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The U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) has revised the work eligibility form I-9 required when businesses hire new employees and made it available to employers as of May 7, 2013. To make sure you’re using the correct form, look for a 3/31/2016 expiration date. You do not need to fill out an I9 for any temporary workers, independent contractors or those employees living outside of the U.S. In addition to form I-9, you can also register for the E-Verify system. If you haven’t used the E-Verify system because you feel it’s too complicated, a recent study might change your mind. The National Restaurant Association and ImmigrationWorks USA report that nearly 80 percent of restaurant owners surveyed found the E-Verify system yielded 100 percent accurate results for them.

What gets the most likes on social media site Facebook? Pictures of cute animals, of course.  According to a new study of 3,000 images used in “Like Ads” on Facebook by 125 brands, those with images of animals had the highest response rate overall. Does that mean you should start working Grumpy Cat into your posts? Not necessarily, but it is advisable to use some kind of images in your Facebook ads and posts. Facebook research shows Like Ads that are text-only have the lowest interaction rate. In contrast, simply adding a logo, product shot or picture of people increases interaction with the ad.

What’s the state of venture capital these days? Continuing a trend that’s been going on for a while now, both the number of VC dollars and the number of VC deals are shrinking, according to the Q1 2013 MoneyTree™ Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). VC investment for the quarter declined 12 percent in terms of dollars and 15 percent in the number of deals compared to Q4 2012.

What’s behind the decline? Venture capitalists are looking for industries where they can quickly become liquid, whether via IPO, merger or acquisition. This is becoming more difficult, so VCs are raising less money and investing in fewer firms.

One exception is the software industry, which accounted for 40 percent of all VC dollars invested last quarter. The report describes software firms as “capital-efficient” companies that need less money and achieve liquidity more rapidly, making them highly desirable to VCs. In contrast, life sciences (biotechnology and medical devices) and clean technology companies, which are capital-intensive industries with a long horizon to liquidity, saw their VC dollars and number of deals dwindle. Overall, investments in life sciences declined 28 percent in dollars and 23 percent in deals; this industry saw the fewest number of deals since the first quarter of 2009. Clean tech declined by 35 percent in dollars and 13 percent in deals; its investment total was the lowest since the first quarter of 2006.

Overall, $2.3 billion in VC funds were invested in software companies in Q1 2013, up 8 percent from the previous quarter and marking the fourth quarter in a row that more than $2 billion was invested in this industry. While the media/entertainment sector saw a 37 percent increase, this was mostly due to one very large deal.

Eleven of the 17 sectors in the MoneyTree study saw decreases in dollars invested in the first quarter, including industrial/energy (63 percent decrease), IT services (41 percent decrease) and semiconductors (39 percent decrease)

What stages of companies are most likely to receive VC financing today? Seed or early stage deals accounted for 52 percent of total deal volume in Q1. Expansion stage deals accounted for 25 percent of total deal volume, and later stage deals accounted for 23 percent.

First-time financing dollars (that is, money invested in companies receiving their first VC infusion) decreased 20 percent to $903 million; the number of companies fell 21 percent, to 263. Most of the companies (63 percent) receiving first-time financing were software firms.

Image by Flickr user greggoconnell (Creative Commons)

By Karen Axelton

As you’re planning this year’s marketing strategy for your small business, don’t forget to consider radio. Both online and traditional AM/FM radio boast powerful reach, and the number of Americans who regularly listen to online radio is growing rapidly, according to a new national survey by Arbitron and Edison Research. Here’s some of what the study found:

  • One out of three Americans age 12 and up listen to online radio at least weekly.
  • Those weekly online radio listeners listened for an average of nearly 12 hours per week—an increase of more than two hours compared to last year.
  • Much online radio listening takes place on smartphones. More than half of Americans age 12 and up own smartphones; among the 18-to-34 age group, three-fourths own smartphones.
  • Traditional AM/FM radio has grown to 243 million weekly listeners.
  • Those weekly traditional radio listeners spend about two hours a day listening.
  • Nearly six in 10 (58 percent) of Americans age 18 and up say they turn on AM/FM radio in the car “almost all of the time” or “most of the time,” making in-car AM/FM radio far more popular than CD players (15 percent) portable MP3 players (11 percent) or satellite radio (10 percent).

The ubiquity of devices that can allow consumers to listen to radio whenever and wherever they want—in their cars, on the go or on their phones—is a big factor in the growth of online radio, the report states.

What do these trends mean to you?

Cover your bases. If radio is a good o Consumers today don’t want to listen to their favorite stations just in the car—they’re plugging into them on headsets using their smartphones or tablets. If radio is a good option for your business, consider using both online and traditional AM/FM outlets to advertise.
Consider AM/FM music stations as your ad venue of choice. Of the 45 percent of Americans who believe it’s important to stay up-to-date with new music, three-fourths (78 percent) say AM/FM radio is the best way to do so.
Be cognizant of your audience. The most important factor in any online or traditional radio ad campaign is to know where your target customers spend their time. The radio station should be able to tell you their audience demographics and, if the station is a good fit, can direct you to the times and shows that will best target your exact audience–whether that’s the drive-time news hour or the 2 a.m. electronic dance music show.

Image by Flickr user Marcin Wichary (Creative Commons)

 

Is your email newsletter working for you? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s 4 Ways to Get More Subscribers to Your Email Newsletter to pump up its marketing power.

Maybe your content needs improving. Rieva Lesonsky’s post How to Craft Content That Works for Your Content Marketing Campaign will get customers clicking.

You can always learn something new about social media! Check out Monika Jansen’s post 5 Easy Social Media Marketing Tips From the Experts to boost your results.

Are you marketing to women? You should be. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post What Do Women Want When They Shop? to find out how to reach these crucial customers.

U.S. Crowdfunding More Than Doubled Last Year. Could you get in on this hot financing source? Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post to find out.

Is a customer driving you crazy? Read Monika Jansen’s advice in 8 Signs It’s Time to Fire a Client to see if it’s time to cut the ties.

There’s a simple way to boost your SEO: Improve your keyword use. How to Find the Best Keywords for Your Business, by Monika Jansen, gives you the scoop.

Are you in the travel industry? Be sure to read Karen Axelton’s post What Luxury Travelers Want in 2013.

It’s tax season. What Are the Best (And Worst) States for Business Taxes? Read Karen Axelton’s post to find out.

Do you get nervous making presentations? Learn how to ace your next one–read Monika Jansen’s 6 Must-Have Elements for a Winning Presentation.

Are you hurting your own reputation without even knowing it? Read Monika Jansen’s series, 10 Online Marketing Mistakes That Are Damaging Your Reputation, Part 1 and Part 2, to find out.

The way consumers search for businesses is changing. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s Why Local Search Matters to Your Business to learn more.

Wondering what all the buzz about content marketing is? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s What Can Content Marketing Do for You? to find out.

Speaking of content marketing, online videos are one type of content that can really boost your ecommerce sales. Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s How to Use Video in Your Content Marketing Strategy to get the scoop.

Wedding spending is booming again, and Rieva Lesonsky spotlights 5 Industries That Are Benefiting From Wedding Season. Is yours one of them?

Curious about what Facebook’s Graph Search might mean for the future of business? Read Monika Jansen’s post 5 Ways Facebook’s Graph Search Could Help Your Social Media Marketing.

Are You a Victim of Nice Girl Syndrome? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to find out if you’re too nice for your own good.

Does your business website need a tuneup? Read Monika Jansen’s 6 Ways to Improve Your Website and Deliver the Information Your Customers Need.

No, it’s not too early to ask: Are You Ready for Holiday Retail 2013? Read Karen Axelton’s post to find out how online retailers are readying for bigger and better sales.

Then refresh yourself on the basics of ecommerce with Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post 7 Reasons Customers Buy (or Don’t Buy) From Your Business Website.

Is Your Family Really Supporting Your Business? From time to time, you need to take stock of whether your work-life balance is getting out of balance. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to learn more.

Boost your profile by writing an ebook. Read Monika Jansen’s 7 Tips for Creating Your First Marketing Ebook to learn how.

Are you trying–and failing–to land government contracts? Learn where to get help in Rieva Lesonsky’s post Women Business Owners Lose Out in Race for Government Contracts.

If you’re trying to determine which keywords are the most important to get traffic to your website, try Google’s Keyword Tool. It looks at different keywords you enter, and then shows how competitive or uncompetitive they are.

In the screenshot below, we did a search for “baseball caps.”

The first column shows different keyword alternatives we can use. The second rates competition between high, medium, and low. The third is about Global monthly searches, or searches made around the world, while Local searches count searches made in the US.

Since we’re promoting vintage baseball caps, we can see that it has a search volume of 2,400 both globally and locally, and while competition is “high,” the fact that it has 2,400 searches tells us that it’s probably not going to be that hard to break into and win. A little more research can confirm that.

Compare that to “baseball cap,” with 246,000 monthly local searches. Because that’s a fairly high number, we can assume that it will be a competitive one as well, and we should avoid it.

Knowing this kind of information can even help us decide what kind of products we want to sell, because we can see how easy or difficult it will be to rank at the top of the search engines.

While the tool is designed primarily for AdWords users, you can at least get an understanding of the keywords in your niche, and how popular they are.

Every good marketer knows you have to measure the effectiveness of new campaigns, websites, and tactics, even getting down to different versions of articles and emails. One of our favorite measuring tools is Google Analytics, and if you’re not a user, you should become one right away.

We like Google Analytics for a few reasons.

First, it’s free. If you have a Gmail account, you have Google Analytics. If you don’t have one, sign up for one. Your Gmail/Analytics account gives you access to all Google properties.

Second, it’s easy. Just add the tracking code to your website or blog (they have easy instructions on how to do this), and you start seeing results in 24 hours.

Third, you can track campaigns. Let’s say you want to measure a few blog posts that lead to people downloading a special report on your site. You can create campaign codes to measure how each post performs in converting downloads.

Fourth, the reports are easy to read and follow. For example, check out the Content –> Landing Pages screen to see which of your pages are getting the most traffic. You can even see which keywords are working and which ones are not, and whether visitors are using mobile devices.

If you’re new to Google Analytics, one book we recommend is Teach Yourself Google Analytics in 10 Minutes a Day, which you can get on Amazon.com or from Barnes & Noble. This starts from the very basics of Google Analytics, and takes you all the way through advanced campaigns, reports, and other information that will help you measure your results on your website or blog.

