4 Business Approaches We Should All Take From Kim Kardashian (Yes We’re Being Serious)

“What’s she famous for again?”

Kim Kardashian, possibly the most famous woman in the world, and ironically, the world continuously questions why she is so.

It seems strange, almost unfair, that a seemingly talentless individual is one of the wealthiest and sought after celebrities on the planet. Nobody holds back in crudely overstating her inability to sing, dance, act, model or whatever else these A-list celebs do to put food on the table.

From a business perspective, however, don’t you think she deserves some (if even a little) admiration for evolving from an almost nobody into the Givenchy-wearing, Ferrari-driving, internationally-talked about woman she is today?

Sure, Kim may be the butt of many envious jokes (pun intended), but at the end of the day, there’s only one person laughing all the way to their 8-figure bank account… and it’s definitely not us.

Maybe her remarkably large rear is all she’s technically known for, but behind that big, well… behind, lies a woman with undeniably intelligent business strategies. Today Kim Kardashian has become a billion dollar brand, solely owning highly successful clothing lines, fragrances and beauty lines, all highly successful because of her tactical business approaches.

So, business owners, are you ready to hear why substituting this week’s Business Insider for an episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians could in fact be a good idea?

Of course you’re not, but I’ll continue anyway…

Four Business Approaches a-la Kardashian:

1. Get Connected

Kim Kardashian may be a world-famous fashion icon, own fashion/beauty lines and be married to successful fashion designer, Mr. West himself, but in her early days she spent her days dressing and dribbling after then “IT Girl”, Paris Hilton.

Kim was as her personal stylist, friend, and apparently maid, appearing frequently on Paris’s reality show The Simple Life, which is where she first became acquainted with the camera that today is permanently welded to her shoulder.

Everyone has to start their career from the bottom am I right? Even if it is answering to the demands of an even less-talented heiress who’s most inspirational quote is in fact – “Wal-mart… do they, like, make walls there?”

In today’s cut-throat business sector, making the right connections couldn’t be more vital in building success.

Building relationships is inevitable for entrepreneurs. Finding investors, partners, advisors, sponsors, suppliers and employees are all vital aspects of growing a successful business.

That is why, as important business figures, you need to take advantage of any opportunity that allows you to shake hands and dish out your business card. Putting yourself out there allows you to make meaningful connections, get inspiration, ideas, information, advice and help that will undoubtedly help your business reach its long term goals.

3 Ways You Can Do It

1. Networking Events

Attending business networking events is an exceptional marketing strategy if done correctly:

• Build relationships that could lead to alliances, referrals and partnerships
• Increase visibility
• Find suppliers
• Find solutions
• Recruit specialised labour
• Stay on top of market trends
• Connect to key influencers/thought leaders
• Market your business to people who matter

2. Summits

• Gain insights from leading industry experts
• Connect with similar business owners/entrepreneurs
• Gain valuable business advice
• Learn newest marketing and technology practices
• Learn strategies, tactics and practical tools used to grow business
• Witness inspiring success stories

3. LinkedIn

Considered the world’s largest audience of influential, affluent professionals in one place. Need I go on?

Ok I’ll go on:

• Grab the attention of potential clients/customers
• Gain recommendations – build credibility for you and your businesses
• Increase exposure and brand awareness through posts, blogging, discussions etc.
• Network – send direct messages and invitations to industry professionals
• Connect with potential investors, alliances and suppliers
• Join industry-related groups – see what’s trending, discover industry thought leaders
• Establish yourself as an expert in your field – participate in group discussions
• Target and recruit talent
• Easy marketing channel – paid advertising

2. Accentuate Your Biggest Assets

The world is all too familiar with Kim’s biggest asset. In fact I’m quite sure that many of us have seen her rear end more than we’ve seen our own. Why? Because she markets it… well.

From playboy covers and nude shoots to a very public authenticity-proving x-ray, Kim Kardashian has made sure every last one of us could pick her booty out of a line-up.

No matter what type of sector your business is in, you need to market your product across multiple channels to increase visibility, attract clients and drive sales. For cost efficiency and maximum results, use targeted marketing channels to reach your target audience.

Top 3 Targeted Marketing Channels

1. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing, both powerful and affordable, allows you to showcase products, attract customers and generate leads. Platforms with massive audience scopes such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram have unlimited potential with regards to customer reach, and at the same time allow you to listen to what customers and competitors are saying.

Kardashian, who now has almost a whopping 9 million Facebook fans and 11.6 million Twitter followers, says she communicates with her fans on a regular basis to understand what it is they’re looking for; we should probably take her advice.

