Retail marketing has increased in these recent years significantly and there is a number of retail marketing companies offering their services now. However, retailers still own a certain fear of engaging their services or investing in marketing services at all. They still believe that marketing is an expensive activity to invest in and cannot recognize the benefits this activity can bring to their business.

Further on I will share some basic retail marketing ideas that can increase footfall in your store and make these retail marketing techniques a bit more familiar to all retailers.

1. Business Cards and the way to use them.

Make branded business cards and print the products’ names or the services that you offer at the back of it. Always carry your business cards with you and provide those to be available to all customers visiting your store. Let’s say you can share the business cards whenever you talk to a customer or leave a bunch of them at the counter so everyone paying at the counter or getting some information can get your business card also.

2. Monthly Drawings

Create monthly drawings for some of your products or services and use this activity to acquire customers addresses and some other contact details like email addresses for further marketing campaigns.

3. “How To” Seminar

Publish three months “How to” seminars for all interested customers and potential customers and discuss topics and share advices from experts in your industry. Use these gatherings to share your brochure and other hard copy marketing materials and increase your influence among the target audience.

4. Publish a website, become authority in the industry you represent.

Create and publish a website presenting your business and your services or products. Engage an appropriate marketing person to make your website visible among the targeted audience. Additionally build yourself an image like an expert in the appropriate industry by writing and publishing articles online and through the conventional marketing channels about topic that will interest your customers the most.

5. Press Releases

Present newsworthy press releases whenever necessary. Again you can use the traditional marketing channels and the online media as well.

6. Engage Social Media Marketing

Along with the creation of your website, create appropriate social media presence for your business. Create a Facebook page and use it to publish news, adds, useful advice for all your followers. Suggest this page to all of your Facebook page, and ask your employees to do so if they find it useful.

7. Logo, taglines, tee-shirts, brochures

Present your employees with free tee-shirts carrying your business logo and slogan to wear them to work. Place you logo and tagline on all hard copy marketing,materials, like brochures, pens and other.

8. Join Associations

Join a trade association related to your industry and use the communication to its members to make them more familiar to your business for eventual business deal. On the other hand make it very clear that you are a member of a reputable association that presents serious and reliable businesses. That way your own reputation will be improved among your customers.

These are just a small number of activities you can take to improve your market positions. It is important to consult a retail marketing consultant for specific advice and tips that fit best your business needs and your specific industry.

The Wedding Toast Speech is a symbol of a couple’s wedding sacred union, there is more to the raising of glasses and drinking that comes along with what a wedding toast signifies. It is a statement of combined glee and sentiments, celebration and humor.

A Wedding toast has these following functionalities

A toast is a way of expressing your thought verbally. If you wish a newly wed couple all the best of health and partnership, this is the perfect time for you to toast your way to giving your wholehearted message to the couple.
A wedding toast speech is also a means of sparking a spur-of-the-moment humor that is considered to be a vital element in a wedding speech. While throwing in the best humor for the crowds enjoyment, the lifting of glasses will serve as a means of concealing the humor with a toast.
An excellent toast comes with momentary and brief presentation. The most important aspect in toasting is congratulating the newly married couple of their new found life, so don’t try to steal the spotlight by presenting a lengthy speech, but rather make the speech short and memorable. In many cases although they are prepared, they come to present a long and drawn out toast that kills the thrill of the moment, its best to stay away from dragging the speech longer then necessary.

What makes a good and memorable toast? It is not the length of the speech or your own recollection of the bride or groom that matters, rather its the concept of giving it in a meaningful and concisely way that makes the entire presentation a moment to be remembered. A well composed wedding toast is persuasive, poignant and witty. it should sound natural as well.

Few pointers and tips to know in toasting for a wedding speech

Do not drink excessively pre-toasting speech or you might embarrass yourself.
Say a heartfelt message about the bride or groom.
Keep the toast brief and as short as to 2-4 minutes.
Always establish eye contact with the crowd.
Avoid a shaky voice and a nervous like speech.
Stand upright and speak clearly and to everyone’s audible range.
Try to memorize the speech but have a cue card handy.
Make certain that everyone’s glasses are already full before lifting your glass for a toast.
Raise the glass as a sign of celebration and sip the wine or champagne after you make a toast.

Public speaking can be one of the most terrifying activities for many of us. As you step up to engage with your audience, you may feel completely stripped bare and vulnerable. The first and most important thing to note is that we all feel the stress and the rush of adrenaline as we approach the podium or pick up that microphone. You are experiencing performance nerves which are normal for even the most seasoned performer or celebrity.

One of the oldest tricks often mentioned in the past was to imagine that the audience was naked when addressing them. I believe that there are better and more effective ways to start your conversation with the audience, while at the same time creating a sense of calm and control inside your own mind and body.

Embrace the adrenaline.

Now that you know that everyone gets an adrenaline rush before performing, you need to embrace it and use it to your advantage. It’s role is to sharpen the mind and to make muscles faster, so don’t fear the feeling of your body preparing for battle.