If you have a website and a Facebook page, there are a few ways to see whether your online marketing efforts are paying off. By using the Marketing Grader from Hubspot. This tool will examine your website and blog, as well as your Facebook page, Twitter page, and your analytics package (i.e. Google Analytics), and tell you how you’re doing compared to two of your other competitors.

The Marketing Grader will look at website factors like how often you publish to your blog, whether your posts are being read, and how many pages have been indexed by the search engines. Mobile compatibility, Twitter scores, and Facebook shares are also important factors in your overall performance.

When you’re finished, you’ll receive a score out of 100, which shows how you rank against your competitors. While the temptation might be to compare your efforts to two sites that aren’t doing very well — and yes, there is a bit of an ego boost to see that you’re beating the competition — you want to compare yourself to two medical practices that have a strong and solid online marketing presence.

Marketing Grader tells you the things you’re doing well and the things you need to work on. From there, you, your office manager, or your social media management firm can figure out what holes to plug in order to get a higher score.

Ultimately the information you can gather will lead to an increased number of patients and more revenue. After all, if your marketing efforts are well-executed, your site will be easy to find. If it’s easy to find, you’ll have more potential patients checking out your page. They’ll turn into real patients. And that means more revenue.

So if your online marketing efforts aren’t yielding any great results, visit the Marketing Grader and see where you can improve.

Google is favoring websites that provide a lot of high-quality content that is constantly being updated and changed. That means blogging can make a big impact on your SEO efforts. Here are three blogging SEO tips to help improve your search engine rankings.

1. Define a Single Keyword or Key Phrase

Google may not be paying as much attention to keywords, but that doesn’t mean they’re ignoring them completely. They still need a way to know what a blog post is about. Include a single keyword or phrase in the title, body copy, alt text of the photos, and in the tags/keywords section.

2. Go for the Long-Tail

If you sell baseball caps, you’re never going to hit the top pages of the Google search results, no matter how much you try. Instead, try to win long-tail search terms like “vintage baseball caps.” While fewer people will search for these terms, you’ll be seen by the people who are specifically looking for it, and not wasting efforts to reach people who don’t want to.

3. Write About the Same Topic More Than Once

Blogs rarely have regular readers who visit the same blog every day or every week. They read a single post, and then leave again. So it’s okay to write about the same topic with variations on the theme. If you sell vintage baseball caps, you can write about the history of baseball caps, show photos of vintage baseball cap collections, and even talk about the resurgence of vintage ball caps as a fashion trend.

Check out this week’s Friday Small Business Roundup for tips and ideas to help grow your business.

Have you heard about haul videos? If you sell clothing, cosmetics or accessories, you need to know about this trend. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s Why Haul Videos Are Hot—and How They Can Help Your Business to get the skinny.

Planning a new location for your business? Read How to Assess a Location  by Karen Axelton before you sign on the dotted line.

Getting ready for the holiday season? The number-one thing you need to know is that Holiday Shoppers Plan to Go Mobile. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to learn what it means to your business.

How’s your brand doing? Check out Monika Jansen’s Branding Checklist: 7 Elements That Make a Strong Brand to see if your image is up to par.

Change is constant in business today–and so is employees’ resistance to it. Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post How to Help Your Employees Deal With Change to get tips on helping your team over the hurdles.

What makes an influencer–and are you one? Read The 3 Elements of Influence, and How You Can Use Them by Monika Jansen to find out.

Who’s shaping the restaurant trends of tomorrow? Millennials, that’s who. Read Today’s College Students, Tomorrow’s Food Trends, by Rieva Lesonsky, to learn what they want.

 

By Karen Axelton

Do you own a restaurant? Then you need to know that restaurants are the industry consumers most often search for on mobile applications and browsers.

A new study by Constant Contact and research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey found that 81 percent of consumers have used a mobile app and 92 percent have used a Web browser on a mobile device to search for a restaurant in the last six months. That puts restaurants ahead of other frequently searched industries, including retail, entertainment, hotel and personal service businesses.

Not only are consumers searching for restaurants on their mobile devices, but 75 percent also say the search results often determine their choice of where to eat.

Other findings:

  • iPhone owners are more likely than other smartphone owners to search for restaurants using their phones.
  • 80 percent of consumers think it’s important to see a menu before they dine at a restaurant.
  • 84 percent of consumers frequently look at more than one restaurant on their mobile device before choosing where to eat out.
  • 70 percent of consumers think it is important to be able to read the menu of a restaurant on a mobile device, and
  • 62 percent of consumers are less likely to choose a restaurant if they can’t read the menu on a mobile device.

What do these results mean for you? Clearly, it’s important to have a strong online and mobile presence.

  • Make sure your restaurant is listed in local search directories like Local.com as well as on online restaurant rating and review sites such as Yelp!
  • Monitor reviews and listings on a regular basis to make sure your listings are up to date; that you’ve optimized listings with current photos, specials and directions; and that you reply to all of your online reviews in an appropriate fashion.
  • Put your restaurant menu online, and make sure it’s readable on all types of devices, even smartphones. “If a restaurant’s online menu is updated and available on mobile, it has a distinct step-up over competition in terms of conversion,” said Kristen Garvey, vice president of marketing, Chadwick Martin Bailey, in announcing the survey results. With this one simple step making such a big difference in attracting and converting customers, you can’t afford not to put your restaurant menu online.

Image by Flickr user fred_v (Creative Commons)

Find your nicheNo matter what industry or field you look at, you will find specialties. There are small animal vets, and there are equine vets. There are fashion designers who specialize in baby ready-to-wear and ones who produce haute couture.  There are business coaches who only work with women, and psychologists who only counsel children.

As you can see from the examples above, specializing within an industry or field helps you stand out – and it can help your small business stand out, too. Specializing has many benefits, but for marketing purposes, here are 6 reasons “going niche” will improve your marketing strategy:

1 – Stronger brand

Trying to be everything to everyone is not easy – or feasible. By specializing, you can create a brand that stands out for its focus on doing one or two things well. Your visual identity and content will be stronger as a result, making it easier for customers to connect with you.

2 – Clearer messaging

When you focus on a specific niche, your value proposition and overall messaging will be clearer. You can speak directly to your customers and explain the benefits of working with you in a way that resonates with them. Additionally, by being clear about what you do and for whom, the quality of your leads will increase.

3 – Fewer products or services

I learned in a Forbes article that Starbucks locations in the U.S. serve over 20,000 drink choices – 20,000! While that might sound impressive, it’s not. More choices makes it harder for people to make a decision. When you specialize, you will automatically offer fewer products and services, thus making it easier for your customers to find what they want and buy from you.

4 – Highly developed expertise

When you specialize in a niche area, you will, by default, develop specific expertise around products or services. That expertise can be spun into thought leadership via the content you create and share.

5 – Better SEO

Because of your niche, the keywords that are most applicable to you will have less competition – think “trompe l’oeil fine art interior painter” versus “painter” – making you easier to find online.

6 – Less competition

This is alluded to above, and it may be obvious, but by being specialized, you will have less competition, thus increasing your business’s potential for growth and revenue – as long as there is demand!

7- More focused target market

A vet who specializes in household pets has a much different target market than one who only works on horses. When you specialize, your target market becomes much more specific and smaller, making it easier for you to find them online and reach them through online advertising.

What other ways does being highly specialized, or niche, benefit your business?

Image courtesy of famousbloggers.net

By Maria Valdez Haubrich

If you’re marketing to moms, you need to know where Mom is spending her time—and increasingly, that’s on social media, according to BabyCenter’s 2013 Social Mom Report, conducted with comScore.

From new moms to mothers of teens, social media is an essential part of Mom’s day no matter what stage of parenting she’s in. The study found mothers are 20 percent more likely than the general population to use social media, with a whopping 91 percent of moms reporting they use social media regularly–up 20 percent since the prior study was done in 2010. In fact, more than 2 in 10 moms say that friends or family who don’t take part in social media are not as much a part of their lives as those who do.

There are many reasons moms on social media are desirable customers, but a big one is that these moms are more likely to shop online than those who don’t use social media. Overall, moms accounted for 32 percent of total online spending in the last quarter, even though they make up just 18 percent of overall Internet users.

What are moms buying online? Home and garden products, baby supplies and clothing were the most popular items, cited by more than 60 percent of moms.

Moms are relying on social media more than ever, with nearly half of them saying they’re emailing less frequently than in the past because they are communicating via social media instead. When they need information fast, more than 6 in 10 moms turn to social media. Nearly three-fourths say they rely on recommendations from social media when they’re researching products or deciding what brands to buy.

With their busy lives and reliance on social media, it’s no surprise that moms are going mobile when it comes to social media. Nearly 9 in 10 moms who have smartphones use Facebook on their phones. In addition, moms are more likely than the general population to own smartphones (81 percent compared to 54 percent). Moms’ smartphone ownership is growing by 25 percent and tablet ownership is growing by 79 percent year over year.

Of particular interest if you’re trying to attract moms on social media, 61 percent of them use Pinterest—more than twice the percentage of the general population that uses it (30 percent). Moms also care a lot about getting deals—78 percent of them say they’ll like or follow a company on social media in return for discounts or special offers, compared to just 55 percent of the general population that do so.

Image by Flickr user qthomasbower (Creative Commons)

 

 

LoveOne of my favorite sources of marketing information is MarketingProfs – I learn so much from them. In a recent post, they wrote about the types of content that Google loves the most. I went through the list and pulled out the top 7 types that I thought were most relevant for small businesses – and that you are probably already doing.

Here are the 7 types of content that search engines like and you should be creating (if you’re not already):

1 – Interviews

Search engines like interviews for 4 main reasons: they get read, they get backlinks from the interviewee (bonus if the persons is an expert), backlinks are from trusted sites, and the content is unique.

You don’t need to conduct interviews in person unless you want to tape it and turn it into a video. I conduct most of my interviews via phone, but you can do them via email, too.

2 – Lists

Lists are usually fun, easy to scan, and easy to read – and readers love them. Search engines like them as long as the content is unique, and – bonus for you – they can be really easy to write. You can do lists of your favorite industry books or blogs, best airports for business travelers, best pieces of advice you ever got, top industry best practices – you get the idea.

