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Marketing
PayPal Micropayment Discounts: A BIG Deal for Small Businesses
If your online PayPal transactions typically average less than $10, you could save money with PayPal’s “5% plus 5¢” Micropayment rate. Total PayPal fees charged for 100 $2 transactions is $36.00 with regular PayPAl services, versus just $15.00 with the Micropayment Discount service. This is a BIG deal for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Find more [...]
20 Small Business Online Marketing Essentials
Marketing a small business online has many components. Here’s my checklist of 20 essentials. Register A Domain (GoDaddy.com – good and cheap) Setup Email Accounts on Your Domain Setup A Reliable Web Site Hosting Account (For WordPress or Drupal sites) Setup A Email Marketing Account (Campaign Monitor, Mail Chimp, Emma, Constant Contact, etc.) Setup A [...]
Entrepreneur Defined
Here is a terrific piece that accurately defines the entrepreneur. Enjoy!
Poll: Keeping Your Social Media Presence Professional
Results of a nonscientific reader poll, conducted by SmartBrief on Social Media, tracked feedback from leading marketers about social media practices and issues. The poll question: How do you keep your social media presence professional? 68.46% – I keep separate accounts for personal and professional networking 9.13% – I use filters, such as Circles on [...]
Social Media Stats
695 MIL – Facebook users. 148+ MIL – LinkedIn users. 140 MIL – Number of daily tweets. 2.5 BIL – Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn visits combined. 164 MIL – Number of active blogs.
How To Get Great Results From Email Marketing Campaigns
One process for getting great results from email marketing campaigns is: Define clear goals. Typically, in my experience, there will be different goals for each audience segment. Example: Goal 1 for customers vs. Goal 2 for prospects. Deliver clear value/benefits. You know why you want people to buy from you. The trick to great marketing [...]
Small Business Home Page Design Tips
Digital culture and technology web site Mashable.com recently posted a blog titled “8 Tips for Small Business Homepage Design.”
I recommend it, and decided to post my own version with different approaches to some of the key concepts that are based on my experiences developing site for small businesses.
Social Media Not Big With Small Businesses
A recent eMarketer article revealed that 43% of small-businesses feel social media is not necessary to their business. 50% said the marketing tool they could not do without is word-of-mouth.
YourSpace: Your Personal Marketing Profile
I recommend you consider all your online activity as essentially a strategic marketing initiative. Take care about sharing personal information on family and friends you wouldn’t want Hannibal Lecter to know (a bit dramatic maybe, but accurate). Take time to carefully consider precisely what you want to communicate. Write it down, review it a few times, then think about how you will communicate it. Will you blog daily, weekly, monthly? Will you setup and post to a Facebook page? Will you setup a LinkedIn profile? Will you Tweet some aspects of your life on Twitter? Whatever you choose, take the time to be strategic about it.
The Marketing Divide
Digital technology and the Internet have totally transformed every aspect of marketing from content creation to analytics. And, each marketing function has multiple skill sets required for effective implementation. This complexity is confronted and mastered with glaring success by large enterprises. But for mid-size and small businesses this complexity makes ROI virtually unattainable.
HTML5 and CSS3: To Use Or Not To Use?
A majority of current customers cannot take advantage of new HTML5 and CSS3 web sites. Businesses want to deliver a rich online experience to users with the latest technologies. But care must be taken not to negatively impact the experience of core customers who cannot yet benefit from these new technologies. Presently, support for HTML5 [...]
Email and Traditional Marketing Are Preferred Over Social Media
“social media interactions are a main influence for only 5 percent of visitors to retail websites” and “more traditional marketing tactics like promotional emails (19%), search engine results (8%), and Internet advertising (7%), influence more visits to retail websites.”
What Is An Email Marketing System?
The term email marketing system typically refers to web-based software that sends bulk email to target audiences.
Integrity: A Blinding Force
Alex Bogusky It is telling to read the thoughts and opinions of MDC Chief Miles Nadal, Fast Company, and other media and industry “experts” on the exit of super creative Alex Bogusky. Specifically of note is the fact that none of these consumed minds appear remotely capable of seeing the real and obvious reason for [...]
The Sales Process
Most small business owners like to (and do) focus solely on daily business operations and serving existing customer/client demands. But it is critical to your success to focus on getting new business from both current and prospective customers in order to sustain and grow your business. The selling process has six key steps. Virtually every [...]
Database Basics
What is a database? Email marketing systems use databases to storage, retrieve, and update data in the system. Everything the system does uses information (data) stored in the database, including email content, email design code, contact lists, scheduled sending, and performance statistics. The databases in email marketing systems are called “relational databases,” because they recognize [...]
What Is An Email Marketing System?
I get asked sometimes “…why pay for an email marketing system when I can send mail using Outlook, or Yahoo Groups?” The answers vary according to needs, but generally there are some significant benefits. Here is a baseline primer on email marketing systems. The term Email Marketing System refers to computer software that sends bulk [...]
Not Doing Anything Different, Just Doing It Differently
The CancerLens conference marketing campaign was very successful and the reasons for that success can be uniquely articulated in the statement – we didn’t do anything different, we just did things differently.
Benefits of Professional Email Marketing Practices
Though professional email marketing practices require investment in time and resources, they use a holistic approach and offer key benefits: Engagement A professional campaign includes the creation of specific web pages and triggered autoresponder emails that provide relevant and current information on the subject matter, as well as the producers, partners, and stakeholders. This is [...]
Promoting Events With Email
To promote an event using email I propose going beyond the notion of simply sending email and tracking reads and link clicks. Instead, consider setting-up a campaign that: Collects RSVP Responses Tracks Conversions (persons on your list(s) who actually attend) Grows Your Database Email marketing is an amazing event promotions tool. Here’s what you need [...]
Focus On Growing Customer Share – Best Bet In A Down Economy
With customers rethinking spending decisions across the socio-economic spectrum, increasing customer share (the amount of business you do with existing customers) is an important strategic consideration. Acquiring new customers costs 5-10 times more than keeping existing customers. A strong base of satisfied customers generates referrals and favorable brand equity, which are both important competitive advantages [...]
Service Is A Winning Strategy
Facing tough economic times and changing customer behaviors, businesses are forced to do better or fail. There are two keys to success – hiring great people and providing a simply exceptional experience. Finding friendly, engaging, and intuitive people who will leave customers with favorable impressions is challenging at best. You cannot teach friendliness and intuition. [...]
Social Media Explained
While the term “social media” has quickly become a fixture and is often used, it is not always understood. Here is a brief breakdown. The keyword is “social.” It refers to a place where people interact online, usually organized by groups around common interests. What makes social media “social” is that anyone can post and [...]
Integrity
We have reached a tipping point where our values fail promote human and societal benefits that or goods and services are supposed to serve. This has led to the current state of affairs where marketing occurs in an environment void of integrity. We sell relentlessly and too often without regard for rules of conduct. Integrity [...]