Warm up.

If you are backstage, then it is easy to warm up. Use your voice, do a vocal warm-up, shake out your body and move the muscles in your face to free up the tension. The face is just as important as the voice because the audience connect with you by looking at your eyes and mouth.

Stepping onto the stage.

So, you step out on the stage and that wave of paralyzing fear might hit you right there. You can’t turn around and walk out (although if you did it in a funny way, it could be a real ice-breaker with the audience) so what are the first comments that you make to your audience? If you are new to speaking from stage, the best thing to do is to humanize yourself. Your audience will feel compassion towards you and drop the barriers and silent stares. To humanize yourself, explain to your audience that you are not a professional speaker and ask them to understand that you will be making ‘speaker’ mistakes, but that the actual information you are about to share with them is the best information available, as long as they can hold judgement on how you present yourself on stage. You will feel immediate love from the audience because no one wants to be mean to you.

Hit your mark.

An important tool to remember is your ‘mark’. This is the sweet spot in the middle of the stage where everyone can see you and hear you. When you are nervous, you will probably wander around the stage, which can be disconcerting to your audience (even though they won’t understand why they feel like that). It is great to move around the stage to evoke a sense of energy in your speech, but you must remember to return to your mark whenever you are highlighting a key point. For example, you may be telling a funny tale which has a point at the end. Walk around the stage and engage with different parts of your audience, but as you get to the point of the story, return to your mark.

Use slides.

Some speakers see slides as distracting, but if written properly, they can keep your speech on track and are a great safety net if you have a complete melt-down and can’t remember what you were about to say. The key to great slides is to keep them simple and to not show your audience all of the points at once. For example, you might create one slide which has 4 or 5 short points that highlight what you are saying. When you set up the slide you can ask the software to reveal one point at a time, which you control with the click of a mouse. This means that your audience is reading along with you and not considering future points that you haven’t covered yet.

Engage the audience and work less.

After watching many amazing professional speakers, I believe the ultimate tool to achieve a successful speech is to utilize the audience. In the first few minutes when the adrenaline is really pumping and your nerves are still up there, engage with your audience. Ask them pertinent questions. Even comedians use this one when warming up…”So where do you folks all come from?” That question will deliver some interesting answers and you will be able to move the focus from yourself to the audience. Other questions might include “so who has seen me talk before?” Or “who knows my story.” This will allow you to slightly alter what you need to say, so that you don’t bore your audience. If you have a product (and this one works an absolute treat), get your audience to answer questions around your topic area and then give away gifts.

Try to remember that life will go on after you’ve given your presentation. You may feel like you are going to die from the stress but I promise that you won’t. In fact, when you get to the end of your first presentation you will feel a great sense of completion. If you’ve offered your audience great information and value, they will most certainly tell you through applause and feedback after your presentation is over.

Have you ever been asked to give a presentation? After the butterflies start to assemble in some sort of formation, the next question is “how long do I have to speak?”

“You want me to talk for h-o-w l-o-n-g?” “Twenty minutes, please.” “Oh no, I could never talk for that long. How about five minutes?” We finally settled on ten minutes which still seemed like an eternity. Did you ever notice how time takes on such different meaning depending on the task at hand? Ten minutes to play video games seems far too short to a child but that same child will think that ten minutes of sitting quietly in the corner for misbehaving is an eternity.

Knowing that you are to stand in front of a group and speak for ten minutes, you suddenly knew exactly how the child felt sitting in the corner. The child actually had the better end of the deal. The child did not have to speak or face anyone.

What to say became the powerful question. Logic says you were asked to speak because the subject is something you know. Take comfort in the fact that you have knowledge people want you to share with them. Your knees may shake, your palms may suddenly feel clammy, and you develop a lump in your throat the size of Texas but you will live through the experience. Yes, I truly promise you that your hair will not suddenly turn gray and fall out before your eyes simply because you have one experience of testing your presentation skills.

Speaking for ten minutes does not make you a motivational business speaker or even a professional inspirational speaker. Ten minutes is not an eternity even though it may feel that way when you are in the process of attempting to extract coherent words from your trembling body. Believe it or not, your presentation skills will improve with practice.

Toastmasters clubs start the new member with an “ice breaker” speech of four to six minutes. In some cases, people grip the podium with white knuckles as if the podium could take flight and plunge them off the edge of the cliff. They all live through the experience and come back for more practice.

If your presentation skills are of the white knuckle variety, Toastmasters may be a great idea. Standing in front of a group and speaking becomes easier with practice. Your goal may never be to become a professional inspirational speaker or even a motivational business speaker. You will feel more relaxed in conversations and more confident in business meetings when you improve your communication skills.

After practicing a few times, ten minutes may seem more like the time span of the child playing video games than the child sitting in a corner.

Speaking to a group may never be your favorite activity, but it will no long strike terror in your entire body. Speaking comfortably before a group is actually a good skill.