I was recently at my bank, telling the branch manager that I don’t like its online banking system. She was literally offended: “But we are the best in our industry, I’ll show you the results of our survey.” I said, “But it is not about how you measure up against other banks. You don’t solve my problems -- you make things harder than they should be.”
Small business owners who say their number one concern is attracting new customers seem to be making the right moves to address that concern according to a new survey.
By providing great content to your email subscribers, you can improve your open rates and get people sharing with others, either by forwarding or through social media channels. And it doesn’t have to be a "deal"--just make sure the content is useful to the recipient.
SCORE has now made it even easier for small businesses to get help through a new website called e-Business Now, which promotes workshops, how-to guides, events, and more.
After spending a couple days at SXSW, my theory that there's a social app for everything is confirmed. While 99% of these social apps seem to add to the chaos of online living, one stood out as simplifying things: GroupMe, a free service that facilitates group texting and allows users to maintain relationships in clusters as well as one-to-one communications.
The U.S. Small Business Association (SBA) is putting on an eight-city tour dubbed "Startup America: Reducing Barriers Roundtables," featuring senior officials from the Obama Administration, to get the public's input on how government can reduce barriers and be more supportive of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Here in the snow-bound New England, we've had so many weeks of consecutive storms that the only happy small-business folks are the snow plow operators and roof shovelers. But a few savvy marketers are turning to email, social media, and mobile marketing to lure in snow-weary customers.
As the sun sets on 2010, it's amazing to look back and see how social media has impacted all areas of marketing. Marketers have finally figured out that yes, social media can help drive business--if you do it right.
Groupon's benefits are many: It has a great system in place for promoting deals offered through its many local sites, the transactional systems to handle the influx of deal buyers, and such deals can drive hundreds of new customers to a business. But, what if you don't have the margins to pay 50% of the deal's revenue to Groupon on top of offering a steep discount on your products and services?
Tthe issue of figuring out how to allocate resources (time and money) for most small business owners hinges on two questions: One, where is my revenue coming from next month? And two, what's the best source of new customers to keep my business growing?