3 – Resource Centers

Creating a resource center on your website is a new content marketing trend for small businesses. Think of it as a library of your content – ebooks, top blog posts by category, products, services, FAQs, etc. Because people share them, link to them, and spend time on them, search engines love them.

4 – Social

Did you know that Twitter, Facebook, and other social media networks are pulled up when you conduct a search? So, yes, the quality of the content you post on your social media accounts – and the amount of interaction it gets – helps boost your search rankings.

5 – Case Studies

Because case studies built around client success stories are interesting, people read them and share them. Your customers will link back to and share your blog posts, all of which is activity search engines really like – but you know that by now, don’t you?

6 – Predictions

You know the blog posts and articles that always come out around the new year that list industry predictions? People love them, read them, comment on them, and share them, so they tend to great search rankings.

7 – User-Generated Content

Search engines love user-generated content, whether it’s blog posts, images, or videos. Hold a contest that requires entrants to submit original content; if you allow others to comment on and vote for submissions, search engines will go crazy for all of the interaction.

Have you created content that showed up in the top of search results? What drove so much interaction?

Image courtesy of 123rf.com

By Rieva Lesonsky

The Hispanic population in the U.S. is the nation’s largest minority group, and it’s still growing. Some 16 percent of Americans ages 6 and up were Hispanic in 2012, an increase from 14 percent in 2006, according to a recently released report from Experian Marketing Services. The New American Consumer: Trends in Hispanic Consumer Demographics. Among younger age groups, an even larger percentage is Hispanic, signaling that this demographic will have even more purchasing power in the years ahead. While fewer than 10 percent of Americans age 50-plus are Hispanic, nearly 25 percent of those aged 6-34 are.

Hispanic households have major purchasing power. They account for 10 percent of all discretionary spending in the U.S., or $164.2 billion—an increase from $143.9 billion in 2011. While discretionary spending by non-Hispanic households remained pretty much flat in the past year, discretionary spending by Hispanic households increased by 14 percent.

One reason for the spending could be that overall, Hispanic consumers are more optimistic about both the U.S. economy and their personal financial situation than the average U.S. consumer–5 index points above the average, according to the report.

However, the importance and influence of Hispanic shoppers varies depending on where your business is located. In the South and West, for example, Hispanic households account for a much bigger portion of discretionary spending than in the Northeast and Midwest. Hispanic households in the San Antonio, Texas, area account for 60 percent of the region’s discretionary spending, but Hispanic households in the Washington, DC, area account for a mere 6 percent of discretionary spending.

If you are trying to reach Hispanics—even those who are American-born and/or primarily speak English—it’s important to advertise in Spanish as well as English. Why? Experian found that emotional ties to Spanish create a positive effect for companies that advertise in Spanish. More than half of Spanish-dominant Hispanics and nearly one-third of English-dominant Hispanics agree with the statement, “When I hear a company advertise in Spanish, it makes me feel like they respect my heritage and want my business.”

That means if you have a website or ecommerce site, you need to offer the option to access it in Spanish (especially important if you’re targeting Spanish-dominant Hispanics).

Last, but not least, Experian notes that Hispanic consumers tend to be early adopters of mobile devices, and are heavier users of these devices than the average consumer. That means making your website not only Spanish-accessible but also mobile-friendly is also crucial.

Image by Flickr user moodboardphotography (Creative Commons)

Still muddled about which social media platform you should be spending your marketing efforts on? The easy answer is “All of them,” but if you’re thinking about slacking off on one of them, don’t make it Facebook. According to a new infographic from lab42.com, 87 percent of U.S. consumers who use Facebook have liked a brand on the site. If you want customers to like your brand, you need to give them a reason. Post news about your store or restaurant, success stories from happy customers or winners of an online contest you held. Check in with Facebook often so you can reply to comments and answer questions about your product or service. Don’t make the mistake of getting users to like you, only to disappear from their feeds.

 

By Monika Jansen

Sexy microchipDo you think your business is boring? Not fun or easy to make fun? Not very engaging or entertaining? Do you work in logistics? Supply chain management? Network engineering? Sheet metal manufacturing? Underwriting? Government contracting? Bueller?

Unfortunately, we can’t all be Disney World, Target, Bud Light, or [insert sexy company or brand here]. However, there are lots of ways to make your brand approachable and interesting – it just requires a little more creativity. If Dollar Shave Club can do it with razors, you can do it, too.

Here are 5 basic marketing tricks of the trade that can help turn your boring business into a fun one:

1 – Write like a human being.

No one likes to be bored, so don’t be boring. That means writing like a human being – in other words, write the way you talk. Use slang, contractions, and colloquialisms to make your content easy to read and understand. Just because your business might be on the serious side doesn’t mean you need to be super formal.

2 – Be personal.

In your tweets, Facebook updates, and email marketing – or any other message that you send to your customers – be personal and casual. Call your customers by their name, not Sir-or-Madam. Keep track of them in a customer relationship management (CRM) tool so you can add personal messages too (“How is your daughter adjusting to college, Steve?”). Publicly declare how much you like your customers.

3 – Don’t take yourself too seriously.

Be self-deprecating. Acknowledge how boring your business is – and embrace it: “Did you hear the one about the network engineer? Of course not – who wants to talk about a network engineer?” If you have a great company culture and employees with side-splittingly funny senses of humor, shine the light on it and them.

4 – Use Pinterest.

Your business is probably more visual than you think. Let’s go back to the poor beleaguered network engineer. I typed “wires” into Google image search and got back some pretty beautiful images. When I typed in “microchips,” here’s what I got – again, some beautiful images came up in the search results.

5 – Tell stories.

One of the smartest things you can do to make your boring business interesting is to turn customer success stories into blog posts. Have fun with it. You could start your stories with “Once upon a time” and end with “and they lived happily ever after.” Your readers will get to know you better, and they’ll be entertained, too.

Is your business boring? How do you make it fun in your marketing?

Image courtesy of 123rf.com

By Karen Axelton

As you’re planning this year’s marketing strategy for your small business, don’t forget to consider radio. Both online and traditional AM/FM radio boast powerful reach, and the number of Americans who regularly listen to online radio is growing rapidly, according to a new national survey by Arbitron and Edison Research. Here’s some of what the study found:

  • One out of three Americans age 12 and up listen to online radio at least weekly.
  • Those weekly online radio listeners listened for an average of nearly 12 hours per week—an increase of more than two hours compared to last year.
  • Much online radio listening takes place on smartphones. More than half of Americans age 12 and up own smartphones; among the 18-to-34 age group, three-fourths own smartphones.
  • Traditional AM/FM radio has grown to 243 million weekly listeners.
  • Those weekly traditional radio listeners spend about two hours a day listening.
  • Nearly six in 10 (58 percent) of Americans age 18 and up say they turn on AM/FM radio in the car “almost all of the time” or “most of the time,” making in-car AM/FM radio far more popular than CD players (15 percent) portable MP3 players (11 percent) or satellite radio (10 percent).

The ubiquity of devices that can allow consumers to listen to radio whenever and wherever they want—in their cars, on the go or on their phones—is a big factor in the growth of online radio, the report states.

What do these trends mean to you?

Cover your bases. If radio is a good o Consumers today don’t want to listen to their favorite stations just in the car—they’re plugging into them on headsets using their smartphones or tablets. If radio is a good option for your business, consider using both online and traditional AM/FM outlets to advertise.
Consider AM/FM music stations as your ad venue of choice. Of the 45 percent of Americans who believe it’s important to stay up-to-date with new music, three-fourths (78 percent) say AM/FM radio is the best way to do so.
Be cognizant of your audience. The most important factor in any online or traditional radio ad campaign is to know where your target customers spend their time. The radio station should be able to tell you their audience demographics and, if the station is a good fit, can direct you to the times and shows that will best target your exact audience–whether that’s the drive-time news hour or the 2 a.m. electronic dance music show.

Image by Flickr user Marcin Wichary (Creative Commons)

Affluent customers are surprisingly open to advertising, says Rieva Lesonsky in Want to Reach Affluent Consumers? Here’s How.

Everyone feels wealthy when they get their tax refund. Get a piece of the refund pie–read Karen Axelton’s post Help Your Customers Spend Their Tax Refunds—With You.

If you’re seeking VC for your business, bad news: The Venture Capital World Keeps Getting Smaller, as Maria Valdez Haubrich reports.

What’s next in marketing? The Future of Marketing: 3 Big Changes That Are Already Here by Monika Jansen to find out.

Need to hire? Before you post that want ad, be sure to read Rieva Lesonky’s What Kind of Hire Is Right for Your Business?

Who Is Using Social Media, and Where Are They? Read Monika Jansen’s post to find out.

A picture really is worth 1,000 words–at least when it comes to marketing. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s Why Images Matter to Your Content Marketing to learn why.

Is your email newsletter working for you? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s 4 Ways to Get More Subscribers to Your Email Newsletter to pump up its marketing power.

Maybe your content needs improving. Rieva Lesonsky’s post How to Craft Content That Works for Your Content Marketing Campaign will get customers clicking.

You can always learn something new about social media! Check out Monika Jansen’s post 5 Easy Social Media Marketing Tips From the Experts to boost your results.

Are you marketing to women? You should be. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post What Do Women Want When They Shop? to find out how to reach these crucial customers.

U.S. Crowdfunding More Than Doubled Last Year. Could you get in on this hot financing source? Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post to find out.

Is a customer driving you crazy? Read Monika Jansen’s advice in 8 Signs It’s Time to Fire a Client to see if it’s time to cut the ties.

There’s a simple way to boost your SEO: Improve your keyword use. How to Find the Best Keywords for Your Business, by Monika Jansen, gives you the scoop.

Are you in the travel industry? Be sure to read Karen Axelton’s post What Luxury Travelers Want in 2013.

It’s tax season. What Are the Best (And Worst) States for Business Taxes? Read Karen Axelton’s post to find out.

Do you get nervous making presentations? Learn how to ace your next one–read Monika Jansen’s 6 Must-Have Elements for a Winning Presentation.

Are you hurting your own reputation without even knowing it? Read Monika Jansen’s series, 10 Online Marketing Mistakes That Are Damaging Your Reputation, Part 1 and Part 2, to find out.

