put to better use in areas such as advertising, improving customer service and building business prominence.”

As Skype is a widely free service, companies have been encouraged to engage audiences using the system. It allows business users to conduct on-line presentations, in real time, should they be unable to represent themselves ‘in the flesh’.

Statistics show that consumers are more likely to purchase goods or services if they can ‘see them in action’, a solution that Skype offers, resulting in more sales and therefore increasing profit margins.

The Skype free service is compatible from PC-to-PC and represents the most cost effective way of using Skype to reduce financial outgoings.

Waseem Saddique states: “Skype is a simple application to install and the possibilities for its use are endless. The most notable impact that it has on increasing business profitability is that is reduces costs and effectively pays for itself because it opens up a massive consumer audience and can be utilised as an effective marketing tool.”

Simply initiating Skype as the primary communication tool within a business reduces company outgoings instantly and a number of marketing experts, according to Mashable.com, have implored business owners to seriously consider using Skype on a frequent basis for online marketing and advertising purposes.”

In a statement issued on Mashable’s website it’s stated that: “Skype is immensely versatile, in addition to video chat and instant messaging, it offers voice calling from desktops and mobile devices, as well as file sharing. Companies will certainly witness some, if not substantial, growth in terms of profit margins when using it.”     

Trick or Tweet? Waseem Saddique Marketing Services offers some top tips for using Twitter effectively for your business this Halloween.

Social Media platforms, like Twitter, Facebook and many others, have revolutionised the way in which businesses approach online marketing. In this article Birmingham based, internet marketing consultant, Waseem Saddique, unveils some of the techniques that will increase the impact of promoting your business via Twitter this Halloween.

Evidence from marketing studies suggest that consumer interest in businesses is greatly increased during seasonal occasions such as Christmas, Halloween, Easter, Valentine’s day and so on. In the age of Social Media, companies have recognised that, increased online marketing activity through resources such as Twitter enables them to attract the attention of consumers on a massive scale during these ‘festive’ periods.

Waseem Saddique comments: “There are a number of techniques that will enable your business to increase your audience reach this Halloween. Often the issue is that many businesses are just completely unaware of some of the features that Social Media platforms, such as Twitter, possess and how these features can be utilised to raise the profile of a business above that of competitors.”  

Some top tips

Learn to use Twitter as a search tool – Many businesses do not perceive Twitter to be a search tool, however, utilising the ‘advanced search feature’ on Twitter can greatly increase the impact of online marketing as it allows companies to track top trending topics, monitor competitor activity, connect with specific target audiences and widen the scope of people that a social media campaign can reach.

Maximise hash tag usage – The Twitter hash tag provides a simple way for people to identify tweets that follow a common thread. For business purposes, hash tags allow companies to raise brand awareness and to create ‘audience communities’ that share an interest in particular subjects. In this case, if a business was to hash tag ‘#Halloween’ any company referencing Halloween within a posted tweet, would reach an audience interested in the topic of Halloween.

Post regularly – As with all Social Media platforms, the need to post regularly is paramount. The more regular the tweets, the more regular the interaction, which in turn protects the longevity of your brand appearing on Twitter.

Condense your campaign – One of the benefits of Twitter is that it ‘forces’ businesses to say less in order to have a greater impact. Twitter posts are restricted by a maximum character count, which means that creativity in what is posted is a must. A ‘less is more’ approach needs to be adopted when it comes to internet marketing via Twitter.

Waseem Saddique advises: “Learn to scale back your content, identify the key words you want to get across to your audience and make your Tweet persuasive, give the consumer a reason to engage and interact with a Tweet. ‘Festive’ seasons, such as Halloween, certainly present an ideal opportunity to generate topical debate.”   

The benefits

It is worth noting that Twitter has over 100 million active users with an average 250 million Tweets posted on a daily basis. Furthermore, 50% of active Twitter users sign in daily. Therefore, becoming familiar with some of the advanced features that Twitter has to offer, could prove to be the difference in running an effective Social Media campaign this Halloween.

How to get the most out of your Facebook Advertising Campaign

Birmingham based marketing expert, Waseem Saddique, provides tip on how to get the most out of your Facebook Advertising Campaign.

Facebook has emerged as a great way for businesses to connect with existing and potential customers. In order to maximise the full potential of these connections, Facebook advertising campaigns allow organisations to be more target specific in their approach, so here are some tips in making your Facebook advert count.

Tip 1 - Produce Highly Targeted Adverts  

The most unique aspect of Facebook advertising is that it provides the opportunity to choose who your advert can target. Businesses can turn this to their advantage by developing a targeted campaign that will produce highly successful results. Waseem Saddique comments: 

“Consider who your advert is targeting, but more importantly why you’re targeting that particular audience.”

In order to make your Facebook advert more effective do some research into who uses your product or service, as this will allow you to target key demographics that exist on Facebook. 

The types of questions you should be asking yourself are:

·         Is my main client base male or female?

·         Are my customers in a particular age bracket?

·         Is there a particular location that stands out in terms of generating a response to my product or service?

Facebook can help you answer these questions, simply use the insights facility as this will provide you with the data you require and will help you to determine where to target your adverts in order to connect with your audience.

Tip 2 – Tailor your adverts to hit your target market

Having established your target audience, the next stage is to create adverts that appeal to them. For instance, if your research concludes that the majority of your clientele are male, then create adverts that ‘speak’ to men. If you have a brand that is family focussed, then create an advert that has an image promoting family fun, an enticing statement and finally a visible call to action.

Waseem Saddique says: “Create adverts based on targeting the rights groups of people, gender, age and language as they will all be key factors in running a successful Facebook advertising campaign. Having a clear advertising strategy will result in a higher click through rate and will decrease the cost per click (CPC) as your adverts will be fixed on a smaller target market.

Tip 3 – Create an advert that stands out

Facebook adverts only allow one thumbnail image and a maximum of 135 characters so your advert has to make an instant impact. Choose your images carefully. Clients are far more responsive to images that are visually attractive. 

The text is also important, Waseem Saddique comments: “Whilst an image will draw attention, it is the persuasive nature of text that will cause a customer to click on your advert.”

Give your audience something to respond to, provide details of a special promotion or offer discounts on your product or service.

Tip 4 – Constantly evaluate your advertising campaign

Evaluation of your Facebook advertising campaign is vital as you can determine what works and what doesn’t. Running several adverts for a set duration is beneficial as you can test how they are performing. For those adverts lacking impact, change the images around, adjust the text that is used and monitor if this improves the impact that your adverts have.

Waseem Saddique says:  “What’s important to remember is that consumer tastes and habits change as new trends emerge. You have to be constantly aware of those changes in order to adapt your Facebook adverts accordingly and keep up with the requirements of your target audience.”