Successful Marketing Campaigns for Interior Designers

Successful marketing campaigns leave behind a legacy and brand establishment of the product in the hearts and minds of consumers. Marketing geniuses and advertising gurus have every now and then stated the crucial role of marketing campaigns in establishing the identity of a product and eventually making it a brand! For turning a product into a brand, successful marketing campaigns are of utmost importance. Be it Apple's iconic "Get a Mac" advertising campaign or its iPhone launch, they're undoubtedly one of the most successful marketing campaigns ever, not to forget Nike's "Just Do it" or "Think Small" of Volkswagen. Successful marketing strategies make the product stand in the elite class of legendary products and they're remembered for decades. For successful marketing campaigns, marketing teams have to focus on some crucial parameters. Let us know more about them.

Elements of a Successful Marketing Campaign

The importance of marketing is not a hidden fact for any firm. Instead, every firm is so much aware about it that the level of competition has become intense and challenging. Successful marketing campaigns and successful marketing techniques make a world of difference for every company. The main elements of successful marketing campaigns are as follows.

Hit the Bull's Eye

The hallmark of every successful marketing campaign is to create a niche market, a target audience that has to be reached through effective usage of marketing tools. As a part of your campaign, you've to ensure that you influence those customers who are in your domain of target audience. Now to zero in on the target audience, you've to carry out extensive market research. Neglecting this crucial parameter will deviate you from launching your product successfully.

Through marketing research, the marketing teams gather data, understand the psyche of consumers that is an inevitable part for achieving organizational goals. Marketing stalwarts acknowledge the importance of marketing research and so it forms the base of marketing campaigns. Marketing research also helps a firm to maximize its sales, enabling to make profits and thrive in the market. Read more about the basics steps of marketing research process.

Divide and Conquer

The social, economical and geographical patterns of a region significantly impact the consumers buying capabilities. Marketing is today a broad spectrum and inhomogeneous. One strategy may not work for varied family income levels, age, gender and lifestyles. Here arises the role of marketing mix strategy that you have to use at par excellence. The four P's of marketing viz. Product, Price, Place and Promotion form the four dimensions of marketing mix strategies.

Right Timing is Critical

Entering the market at the right time and with well-planned strategy is very important. This makes it mandatory for you to have a well-documented marketing plan as to when will you enter the market. Launching of your product must be in style, that is to say, enough to attract the eyes of consumers. The more creative you're in the usage of marketing promotion methods, better will be your chances of success. Being innovative with your marketing promotion ideas will help you to meet your objective of making your customers aware about your product and its qualities.

Successful marketing campaigns are a result of excellent marketing plan and boundless creativity. Catchy phrases and slogans give your product an image and their jingles become popular among the masses. Successful marketing campaigns give an identity to your product and help it to reap rich dividends. With proper planning and implementation, successful marketing campaigns are always achievable and every marketing team mobilizes its effort to succeed in a grand style.

By Kundan Pandey

Grants for Small Business Expansion

Photography by Leonard Ini

All businesses need money, more so  small businesses. A small business owner may need capital to invest in new assets. He may need money to pay the security amount while filing for tenders. Likewise, small business financing may be required for various other things, such as investing in office interiors or paying the taxes and salaries or to buy new equipment for extending the business operations. Lack of funds, many a times, makes it almost impossible for small businesses to grow. To make up for this lack of funds, the government, from time to time, provides various grants for small business expansion.

Grants for Small Business Expansion : How to Find

Grants and loan for small business expansion are two completely different things. While loan amounts need to be paid back with some interest to the lender, grant money for small business expansion, does not need to be repaid.

In order to find grants for small business owners, you need to look at the CFDA i.e. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance. This contains thousands of options for getting government grants. There are various categories of grants, for example, there are grants for women starting a small business, then there are grants for minority businesses and some meant only for rural businesses. You will need to look for the government grant that you are eligible for and which suits your business purpose.

Some agencies may provide grants only for specific purposes such as providing training for your employees or for giving out tax exemptions or for buying business equipment, so if any of such grants suits your business goal, you may apply for these too. The business newspapers and magazines usually offer details of any new grants that the government might come up with for small business, so keeping a track of these will help you to find new small business opportunities vis a vis grants.

Another place to look for small business start up grants is your local Small Business Association (SBA) office. They provide the right guidance to small business owners with regards to what businesses to set up and how to get grants for starting a small business. Sometimes, they themselves may provide financial assistance to businesses.





 Grants for Small Business Expansion : How to Apply

Once you have met the eligibility criteria and found a suitable government grant that suits your business purpose, the next step is to apply for the same by filling an application form. You may hire the services of a professional to fill the application form accurately as the content and the information in the application form will finally determine whether you get the grant approval or not. If however, you are filling the application form yourself, make sure that you submit a complete application form as an incomplete one will give a very bad impression. Meeting the small business grant officer personally and knowing about their criteria for grant approval will help you fill the application form in a better way.

The business plan that you submit should specifically bring forth your understanding of the business you are in. In the business plan, mention how expanding your business will help not only your employees but the society in general. Also, stay in touch with the grant officer by making contact with him from time to time, to improve your prospects of an early approval.