The way consumers search for businesses is changing. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s Why Local Search Matters to Your Business to learn more.

Wondering what all the buzz about content marketing is? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s What Can Content Marketing Do for You? to find out.

Speaking of content marketing, online videos are one type of content that can really boost your ecommerce sales. Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s How to Use Video in Your Content Marketing Strategy to get the scoop.

Wedding spending is booming again, and Rieva Lesonsky spotlights 5 Industries That Are Benefiting From Wedding Season. Is yours one of them?

Are you implementing a content marketing strategy? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post What Are the Biggest Content Marketing Hurdles? to learn what to watch out for.

Do you have a business blog? It’s not as hard as you think–read Monika Jansen’s How to Start and Maintain a Blog Without Going Crazy to learn.

Is the economy improving–or are we headed for another recession? Find out in Small Business Optimism Slips by Karen Axelton.

Do you want to get better results from your Facebook page? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post How to Get Fans to Engage With Your Content on Facebook.

Take full advantage of LinkedIn’s marketing potential. Read Monika Jansen’s How to Take Advantage of the New LinkedIn Features to learn about 7 tricks and tips you may be missing out on.

Is your product made in America? “Buy American” Is Still a Selling Point—If You Know How to Sell It, Maria Valdez Haubrich points out.

Content Marketing Is Marketers’ Top Focus for 2013. Is your content marketing strategy up to par? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to find out.

Think you know all there is to know about marketing with Facebook? You’ll think again after you read Your Advanced Facebook Page Checklist: 14 Things You Might Not Be Doing, by Monika Jansen.

The American household is changing. Is your marketing keeping pace? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post What the New American Household Means to Your Business to find out.

Are You Making the Wrong Offers on Social Media? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to find out.

Are you focusing so much on your business’s brand that you’re neglecting your own? Read Monika Jansen’s 6 Tips for Building Your Personal Brand to get up to speed.

If you’re marketing to moms, you’re not reaching all women. Read about the hottest new market in Rieva Lesonsky’s post Hot Market: Indie Women.

Feeling left behind because you can’t afford to offer same-day delivery? You’ll be relieved to read No Same-Day Delivery? No Big Deal, Shoppers Say, by Rieva Lesonsky.

Refresh your energy and get re-inspired with Monika Jansen’s 7 Timeless Pieces of Advice for Small Business Owners

What happens when your technology goes haywire? Learn how much small businesses rely on tech in Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post Healthy Technology Is More Important than Healthy Employees for Today’s Small Businesses.

Get face-to-face with customers and prospects. Read Monika Jansen’s three-part series, Event Marketing for Small Businesses Part 1: Getting Started; Event Marketing for Small Businesses Part 2: Planning and Promoting Your Event; and Event Marketing for Small Businesses Part 3: During and After Your Event.

Affluent consumers are tightening their purse strings. How can you get them to loosen up? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post How Can You Get Affluent Consumers to Spend?

Not all consumers are stopping spending–in fact, tapping into stress can bring your business profits. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post America’s Stressed Out. Here’s How You Can Help (and Profit From It) to learn more.

Speaking of spending, are you wondering when consumers will start spending via mobile payments? Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post Retailers Play Wait-and-See Game With Mobile Payments to see what’s going on.

You might be neglecting a rising consumer group. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s What Do Female Breadwinners Mean for Your Business? to find out.

Do you own a restaurant? Then you’ve got rosy times ahead. Read Karen Axelton’s post Restaurant Owners Are Bullish on Their Industry to discover why.

Is your small business fully mobile-ready? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post Does Your Retail Business Need a Mobile App? to find out.

Another element of your website that can help generate leads is landing pages. Read Monika Jansen’s The Anatomy of an Effective B2B Landing Page to learn how landing pages can work for you.

Ready to reach out to a huge spending demographic? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s What You Must Know About Marketing to Baby Boomers.

Are you using LinkedIn to its fullest potential? Monika Jansen’s post A 5-Step LinkedIn Marketing Strategy to Grow Your Business will help.

What Are Small Businesses Spending On, and How Does Your Spending Measure Up? Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post to see how your business compares to others.

Speaking of money, if you’re looking for a loan, be sure to read Karen Axelton’s post SBA Proposes Changes to 2 Small Business Loan Programs.

Does your business market B2B? Then you need to be using SlideShare. Read Monika Jansen’s post 8 Ways to Use SlideShare for Content Marketing to get started.

Effectively targeting narrow demographics on social media can be a challenge. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post How to Reach Niche Markets on Social Media to get some tips.

 

In yesterday’s post, we discussed why you should avoid hyphenated domain names. We said:

Thermo-Insulated-Coffee-Cups.com comes out as “Thermo dash Insulated dash Coffee dash Cups dot com,” and after saying it out loud for the third time, it feels pretty silly.

Also, hyphenated domains are a favorite trick of spammers, so Google looks down on the practice.

Try to find a domain name that’s easy to say. For one thing, you’ll find yourself in plenty of situations where you have to tell people your domain name, like giving them your email. So, SheSellsSeaShells.com may be problematic. It’s not a matter of stumbling as you say it, or that people won’t understand you. Rather, it’s that you’re going to be repeating it over and over for as long as you own it.

Similarly, long domain names may also be a problem. While NashvilleTennesseeThermoInsulatedCoffeeCups.com is certainly descriptive, no one is going to take the time to write it down, and committing it to memory is almost certainly a mental feat worthy of a spot on the local news.

Pick something more descriptive, like the name of your company, rather than what it does. You may find that you no longer want to sell thermo insulated coffee cups because a new technology becomes available, but you’re stuck with the old domain name. StevesCoffeeCups.com becomes a much better choice in that case.

Shorter names will always be easier to say and remember. Plus, as you do more offline marketing — business cards, hats, banners behind planes — you’ll want a domain that is easy to say, understand, and remember.

Web hosting is a tricky business. You want to find something that’s both affordable and reliable. There are plenty of web hosts that have server space for less than $5 per month, but their reliability is questionable. And there are plenty of web hosts that have a 99.99% uptime guarantee, but their rates can be $20 per month or more.

What you need is a web host that offers both a low price and high reliability. And as you’re looking, there are a few things you want to watch out for.

  • What is their uptime guarantee? A good web host should have so many contingencies and failsafes built into their system, they’ll have a 99.99% uptime guarantee. But be sure to do a Google search to see whether they actually fulfilled it.
  • Large data transfers. Watching videos and looking at photos on your website constitutes data transfer. If you see a photo or video on our site, however big the photo is in terms of MB, that much data was transferred. Find a site with a transfer rate big enough to handle your traffic.
  • Do they have WordPress installation? WordPress is the most popular blog platform in the U.S., and is robust enough to actually serve as a website. For 90% of the websites in this country, WordPress is more than enough for most small business owners. If you need it, make sure it can easily be installed.
  • Do they have a dedicated help line? There are times you just want to speak to a real person for some help. Find out whether your web hosting provider has real people who actually know what they’re doing and can help you.
  • Do they have 24/7 help?  Check the hours to make sure they have what you need.
  • What do they use for their hosting control panel?   Is it a homegrown solution, or something like Cpanel?   You might want to look into this, as the control panel is what you will be working with to manage your web files.

There are a lot of good Web hosting companies out there — and taking a look at your own needs will ensure that you make a good decision.

 

If you purchase more than one domain name — say, OhioCoffeeCups.com and AlabamaCoffeeCups.com — because you want to point them at your primary domain name, ThermoInsulatedCoffeeCups.com (see our previous posts about [[LINK]] choosing domain names), you have two choices.

One, you create a website and/or blog for each domain name. This can get pricey and time consuming. Two, you forward those domain names to your primary website. This is free, and you only do it once.

You can forward any other domain names, including other top-level domains (.net, .org, .biz), typos and misspelled domains (.CofeeCups.com, .CoffeeCpus.com) to your primary domain name, and capture all of that traffic.

If you’re using Network Solutions (which owns the GrowSmartBiz site), forwarding your unused domains is easy.

1. Open your Account Manager, and select My Domain Names.
2. Choose the unused domain name to manage.
3. In the green box, choose Change Where Domain Points.
4. Type in the URL of your primary domain name, and save it.
5. Repeat with every other domain you have.

While you may not want to promote each of these domains on a regular basis, it wouldn’t hurt to have these in your back pocket for the times that you need them. Then, if you ever need to roll out a landing page or microsite, you already own the domain name.

All week long, we’ve been talking about the importance of domain names, how you should buy ones that are easy to say, don’t have a lot of hyphens, and are short.

The problem is, many of the good domain names are taken. You won’t get Cupcakes.com without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars (that’s a lot of sprinkles!). But online-cupcake-store.biz says you may be a little late to the party. (Hint: try HillarysCupcakes.com, or whatever your name may be.)

This infographic from NerdGraph can explain it a lot faster than we can.

Why you should buy a domain name
Find more amazing infographics on NerdGraph Infographics

In short, if you want to get a good domain, keep an eye out for the shortest, most descriptive you can find. But if you can’t find it, personalize it.

Buying a domain name for your business can be a little tricky. Search engine optimization rules are always an issue, as is the length of the domain, ease of remembering, etc. Here are four factors to consider when buying your next domain name.

1) Don’t worry about exact name matches.

Google’s latest search algorithm changes means that “exact match domains” don’t carry as much value as they used to. ThermoInsulatedCoffeeCups.com is not a bad name, but it won’t boost your search results unless you’ve got an impressive site to back it up.

2. Don’t hyphenate domain names

For one thing, they’re hard to say out loud. Thermo-Insulated-Coffee-Cups.com comes out as “Thermo dash Insulated dash Coffee dash Cups dot com,” and after saying it out loud for the third time, it feels pretty silly. Also, hyphenating domain names like this is a favorite trick of spammers, and Google frowns on it.

3. Consider buying .net, .org, etc.

The highest value domain is still .com. But don’t stop there. For a few bucks more, you can secure your brand with .net and .org domains as well. And if you’ve got a popular domain or brand, these will help you avoid squatters who try to capitalize on your hard work.

4. Buy your domains for more than one year.

Another spammers’ trick is to buy one year domains. While Google doesn’t reward multi-year domains, they cast a wary eye at one year domains. Consider buying your new domains for more than one year.