Perks:

1. Highly affordable
2. Direct traffic to your website
3. Massive reach potential
4. Showcase your products with photos and videos
5. Customer engagement – increase loyalty
6. Customer feedback
7. Competitor analysis

2. Mobile Marketing

Mobile has established a whole new realm of targeted marketing over the last couple of years. With mobile marketing predicted to dominate the marketing industry yet again this year, it’s time to jump on the bandwagon if you haven’t done so already.

The magic of mobile:

1. Build a personalized customer database
2. Drive loyalty with personalized SMS offers
3. Profiling – send offers based on last transaction date, preferences, demographics
4. Send and redeem mobile coupons
5. Measureable conversion rates
6. Inbound campaigns – Text to Win/Text to Join competitions
7. Business apps, push notifications

3. Paid Social Media Advertising

Get the most value from your spend by reaching only the people that matter to your business. You’ll only pay to target your adverts to the exact people you’d like to connect with, which surpasses costly mass advertising methods by miles.

Targeting your ads on social media sites:

1. Select advertising objective
2. Set up your creative – ad images & ad text
3. Choose audience using specific targeting options – gender, age group, location, relationship status, occupation, interests etc.
4. Set ad budget, analyse estimated reach and voila

3. Partner With Bigger Fish 

Kim Kardashian on her own is the daughter in well-known TV series, The Kardashians.

Together with Kanye West, they are Kimye – #World’sMostTalkedAboutCouple.

What Kim gained from the partnership:

• Connections – Kanye introduced Kim to close pals and Hollywood’s power couple, Beyoncé and Jay Z, various high-fashion designers and massive names in the music industry
• A Bel Air mansion in her name
• A life Insurance policy of $20 million with Kim as the beneficiary
• $1 million euro each year they are married
• Scored a couples feature in massive “Army of Lovers” campaigns for high-fashion designer, Balmain
• Front row seat at Fashion Week’s around the globe

Forming alliances, mergers or partnerships with relevant businesses in your industry can be a strategic move for any type of business, especially growing businesses.

Do you have the information but lack the technology? Perhaps you have the product and need a manufacturer? Or maybe you have all of this but simply lack the connections. There are infinite reasons businesses partner with other businesses.

If forming some type of an alliance is on the cards for you in the future, aim for companies that are already well established in your industry with decent capital and strong connections. It’s up to the skills of your sales team to sugar coat what you can bring to the table.

Potential gain:

• Combined funds for shared investment
• Equal risk share
• Derive products or services that complement one another
• Develop and sell business solutions
• Joint marketing – improved market reach
• Staff reductions
• Improved purchasing power
• Acquirement of new technology
• Specialised talent acquisition
• Tax benefit
• Greater investment appeal
• Minimize competition with horizontal merger

Like Kim, empathize your biggest assets to attract the big fish in the industry.

4. Break The Internet 

Realistically, it’s probably impossible to re-create the shockingly explosive online reaction to Kim Kardashian’s infamous naked champagne shoot, and of course the days of chaotic media noise that followed.

So perhaps you needn’t necessarily break the internet Kim Kardashian-style, we’re not proposing you round up your most body-confident employees to recreate the shoot for this week’s blog post (although I’m sure it wouldn’t harm traffic), but try your damned hardest to dominate the internet with regards to search rankings, website traffic and social media standing.

What you need:

A Killer Marketing Team

Who exactly?

• A content marketer/blogger – a good writer who can create quality, engaging content for your website, blog and social media pages. They should be able to create content that reflects your brand’s message as well as have the resources and/or connections to promote it
• An SEO specialist – someone to keep on top of SEO trends, optimizing and adapting your website and content as algorithm changes
• A Web analyst – someone who understands the value of an online visitor and who can measure online productivity; social shares, reach, brand mentions, link acquisition, new users, web traffic, content engagement and online/offline conversions.

What they need to do:

• Analyse your own online presence and benchmark it against competitors
• Develop a content marketing strategy based on what you want to achieve – brand awareness? Social engagement? Lead generation? Search engine visibility?
• Analyse top performing content within your industry
• Develop specific content ideas and themes that form the basis of your content strategy, taking into consideration trending topics and best performing industry content
• Create broad variations of content – articles/blogs, infographics, videos, ebooks, whitepapers, case studies, reviews, podcasts, interviews, webinars, newsletters, checklists, quizzes, tutorials

So businessmen/women, what have we learned from Kim Kardashian today?

If you want your business to be successful, get well connected, get yourself a killer marketing team and get your best assets out in public!

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