If you look at the current scenario with regards to the grants for small business expansion, the federal government actually offers no direct grants. There are however, some programs by the government, through which grants for research and development activities that a small business might carry out are provided by the SBA. Then there are indirect grants in the form of small business loan guarantees as well as subsidized loans, wherein you get loans at reduced rate of interest from the bank as the government pays some part of your loan. Or if you default on your loan payment, the government pays the bank on your behalf. As you can see, there are opportunities galore for small business funding and grants, you just have to make an effort to find the one that is most suitable for your business goals. All the best!

By Aastha Dogra

Six Sigma Project Management: Is it Right for You?




Photo by Vangelis Thomaidis

 As interior design professionals, planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of project are skills that are needed and demanded of us daily. If you're like most designers I meet, you're always on the lookout for more efficient, cost-effective ways to accomplish your goals and meet client expectations within set budget and time parameters. Without a great project management tool, doing all of the above can sometimes present extraordinary challenges.

During Q&A at a design seminar that I spoke at recently, Six Sigma Project Management became a topic of discussion. Many designers weren't sure what Six Sigma Project Management was and if its process could benefit them and their design teams.

In this article, Peter Peterka, President of Six Sigma, gives us an inside look at their project management process and how it differs from the typical model. Read on to find out if what Six Sigma is and if it’s a right fit for you.

 

V. Carr

Managing Director

The Interior Design Resource Agency

 

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Photo Vangelis Thomaidis

The Difference Between Typical Project Management and Six Sigma Project Management



The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) became an accepted standard (as established by the Project Management Institute) that is still widely used in many industries around the world. At a basic level, many of the methodologies advocated by PMBoK and Six Sigma have a great deal in common. Both seek to establish a sound plan; identify and communicate with stakeholders; conduct regular reviews; and manage schedule, cost, and resources.



Six Sigma is not just another project management initiative or process improvement program. Six Sigma is not just a new term for project management nor is it a mere repackaging of old concepts. It is more than that because it is a robust continuous improvement strategy and process that includes cultural and statistical methodologies. Six Sigma is complementary with existing project management programs and standards but differs in significant ways. Both disciplines seek to reduce failures, prevent defects, control costs and schedules, and manage risk. Generally, professional project management attempts to achieve these goals by encouraging best practices on a project-by-project basis, often through the mechanism of a project office that promulgates policy, provides templates and advice, promotes appropriate use of tools such as critical path method, and perhaps performs periodic project reviews.



Too many project management methods have failed not because they weren't adding value but because you couldn't measure the effectiveness of the methodology or quantify the value added by process changes. Six Sigma provides a structured data-driven methodology with tools and techniques that companies can use to measure their performance both before and after Six Sigma projects. Using Six Sigma, management can measure the baseline performance of their processes and determine the root causes of variations so they can improve their processes to meet and exceed the desired performance levels.



Six Sigma allows managers to take their projects to new levels of discipline and comprehensive commitment. For standard project management ideas, you can approach them ad hoc and implement them as you learn them. You can't do Six Sigma halfheartedly, and that is a good thing. Six Sigma is not for dabblers. You can't implement it piecemeal. If you’re in, you’re in deep, and you’re in for the long haul. Again, that is a good thing because that level of commitment not only gets everyone involved and keeps them involved but also leads to more substantial and far-reaching change in your processes.



There are many challenges facing project managers: data gathering and analysis, problem solving, understanding and evaluating existing processes, developing and tracking measurements in a standardized manner, and making quantitative evaluations. Six Sigma methodology provides tools and techniques to help a manager be successful in all of these challenges. This success is accomplished by means of understanding what the methodology is, how it is applied, and how it used.



Six Sigma is not simply another supplement to an organization's existing management methods. It is a complementary management methodology that is integrated into and replaces the existing ways of determining, analyzing, and resolving/avoiding problems, as well as achieving business and customer requirements objectively and methodically. Six Sigma can be applied to operational management issues, or it can directly support strategic management development and implementation. Six Sigma's set of tools are more broadly applicable than those commonly applied within typical project management. Six Sigma is more oriented toward solutions of problems at their root cause and prevention of their recurrence rather than attempting to control potential causes of failure on a project-by-project basis.

The breadth, depth, and precision of Six Sigma also differentiate it from typical project management. Six Sigma has a well-defined project charter that outlines the scope of a project, financial targets, anticipated benefits, milestones, etc. It’s based on hard financial data and savings. In typical project management, organizations go into a project without fully knowing what the financial gains might be. Six Sigma has a solid control phase (DMAIC: Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) that makes specific measurements, identifies specific problems, and provides specific solutions that can be measured.

Six Sigma is a robust continuous improvement strategy and process that includes cultural methodologies such as Total Quality Management (TQM), process control strategies such as Statistical Process Control (SPC), and other important statistical tools. When done correctly, Six Sigma becomes a way toward organization and cultural development, but it is more than a set of tools. Six Sigma is the strategic and systematic application of the tools on targeted important projects at the appropriate time to bring about significant and lasting change in an organization as a whole.

Peter Peterka is President of Six Sigma us. For additional information on Six Sigma Green Belt or other Six Sigma Certification project programs contact Peter Peterka.

By Peter Peterka