In yesterday’s post, we discussed why you should avoid hyphenated domain names. We said:

Thermo-Insulated-Coffee-Cups.com comes out as “Thermo dash Insulated dash Coffee dash Cups dot com,” and after saying it out loud for the third time, it feels pretty silly.

Also, hyphenated domains are a favorite trick of spammers, so Google looks down on the practice.

Try to find a domain name that’s easy to say. For one thing, you’ll find yourself in plenty of situations where you have to tell people your domain name, like giving them your email. So, SheSellsSeaShells.com may be problematic. It’s not a matter of stumbling as you say it, or that people won’t understand you. Rather, it’s that you’re going to be repeating it over and over for as long as you own it.

Similarly, long domain names may also be a problem. While NashvilleTennesseeThermoInsulatedCoffeeCups.com is certainly descriptive, no one is going to take the time to write it down, and committing it to memory is almost certainly a mental feat worthy of a spot on the local news.

Pick something more descriptive, like the name of your company, rather than what it does. You may find that you no longer want to sell thermo insulated coffee cups because a new technology becomes available, but you’re stuck with the old domain name. StevesCoffeeCups.com becomes a much better choice in that case.

Shorter names will always be easier to say and remember. Plus, as you do more offline marketing — business cards, hats, banners behind planes — you’ll want a domain that is easy to say, understand, and remember.

 

Is your email newsletter working for you? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s 4 Ways to Get More Subscribers to Your Email Newsletter to pump up its marketing power.

Maybe your content needs improving. Rieva Lesonsky’s post How to Craft Content That Works for Your Content Marketing Campaign will get customers clicking.

You can always learn something new about social media! Check out Monika Jansen’s post 5 Easy Social Media Marketing Tips From the Experts to boost your results.

Are you marketing to women? You should be. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post What Do Women Want When They Shop? to find out how to reach these crucial customers.

U.S. Crowdfunding More Than Doubled Last Year. Could you get in on this hot financing source? Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post to find out.

Is a customer driving you crazy? Read Monika Jansen’s advice in 8 Signs It’s Time to Fire a Client to see if it’s time to cut the ties.

There’s a simple way to boost your SEO: Improve your keyword use. How to Find the Best Keywords for Your Business, by Monika Jansen, gives you the scoop.

Are you in the travel industry? Be sure to read Karen Axelton’s post What Luxury Travelers Want in 2013.

Want to make your online marketing better? Then be sure to read Monika Jansen’s series, The Online Marketing Project. Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 ran this week; next week we’ll hook you up with Part 4.

Do you own a restaurant or foodservice business? Don’t miss Rieva Lesonsky’s post on Food and Restaurant Trends to Watch From the Fancy Food Show.

If you’re in ecommerce (or regular retail) you need to know about The Future of Online Retailing. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to learn more.

Is your small business using the cloud yet? If not, read Karen Axelton’s How Are Small Businesses Benefiting From Cloud Computing? to learn what benefits you might gain.

How are you feeling about your business’s financial future? Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post Small Businesses’ Financial Outlook Falls to see how you measure up to your peers.

Big Companies Are Hiring. What Does It Mean to Your Business? Find out in Rieva Lesonsky’s blog post.

If you own an iPhone or Android, you already know these phones are smart enough to open a regular website and re-render it in a way to look semi-decent on the phone. Same with an iPad.

So why do we need a mobile-friendly website? Why put all the time and effort into a mobile website when today’s smart phones are smart enough to fix the problem for us?

Because while the smart phone may be smart enough, Google — and your website — are even smarter. And because you don’t want your visitors to have a “semi-decent” experience on your site.

When you visit a website, your site can recognize whether you’re on a phone or a computer, what operating system you’re using, and even what browser you’re using.

If you visit a site that has both mobile- and desktop-friendly pages, it will send your browser to the appropriate pages, and give you the best-looking site. That means no mobile pages on the laptop, and no regular pages on a mobile phone.

Google knows this as well. They want to give a site’s visitors the best possible experience too. And so, when people search for a site or a keyword or a business on Google, the search engine recognizes what kind of equipment they’re using, what operating system, and what browser. And — this is the important part — they will return the best results for whatever you’re using, and ignore (or push down) the rest.

That means if someone is looking for your restaurant on their mobile phone, and you have a regular old desktop-friendly website, your restaurant won’t show as high on the search results. Do you know whose will? The restaurant across the street, which has its very own mobile site, fully optimized and taking advantage of all the mobile SEO tactics available.

If you want to win mobile search — and you should, because it’s over 15% of all web traffic now, and growing — you need a mobile-friendly website. Better yet, consider getting a mobile-only website and take advantage of the growing mobile web traffic.

As mobile web traffic continues to grow, marketers need to realize that mobile search engine optimization is an entirely different animal than “desktop SEO.” For one thing, Google counts at least 50 different signals on a mobile site than they do a desktop site. For another, when people search for your site on their phone, they want a simple, pared down experience.

So here are three things you need to do to win mobile search for whenever someone is out and about and looking for you.

1. Have a Mobile Website

While this idea is still up for debate between mobile marketing professionals, we’re going to play it safe and say “get one.” Get a mobile domain, a different server, and a whole new website. If you can afford it, get a mobile web developer (not app developer, but a mobile web designer) to create it for you.

2. Keep Your Mobile Site Simple

This means no Flash (it doesn’t work on an iPhone or iPad), no 10 minute long HD movies, body text that’s longer than 300 words, and no extra widgets and gadgets. While many people are on the faster 4G network, there are still plenty of people using 3G. And while it was considered fast a few years ago, it’s not fast enough to load all the stuff on your page. If your page takes too long to load, the people will leave and not come into your store.

3. Practice Local SEO Tactics

There are new SEO tactics you can use on your site, like Schemas or putting your business on Google+ that will help Google recognize that your site is in the same city as the search users, and deliver your site to the top of the search results.

PR and marketing folks love to find out what’s being said about their particular brand. Whether it’s complaints or compliments, they want to know what’s being said, and what people think. But how do you cut through all the noise and clutter and find out who is driving all of that?

(That’s a real online guerilla marketing tactics: to be able to use information that most people ignore, to your own advantage.)

We recommend Traackr.com, a tool that lets you find people who are sharing their opinions online about any topic, and leading the conversation — and the sentiment — wherever they choose.

According to their website, Traackr finds your “people who matter” through algorithms that identify the most influential people through the size of their audience, how well they engage their community, and their contribution to your topic. In other words, they look for the Elvises in a sea of garage bands.

And they do it on more than just Twitter. They look at every social property those influencers belong to — Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, a blog, Google+, Flickr, YouTube — you name it. If they’re on it, Traackr can find them, and tell you who’s being the most influential about your brand or your industry.

Build a relationship with those people, engage in conversation, and help them understand and like your company. If they like your brand, they’ll be more likely to help you promote it, or at least defend it if you ever find yourself in hot water. You’ll need a lot of reputable, popular advocates who can help you spread your word-of-mouth and social media marketing efforts in this new age of online communication.

We’ve been talking all week about the importance of using mobile websites for mobile search purposes, and reaching customers who are out and about, and looking for you on their phones. We also understand that many of you don’t have the time or resources to create a mobile-friendly site, or you have a WordPress blog, and the thought of creating another site gives you the screaming fits.

So we want to talk about a tool that can work as a suitable replacement, WPTouch.

WPTouch is a WordPress plugin that essentially redraws your site as a mobile site, only showing the information that people will want to see on their mobile phone or tablet computer.

It’s a simple installation to make. Either visit your WordPress dashboard, go to the Install New Plugins page, and search for it. Or go directly to the WPTouch page on WordPress.org, download it, and upload it to your blog’s server.

Once it’s installed, use the admin panel to customize your site’s mobile appearance, and best of all, do it without knowing a single bit of code. You choose the theme’s colors and styles, and it won’t affect your regular desktop theme.

And for those site visitors who want to see the actual website, they have the option of switching between mobile and regular view as well.

Finally, there’s even a WPTouch pro product that also lets you change the theme specifically for iPad users — a real boon to sites that get a lot of traffic from iPad users.

To get an idea of how much mobile traffic you’re getting (and should be trying to reach), check your site’s Google Analytics.

The folks over at Microsoft’s Mobile Tag understand mobile marketing. And they’ve got the lowdown on the mobile numbers and how important it’s becoming to companies who want to reach their mobile consumers.

For example, of the 4 billion phones in the world, 1.08 billion of them are smart phones; 200 million mobile videos are viewed each day; and, 29% of mobile users are open to scanning a mobile tag, like a QR code, to receive a mobile coupon.

What else can we learn? Check out the infographic, and understand why mobile marketing may be the wave of your future.

Learn More about Mobile Tagging at Microsoft Tag.

One of our favorite books on networking is Tim Sanders’ 2003 book, Love is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends. Sanders’ book has become a must-read for many small business owners who want to figure out the best way to grow their business by finding trusted referral sources and people who share valuable information and leads with them.

The answer is not to trick people, bully them, hoard favors and return them grudgingly, or to badger them over and over.

The answer, says Sanders, is to become a lovecat — a “nice, smart person who shares your intangibles.”

By intangibles, Sanders wants us to share the following:

  • Our knowledge: He wants us to read a lot and pass that knowledge on to our network. We do that here on GrowSmartBiz by giving you a new free article or piece of advice every day.
  • Our network: Sanders says this is the collection of friends and contacts already have, and his book shows you how to grow that network. We’ve talked about this idea this week.
  • Our compasson: Sanders wants us to do everything that business people are not supposed to do — share our human warmth and love with people at our jobs.

Sanders knows what he’s talking about here. Love is the Killer App was his first business book — he’s written four best-sellers now — and he brings stories of his work as the former Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo into these pages.

We also believe that Tim’s Lovecat approach isn’t just for the small business owner trying to win a new client. Tim used his open and sharing approach to launch some of the biggest online events ever held in the Internet’s history between some of the biggest companies around, and if he was able to do it there, you should be able to do it where you live and work.

 

By Karen Axelton

Do you own a restaurant? Then you need to know that restaurants are the industry consumers most often search for on mobile applications and browsers.

A new study by Constant Contact and research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey found that 81 percent of consumers have used a mobile app and 92 percent have used a Web browser on a mobile device to search for a restaurant in the last six months. That puts restaurants ahead of other frequently searched industries, including retail, entertainment, hotel and personal service businesses.

Not only are consumers searching for restaurants on their mobile devices, but 75 percent also say the search results often determine their choice of where to eat.

Other findings:

  • iPhone owners are more likely than other smartphone owners to search for restaurants using their phones.
  • 80 percent of consumers think it’s important to see a menu before they dine at a restaurant.
  • 84 percent of consumers frequently look at more than one restaurant on their mobile device before choosing where to eat out.
  • 70 percent of consumers think it is important to be able to read the menu of a restaurant on a mobile device, and
  • 62 percent of consumers are less likely to choose a restaurant if they can’t read the menu on a mobile device.

What do these results mean for you? Clearly, it’s important to have a strong online and mobile presence.

  • Make sure your restaurant is listed in local search directories like Local.com as well as on online restaurant rating and review sites such as Yelp!
  • Monitor reviews and listings on a regular basis to make sure your listings are up to date; that you’ve optimized listings with current photos, specials and directions; and that you reply to all of your online reviews in an appropriate fashion.
  • Put your restaurant menu online, and make sure it’s readable on all types of devices, even smartphones. “If a restaurant’s online menu is updated and available on mobile, it has a distinct step-up over competition in terms of conversion,” said Kristen Garvey, vice president of marketing, Chadwick Martin Bailey, in announcing the survey results. With this one simple step making such a big difference in attracting and converting customers, you can’t afford not to put your restaurant menu online.

Image by Flickr user fred_v (Creative Commons)

By Maria Valdez Haubrich

If you’re marketing to moms, you need to know where Mom is spending her time—and increasingly, that’s on social media, according to BabyCenter’s 2013 Social Mom Report, conducted with comScore.

From new moms to mothers of teens, social media is an essential part of Mom’s day no matter what stage of parenting she’s in. The study found mothers are 20 percent more likely than the general population to use social media, with a whopping 91 percent of moms reporting they use social media regularly–up 20 percent since the prior study was done in 2010. In fact, more than 2 in 10 moms say that friends or family who don’t take part in social media are not as much a part of their lives as those who do.

There are many reasons moms on social media are desirable customers, but a big one is that these moms are more likely to shop online than those who don’t use social media. Overall, moms accounted for 32 percent of total online spending in the last quarter, even though they make up just 18 percent of overall Internet users.

What are moms buying online? Home and garden products, baby supplies and clothing were the most popular items, cited by more than 60 percent of moms.

Moms are relying on social media more than ever, with nearly half of them saying they’re emailing less frequently than in the past because they are communicating via social media instead. When they need information fast, more than 6 in 10 moms turn to social media. Nearly three-fourths say they rely on recommendations from social media when they’re researching products or deciding what brands to buy.

With their busy lives and reliance on social media, it’s no surprise that moms are going mobile when it comes to social media. Nearly 9 in 10 moms who have smartphones use Facebook on their phones. In addition, moms are more likely than the general population to own smartphones (81 percent compared to 54 percent). Moms’ smartphone ownership is growing by 25 percent and tablet ownership is growing by 79 percent year over year.

Of particular interest if you’re trying to attract moms on social media, 61 percent of them use Pinterest—more than twice the percentage of the general population that uses it (30 percent). Moms also care a lot about getting deals—78 percent of them say they’ll like or follow a company on social media in return for discounts or special offers, compared to just 55 percent of the general population that do so.

Image by Flickr user qthomasbower (Creative Commons)

 

 

TwitterDo you use Twitter? I love Twitter and use it a lot, but it’s funny how many people tell me they don’t get it and don’t use it. If you fall into that camp, this blog post is for you. Here are some do’s and don’ts for Twitter novices.

Building a following

Do: Build up your number of followers by following your clients, business partners, vendors, friends, colleagues, former colleagues, and people in your network (especially on LinkedIn). They will most likely follow you back.

Don’t: Automatically follow everyone back. Be selective and choose people and businesses whose Twitter streams are full of interesting tweets and conversations.

Don’t: Keep your Twitter account locked and private. Twitter is a social media site, not an exclusive country club.

Optimizing your Twitter bio

Do: If you have a Twitter account for your business, your Twitter bio should include a short and sweet value proposition and link to your website.

Do: For your individual Twitter bio, include what you do for a living, what you tweet, and something fun and personal. Include relevant hashtags (#hashtag) and Twitter handles (@yourname). For a Twitter bio example, here’s mine.

Don’t: Fill your Twitter bio with hashtags or vague, meaningless statements (“I am social.”)

Include links

Do: Link to content – a blog post, image, article. Write a compelling intro to that content to increase click-through rates.

Don’t: Cut and paste the link into a tweet without shortening it. You can use Bit.ly, though if you use a social media dashboard (I use Hootsuite), they have built-in link shorteners.

Keep your tweets short

Do: Try to write tweets that are shorter than 140 characters so followers have room to add their own comments when they retweet it.

Don’t: Write in shorthand like a texting teenager. 1), It’s hard to read and 2), it doesn’t look professional.

Use hashtags and handles properly

Do: Use relevant hashtags to organize information around one topic, so include them in tweets when relevant (you can find hashtags by conducting a simple search).

Don’t: Create a hashtag without doing research first to make sure it’s not already taken – or being used for an entirely different topic.

Do: Use handles to give authorship credit or a shout out, or to communicate.

Don’t: Begin a tweet with a handle, as your tweet will show up in that person’s or business’s stream as a message (not as a direct message or DM, which is private, but as a public message).

Create conversations

Do: Create conversations around a topic or idea to increase engagement and find new followers.

Don’t: Broadcast information. Twitter is not a bullhorn.

Do you understand Twitter better now? What tips do you think are most useful?

Image courtesy of greenlights.org

Still muddled about which social media platform you should be spending your marketing efforts on? The easy answer is “All of them,” but if you’re thinking about slacking off on one of them, don’t make it Facebook. According to a new infographic from lab42.com, 87 percent of U.S. consumers who use Facebook have liked a brand on the site. If you want customers to like your brand, you need to give them a reason. Post news about your store or restaurant, success stories from happy customers or winners of an online contest you held. Check in with Facebook often so you can reply to comments and answer questions about your product or service. Don’t make the mistake of getting users to like you, only to disappear from their feeds.

 

Affluent customers are surprisingly open to advertising, says Rieva Lesonsky in Want to Reach Affluent Consumers? Here’s How.

Everyone feels wealthy when they get their tax refund. Get a piece of the refund pie–read Karen Axelton’s post Help Your Customers Spend Their Tax Refunds—With You.

If you’re seeking VC for your business, bad news: The Venture Capital World Keeps Getting Smaller, as Maria Valdez Haubrich reports.

What’s next in marketing? The Future of Marketing: 3 Big Changes That Are Already Here by Monika Jansen to find out.

Need to hire? Before you post that want ad, be sure to read Rieva Lesonky’s What Kind of Hire Is Right for Your Business?

Who Is Using Social Media, and Where Are They? Read Monika Jansen’s post to find out.

A picture really is worth 1,000 words–at least when it comes to marketing. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s Why Images Matter to Your Content Marketing to learn why.

Is your email newsletter working for you? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s 4 Ways to Get More Subscribers to Your Email Newsletter to pump up its marketing power.

Maybe your content needs improving. Rieva Lesonsky’s post How to Craft Content That Works for Your Content Marketing Campaign will get customers clicking.

You can always learn something new about social media! Check out Monika Jansen’s post 5 Easy Social Media Marketing Tips From the Experts to boost your results.

Are you marketing to women? You should be. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post What Do Women Want When They Shop? to find out how to reach these crucial customers.

U.S. Crowdfunding More Than Doubled Last Year. Could you get in on this hot financing source? Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post to find out.

Is a customer driving you crazy? Read Monika Jansen’s advice in 8 Signs It’s Time to Fire a Client to see if it’s time to cut the ties.

There’s a simple way to boost your SEO: Improve your keyword use. How to Find the Best Keywords for Your Business, by Monika Jansen, gives you the scoop.

Are you in the travel industry? Be sure to read Karen Axelton’s post What Luxury Travelers Want in 2013.

Are you implementing a content marketing strategy? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post What Are the Biggest Content Marketing Hurdles? to learn what to watch out for.

Do you have a business blog? It’s not as hard as you think–read Monika Jansen’s How to Start and Maintain a Blog Without Going Crazy to learn.

Is the economy improving–or are we headed for another recession? Find out in Small Business Optimism Slips by Karen Axelton.

Do you want to get better results from your Facebook page? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post How to Get Fans to Engage With Your Content on Facebook.

Take full advantage of LinkedIn’s marketing potential. Read Monika Jansen’s How to Take Advantage of the New LinkedIn Features to learn about 7 tricks and tips you may be missing out on.

Is your product made in America? “Buy American” Is Still a Selling Point—If You Know How to Sell It, Maria Valdez Haubrich points out.

Content Marketing Is Marketers’ Top Focus for 2013. Is your content marketing strategy up to par? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to find out.

Want to make your online marketing better? Then be sure to read Monika Jansen’s series, The Online Marketing Project. Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 ran this week; next week we’ll hook you up with Part 4.

Do you own a restaurant or foodservice business? Don’t miss Rieva Lesonsky’s post on Food and Restaurant Trends to Watch From the Fancy Food Show.

If you’re in ecommerce (or regular retail) you need to know about The Future of Online Retailing. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to learn more.

Is your small business using the cloud yet? If not, read Karen Axelton’s How Are Small Businesses Benefiting From Cloud Computing? to learn what benefits you might gain.

How are you feeling about your business’s financial future? Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post Small Businesses’ Financial Outlook Falls to see how you measure up to your peers.

Big Companies Are Hiring. What Does It Mean to Your Business? Find out in Rieva Lesonsky’s blog post.

Think you know all there is to know about marketing with Facebook? You’ll think again after you read Your Advanced Facebook Page Checklist: 14 Things You Might Not Be Doing, by Monika Jansen.

The American household is changing. Is your marketing keeping pace? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post What the New American Household Means to Your Business to find out.

Are You Making the Wrong Offers on Social Media? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to find out.

Are you focusing so much on your business’s brand that you’re neglecting your own? Read Monika Jansen’s 6 Tips for Building Your Personal Brand to get up to speed.

If you’re marketing to moms, you’re not reaching all women. Read about the hottest new market in Rieva Lesonsky’s post Hot Market: Indie Women.

Feeling left behind because you can’t afford to offer same-day delivery? You’ll be relieved to read No Same-Day Delivery? No Big Deal, Shoppers Say, by Rieva Lesonsky.

Refresh your energy and get re-inspired with Monika Jansen’s 7 Timeless Pieces of Advice for Small Business Owners

What happens when your technology goes haywire? Learn how much small businesses rely on tech in Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post Healthy Technology Is More Important than Healthy Employees for Today’s Small Businesses.

Is your small business fully mobile-ready? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post Does Your Retail Business Need a Mobile App? to find out.

Another element of your website that can help generate leads is landing pages. Read Monika Jansen’s The Anatomy of an Effective B2B Landing Page to learn how landing pages can work for you.

Ready to reach out to a huge spending demographic? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s What You Must Know About Marketing to Baby Boomers.

Are you using LinkedIn to its fullest potential? Monika Jansen’s post A 5-Step LinkedIn Marketing Strategy to Grow Your Business will help.

What Are Small Businesses Spending On, and How Does Your Spending Measure Up? Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post to see how your business compares to others.

Speaking of money, if you’re looking for a loan, be sure to read Karen Axelton’s post SBA Proposes Changes to 2 Small Business Loan Programs.

Does your business market B2B? Then you need to be using SlideShare. Read Monika Jansen’s post 8 Ways to Use SlideShare for Content Marketing to get started.

Effectively targeting narrow demographics on social media can be a challenge. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post How to Reach Niche Markets on Social Media to get some tips.

Are you missing out on a huge potential market? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post Target Market: How to Reach African American Consumers to learn more.

Speaking of niche markets, you know Hispanics are a huge part of the U.S. economy, but Are You Marketing to Hispanic Men? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to learn why you should be.

Is your business getting left behind by digital marketing? Be sure to check out 5 Key Digital Trends That Matter to to Your Business, by Rieva Lesonsky, so you don’t miss out.

Old-fashioned email marketing still matters, too. Read Monika Jansen’s post 7 Ways to Make Cold Emailing Work For You to power up your sales.

What really works on Facebook? Get it straight from the source in Monika Jansen’s post Facebook Says: These Are the Brand Strategies That Increase Engagement.

You’ve probably dealt with a difficult customer. Get help turning the situation around in Monika Jansen’s post How to Turn Difficult Customers Into Marketing Success Stories.

Things are looking up–but consumers aren’t yet ready to spend. Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post Economy Positive, But Consumers’ Outlook Still Negative to learn why.

How will your restaurant fare in 2013? Casual-Dining Trend Means Challenges and Opportunities for Restaurant Owners, by Karen Axelton, offers a look at what’s hot and how to profit from it.

Want to be memorable for the right reasons? Read Monika Jansen’s post 4 Lessons On How Customer Service Is Your Brand.

Women business owners are growing strong. Want proof? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post More Women Business Owners Pass the $10M Mark.

Content marketing is a hot buzzword, but what about going one step beyond with content curation? Monika Jansen shows you how in 5 Reasons Content Curation Is Important to Your Marketing Strategy.

You know ecommerce is growing, but do you know how much? Etailers Rejoice: Ecommerce Spending Hits New Records by Maria Valdez Haubrich has the skinny.

Maybe Showrooming Isn’t as Scary as You Think. Read Karen Axelton’s post to find out the latest on this retail trend.

Want to know the hottest target markets for mobile marketing? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s posts Women Step Up as Mobile Users, Customers and Meet the Mobile Super-Shoppers.

B2B marketing is a world of its own. Get the latest on what works in that world in Monika Jansen’s post 4 B2B Marketing Blogs From People Who Walk the Walk.

Learn what a new Web.com study found about the outlook and attitudes of women business owners. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s The State of Women-Owned Businesses, 2013.

Good news for women entrepreneurs: Angel Capital May Get Easier for Women Business Owners to Find. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to learn more.

Do you want to keep on top of the latest small business marketing trends? Read Monika Jansen’s post 7 Marketing Trends That Benefit Small Businesses.

Wonder why your marketing efforts fall short? To see what you’re doing wrong, read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post Marketers Are From Mars, Consumers Are From Venus.

Want to make more money? Who doesn’t? Read 6 Easy Ways to Boost Your Revenue This Year by Monika Jansen to get started.

Are you working harder and getting less done? The culprit could be multitasking. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s Is the Multitasking Myth Hurting Your Productivity?

Email’s an effective marketing tool, but are you using it right? Read Monika Jansen’s 7 Quick Fixes for Common Email Marketing Mistakes to find out.

Social shopping is the next big thing…or is it? Read Karen Axelton’s post Social Shopping Isn’t Taking Off Just Yet to get the scoop.

Curious about what Facebook’s Graph Search might mean for the future of business? Read Monika Jansen’s post 5 Ways Facebook’s Graph Search Could Help Your Social Media Marketing.

Are You a Victim of Nice Girl Syndrome? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to find out if you’re too nice for your own good.

Does your business website need a tuneup? Read Monika Jansen’s 6 Ways to Improve Your Website and Deliver the Information Your Customers Need.

No, it’s not too early to ask: Are You Ready for Holiday Retail 2013? Read Karen Axelton’s post to find out how online retailers are readying for bigger and better sales.

Then refresh yourself on the basics of ecommerce with Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post 7 Reasons Customers Buy (or Don’t Buy) From Your Business Website.

Is Your Family Really Supporting Your Business? From time to time, you need to take stock of whether your work-life balance is getting out of balance. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to learn more.

Boost your profile by writing an ebook. Read Monika Jansen’s 7 Tips for Creating Your First Marketing Ebook to learn how.

Are you trying–and failing–to land government contracts? Learn where to get help in Rieva Lesonsky’s post Women Business Owners Lose Out in Race for Government Contracts.

The interesting thing about social media is that consumers are paying close attention to what other people are saying about brands, not the marketers. They believe other people, not paid professionals. But what if the other people aren’t saying nice things about you on places like Yelp?

Yelp lets people give their own reviews and ratings of restaurants, home services, hotels, churches, stores, and salons and spas. That means that if enough people say good things about a business, customers are more likely to visit it based on those recommendations. And avoid it if there are enough bad things about it.

Since Yelp is both a website and a mobile app, that means that people can leave compliments — and complaints — while they’re still in the parking lot. What do you do if you get a complaint on Yelp?

Before you start, just know that fighting back will only make the problem worse. The complaint is already out there, and if the complainer is well-connected, it has reached their Facebook friends. If you fight back, the entire incident will be magnified and shared, and could even go viral.

Instead apologize, then fix the problem. By responding positively, you can allay the person’s negative feelings, and even convert them to a loyal fan.

By fixing the problem, future visitors who see the complaint will also see how responsive and helpful you are, and understand that you’re very committed to good customer service and making everything right.

But never let a Yelp complaint go without a response. Even a quick apology and an invitation to come again so you can do better next time goes a long way.

 

Affluent customers are surprisingly open to advertising, says Rieva Lesonsky in Want to Reach Affluent Consumers? Here’s How.

Everyone feels wealthy when they get their tax refund. Get a piece of the refund pie–read Karen Axelton’s post Help Your Customers Spend Their Tax Refunds—With You.

If you’re seeking VC for your business, bad news: The Venture Capital World Keeps Getting Smaller, as Maria Valdez Haubrich reports.

What’s next in marketing? The Future of Marketing: 3 Big Changes That Are Already Here by Monika Jansen to find out.

Need to hire? Before you post that want ad, be sure to read Rieva Lesonky’s What Kind of Hire Is Right for Your Business?

Who Is Using Social Media, and Where Are They? Read Monika Jansen’s post to find out.

A picture really is worth 1,000 words–at least when it comes to marketing. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s Why Images Matter to Your Content Marketing to learn why.

Is your email newsletter working for you? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s 4 Ways to Get More Subscribers to Your Email Newsletter to pump up its marketing power.

Maybe your content needs improving. Rieva Lesonsky’s post How to Craft Content That Works for Your Content Marketing Campaign will get customers clicking.

You can always learn something new about social media! Check out Monika Jansen’s post 5 Easy Social Media Marketing Tips From the Experts to boost your results.

Are you marketing to women? You should be. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post What Do Women Want When They Shop? to find out how to reach these crucial customers.

U.S. Crowdfunding More Than Doubled Last Year. Could you get in on this hot financing source? Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post to find out.

Is a customer driving you crazy? Read Monika Jansen’s advice in 8 Signs It’s Time to Fire a Client to see if it’s time to cut the ties.

There’s a simple way to boost your SEO: Improve your keyword use. How to Find the Best Keywords for Your Business, by Monika Jansen, gives you the scoop.

Are you in the travel industry? Be sure to read Karen Axelton’s post What Luxury Travelers Want in 2013.

It’s tax season. What Are the Best (And Worst) States for Business Taxes? Read Karen Axelton’s post to find out.

Do you get nervous making presentations? Learn how to ace your next one–read Monika Jansen’s 6 Must-Have Elements for a Winning Presentation.

Are you hurting your own reputation without even knowing it? Read Monika Jansen’s series, 10 Online Marketing Mistakes That Are Damaging Your Reputation, Part 1 and Part 2, to find out.

The way consumers search for businesses is changing. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s Why Local Search Matters to Your Business to learn more.

Wondering what all the buzz about content marketing is? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s What Can Content Marketing Do for You? to find out.

Speaking of content marketing, online videos are one type of content that can really boost your ecommerce sales. Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s How to Use Video in Your Content Marketing Strategy to get the scoop.

Wedding spending is booming again, and Rieva Lesonsky spotlights 5 Industries That Are Benefiting From Wedding Season. Is yours one of them?

Want to make your online marketing better? Then be sure to read Monika Jansen’s series, The Online Marketing Project. Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 ran this week; next week we’ll hook you up with Part 4.

Do you own a restaurant or foodservice business? Don’t miss Rieva Lesonsky’s post on Food and Restaurant Trends to Watch From the Fancy Food Show.

If you’re in ecommerce (or regular retail) you need to know about The Future of Online Retailing. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to learn more.

Is your small business using the cloud yet? If not, read Karen Axelton’s How Are Small Businesses Benefiting From Cloud Computing? to learn what benefits you might gain.

How are you feeling about your business’s financial future? Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post Small Businesses’ Financial Outlook Falls to see how you measure up to your peers.

Big Companies Are Hiring. What Does It Mean to Your Business? Find out in Rieva Lesonsky’s blog post.

Think you know all there is to know about marketing with Facebook? You’ll think again after you read Your Advanced Facebook Page Checklist: 14 Things You Might Not Be Doing, by Monika Jansen.

The American household is changing. Is your marketing keeping pace? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post What the New American Household Means to Your Business to find out.

Are You Making the Wrong Offers on Social Media? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to find out.

Are you focusing so much on your business’s brand that you’re neglecting your own? Read Monika Jansen’s 6 Tips for Building Your Personal Brand to get up to speed.

If you’re marketing to moms, you’re not reaching all women. Read about the hottest new market in Rieva Lesonsky’s post Hot Market: Indie Women.

Feeling left behind because you can’t afford to offer same-day delivery? You’ll be relieved to read No Same-Day Delivery? No Big Deal, Shoppers Say, by Rieva Lesonsky.

Refresh your energy and get re-inspired with Monika Jansen’s 7 Timeless Pieces of Advice for Small Business Owners

What happens when your technology goes haywire? Learn how much small businesses rely on tech in Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post Healthy Technology Is More Important than Healthy Employees for Today’s Small Businesses.

Is your small business fully mobile-ready? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post Does Your Retail Business Need a Mobile App? to find out.

Another element of your website that can help generate leads is landing pages. Read Monika Jansen’s The Anatomy of an Effective B2B Landing Page to learn how landing pages can work for you.

Ready to reach out to a huge spending demographic? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s What You Must Know About Marketing to Baby Boomers.

Are you using LinkedIn to its fullest potential? Monika Jansen’s post A 5-Step LinkedIn Marketing Strategy to Grow Your Business will help.

What Are Small Businesses Spending On, and How Does Your Spending Measure Up? Read Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post to see how your business compares to others.

Speaking of money, if you’re looking for a loan, be sure to read Karen Axelton’s post SBA Proposes Changes to 2 Small Business Loan Programs.

Does your business market B2B? Then you need to be using SlideShare. Read Monika Jansen’s post 8 Ways to Use SlideShare for Content Marketing to get started.

Effectively targeting narrow demographics on social media can be a challenge. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post How to Reach Niche Markets on Social Media to get some tips.

Curious about what Facebook’s Graph Search might mean for the future of business? Read Monika Jansen’s post 5 Ways Facebook’s Graph Search Could Help Your Social Media Marketing.

Are You a Victim of Nice Girl Syndrome? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to find out if you’re too nice for your own good.

Does your business website need a tuneup? Read Monika Jansen’s 6 Ways to Improve Your Website and Deliver the Information Your Customers Need.

No, it’s not too early to ask: Are You Ready for Holiday Retail 2013? Read Karen Axelton’s post to find out how online retailers are readying for bigger and better sales.

Then refresh yourself on the basics of ecommerce with Maria Valdez Haubrich’s post 7 Reasons Customers Buy (or Don’t Buy) From Your Business Website.

Is Your Family Really Supporting Your Business? From time to time, you need to take stock of whether your work-life balance is getting out of balance. Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to learn more.

Boost your profile by writing an ebook. Read Monika Jansen’s 7 Tips for Creating Your First Marketing Ebook to learn how.

Are you trying–and failing–to land government contracts? Learn where to get help in Rieva Lesonsky’s post Women Business Owners Lose Out in Race for Government Contracts.

Content marketing is hot today–but how do you keep your content fresh? Start by reading Monika Jansen’s post 5 Keys to Creating Valuable Content.

Then check out Monika’s series, 7 New Ideas for Valuable B2B Blog Posts and 7 More New Ideas for Valuable B2B Blog Posts, to get inspiration.

Are you in the restaurant or food industry? You won’t want to miss Rieva Lesonsky’s post Americans’ Taste for Healthy Eating Continues.

Trying to improve your employees’ health? Get ideas in Get Up, Stand Up: Why Your Employees Should Stop Sitting Around by Maria Valdez Haubrich.

B2B Marketing Budgets Are on the Rise in 2013—Is Yours? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s post to see how your business measures up.

Can’t decide between suppliers? Read Karen Axelton’s How to Choose a Supplier for Your Small Business before you make your final choice.

What do luxury shoppers want today? Read Rieva Lesonsky’s Luxury Marketing Goes Digital to find out the secrets of marketing to luxury consumers.

Your ecommerce site is not the Field of Dreams baseball diamond. People will not come just because you built it. You need to promote it, both online and offline, in order to get people to visit. Here are four ways to promote your site and bring in some shopping traffic.

1. Buy an easy to remember domain name.

Make your web address short and memorable. Don’t just buy something because you need the keywords. SusansBaseballCaps.com is much better than Sports-and-Fashion-Vintage-Baseball-Caps.com.

2. Get a Twitter account under your own name.

Communicate with people on Twitter as yourself, not your company. Get people to trust and like you, and form real relationships. You don’t constantly talk about your business with your friends, so don’t do it on social media. These are online friendships, and if people like and trust you, they’ll support you.

3. Practice GOOD SEO

If you read a lot of ecommerce how-to sites, you’ll see all kinds of advice on how to game the Google system. Ignore all of it. Google is constantly refining their algorithms to catch people gaming the system and penalizing them. If you practice any “black hat,” or even “gray hat,” techniques, you could find yourself in Google’s penalty box for weeks, or even permanently.

4. Start a blog

Start a blog on your site, and write about the different problems your product or service can solve. Talk about the importance of protecting yourself from the sun, the fashion implication of baseball hats, dress codes for baseball caps, and even famous baseball caps in history.

Ecommerce websites are not just for large companies anymore. And they’re not for computer gurus who need a lot of programming knowledge to be able to build it. Ecommerce sites are inexpensive and fairly easy to build.

If you have a gift shop or specialty boutique, you can generate extra revenue by having an online store. This will open up all sorts of new sales options for you.

  • You can ship items that customers order for faraway friends.
  • You can reach customers who have moved or live in other parts of the country, like tourists.
  • You can become a specialty store for hard-to-find items.
  • You can help the local customers who need to do holiday shopping late at night or during a time you’re not open.

Of course, you may not have the time or experience to set up an ecommerce site — they’re fairly easy, but not dead simple — so look for a professional who specializes in ecommerce sites. They can get it set up quickly and easily, and troubleshoot any problems that you may have.

It’s also a good idea to have this person provide you with monthly analytics and sales figures so you can see how much money your store is making, which products are big sellers, and which ones either need some promotional help or should just be removed completely.

An ecommerce store is just one more source of revenue your gift shop or boutique can be bringing in. And if you do it well, it could be as big a moneymaker as your regular store.

The secret to promoting your online store is not to continually add new items. It’s blogging and
social media promotion.

Blogging helps you with search engine optimization, so people can find it more easily on the search
engines. But more importantly, if you have an unusual or uncommon product, blogging lets you
demonstrate what the product can do to make people’s lives easier or help them solve a problem.

Let’s imagine you make a sandwich cutter that cuts a child’s sandwich into creative, fun designs.
With a blog, you can explain how the sandwich cutter works, show how to clean it, offer sandwich
recipes that work best with your sandwich cutter, and even create videos of the cutter in use.

There’s usually no place for things like this on an ecommerce site, but a blog lets you publish as
much as you’d like.

A quick check of Google’s keyword analytics tool shows that the phrase “sandwiches for kids” is
getting 6,600 hits per month. So you can blog about “five fun sandwiches for kids” and “five easy
sandwiches for kids, as well as any other topics you can think of that contain the key phrase.

By doing this on a regular basis — twice a week is ideal — you’ll start winning a lot of search results
and getting visitors who are interested in the different articles you’ve written. As people read the
articles, they’ll see the links to your ecommerce site, and purchase the cutter to make some of the
fun recipes, which boost your sales all without any expensive advertising.

Blogging about important topics and keywords can help you boost your ecommerce site’s search
rankings and overall sales.

If you want to sell products online, there are any number of ways you can do it. You can take the
direct route and put a shopping cart solution on your website. But if you don’t want to mess with
the time and expense, or you only sell the occasional item out of your brick-and-mortar store, here
are three (nearly) free ecommerce tools you can consider.


1. Etsy

This is a site for artists of all styles. Whether you sell earrings and jewelry or large scupltures,
Etsy.com takes a small percentage of the items you offer for their payment processing. You upload
the photos, write the descriptions, send customers to the individual page, and once they place an
order, you send out the product. Etsy is not only an ecommerce solution, but a community for
artists.


2. Amazon.com

Many people sell ebooks they have written, and it’s a great way to generate some income. People
who don’t want to go through the traditional route of publishing, who want to sell their materials
faster than a publisher can move, or who want a bigger share of the royalty pie, are turning to
Amazon as a way to build their professional network and make money by writing and selling ebooks.

3. eBay

eBay is the original storefront. Just like Etsy, eBay lets you sell anything and everything. Whether
it’s old comic books, new clothing, or even things you have made or purchased for reselling, eBay
handles everything for you — a place to host your sales information, payment processing, and even
a place to build an entire storefront.

Do you think sales is a mind game? You’re right. Read Monika Jansen’s series, How to Use Psychology to Boost Sales, Part 1 and How to Use Psychology to Boost Sales, Part 2, and learn how to win at the sales game.

Expanding your sales internationally is a great way to grow your business. Read Monika Jansen’s tips to learn How to Get Started With a Global Marketing Strategy.

Is your business website doing all it should to spur sales? If not, check out Maria Valdez Haubrich’s Your 3-Step Plan for a Business Website That Drives Sales.

Email marketing is still a top tool for small business. To make your emails even more effective, read Rieva Lesonsky’s post Why Your Emails Must Be Mobile-Optimized.

Speaking of mobile, make sure you’re on top of mobile payment and m-commerce trends by checking out Rieva Lesonsky’s Mobile Commerce, Mobile Payments: What’s the Future?

Then learn about the hottest mobile market in Rieva Lesonsky’s post Who’s Got Smartphones and Apps? Gen Y.

Taking the home-based office deduction just got easier. Read Karen Axelton’s post Good News for Home-Based Business: IRS Simplifies Home Office Deduction to learn more.