Internet Marketing Company Bridgewater NJ

How To Accept Credit Card Payments

Roland Reinhart — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:00:39 +0000

Why chase down clients to pay you by check when you can get paid faster via credit card? You might need to raise your prices a bit to build in the merchant services provider transaction fees, but it adds a great deal of convenience and time saving.

These services give you an advantage to get paid faster via your smartphone or tablet device.

Both service providers give you a free card reader. The card swipe rate versus the keyed rate varies, somewhere between 2.70% – 3.70%. Generally it’s cheaper to swipe than key in the card number, so factor that into whether you collect money in person versus over the phone. Definitely read the fine print about what types of cards/conditions apply, especially with Intuit.

The account setup is pretty easy. You’ll need to connect your account to an existing bank account so you’ll eventually be able to transfer funds to your bank. Again, definitely read the respective FAQs and fine print about how much and how soon you can transfer funds.

How To Accept Credit Card Payments Online

Have you been wanting to add buttons (i.e., Buy, Add To Cart, Donate) to your web pages?

Accepting credit cards online can be a bit complicated, depending on what functionality you need. If you consider yourself to be DIY type, you should be able to make one of these solutions work for you. Otherwise, if you need more functionality/complexity, a good web developer should be able to configure one of these solutions for you.

Again, transaction fees may vary, so check out the pricing and help sections first. PayPal is basically 2.90% + $0.30 on each transaction. If you expect higher monthly volumes, different plans/tiers can reduce the per transaction fees.

PayPal and Google Checkout are only two possible solutions. There are many more. I only highlighted them because they are relatively easy for a do-it-yourself small business owner/entrepreneur.

Be Sure To Take Privacy And Security Seriously

Keep in mind that if you accept credit card information, you must take the security of that information very seriously. You must keep it safe. Best is to properly destroy the info as soon as you no longer need it, or not store it long-term at all.

You should also investigate the security policies of any merchant service transaction providers before you create your account with them.

Finally, remember physical security. Keep your smartphone/tablet locked when not in use. Log out of the Square/Intuit smartphone apps. Same goes for the web browser versions of those services.

Please share your experience or suggestions in the comments below.
Thanks.
-Roland

Roland Reinhart is a Marketing Consultant based in Bridgewater NJ. His company, Reinhart Marketing Group specializes in custom website design, email marketing, Search Engine Marketing, podcasting for business, mobile marketing and more.

Using VGA Adapter With iPad/iPhone Apps

Roland Reinhart — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:20:05 +0000

Love the iPad. I take it to every meeting. Recently started connecting it via VGA adapter to projectors and monitors for presentations I give. But I have to admit I am pretty disappointed that unlike a laptop, not everything you see on the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch screen will appear on the attached projector/monitor.

You’ll need to test in advance so you don’t look foolish.

From what I’ve tested and learned, the iPad, iPad 2 (+ presumably the 3rd gen “new” iPad), iPhone 4, iPod Touch (4th gen+), these apps that I own have worked with the VGA adapter:

Keynote
Photos slideshow (loaded into device from iPhoto)
Videos (loaded into device from iTunes)
YouTube
Adobe Ideas
ProPrompter
Netflix

These apps I own do not work:

Safari browser
Pages
Numbers
iBook
Dropbox
Box.net
Evernote
Google Earth
Notes
Talk Timer
Photoshop Express
Palette
Palettes
Peppermint
SimpleMind+

Notes:

Charge your iPad before a long presentation because you can’t charge your iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch while the VGA adapter is plugged in.
Audio is only played through iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch’s speakers.
Can’t display Safari web browser if you need to show websites in real time. (Work around is to take screenshots and embed in Keynote before your meeting.)
Can’t display PDF files. I tried using iBook, as well as accessing from Dropbox and Box.net apps.

Please share your experience with any apps I didn’t mention in the lists above.

Hope you find this helpful.
-Roland

Is Someone Snooping In Your Facebook Account?

Roland Reinhart — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:29:28 +0000

Once you put any information online about yourself, you toss aside any assumption of privacy. In a “walled garden” like Facebook, some people become a bit too complacent with the amount of personal information they share.

Fortunately Facebook does provide some privacy settings to allow you to limit who has access to view your data. But what if someone close to you might know your password and logs in as you to see what you’re posting?

Enable Login Notifications

Go to Security Login Notifications and enable it. (I think it is off by default.)

After successfully setting that, you can receive an email (or text message) whenever you (or someone else) logs into your Facebook account from an unrecognized device/location. You will need to login a few times from your home computer, work computer, mobile phone, tablet, etc. so Facebook begins to recognize which you regularly use.

Here’s an example of the notification email you might receive:

A new unknown device logged into your Facebook account (Tuesday, May 1, 2012 at 10:46am) from Somerville, NJ, US (IP=xxx.xx.xx.x). (Note: This location is based on information from your ISP or wireless provider.)
Was this you? If so, you can disregard the rest of this email.

If you get an email that gives you reason to worry, change your password ASAP.

Over time you’ll be able to adjust your list of recognized devices.

Hope you find this helpful. Let me know.
Thanks.
-Roland

How To Download Facebook Data

Roland Reinhart — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:06:12 +0000

“Data liberation” is a good trend among social media websites. Considering how many hours you spend loading those sites with your content, it’s good to know that it has become easier to keep a backup copy for your reference.

Why? Well, you need to remember that free services have no obligation to restore your data if they shut down your account or you accidentally delete something that was important to you.

How Do I Do It?

It’s actually very easy to download your Facebook data. Just follow these steps:

In a few hours you’ll receive an email from Facebook to the primary email address you associated with your Facebook account. In the email is a link to download Facebook data in a ZIP file. Once you unpack that compressed file, you’ll find neatly organized folders with your photos, timeline posts, lists of friends.

It does not include any groups or business pages that you may have created.

Now that you’re done making a downloading your Facebook data, go login to your Linkedin.com account and export a copy of all your Linkedin contacts.

Hope you find this helpful.
-Roland

Social Media For Business 04/25/2012

Roland Reinhart — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:23:06 +0000

Making social media work for your business.

If you don’t know whether Linkedin, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter fit into your marketing efforts, you do not want to miss this workshop.

When: Wednesday, April 25th, 7:00pm

Where: Staiano’s Furniture
442 County Road 513 in
Califon, NJ

Sponsored By:

The New Jersey Small Business Development Center
at Raritan Valley Community College
Hunterdon First

Presented By: Roland Reinhart of Reinhart Marketing Group. Mr. Reinhart has over twenty years of experience in the planning and execution of advertising campaigns and direct marketing programs. He helps organizations and business owners attract new customers and grow existing customer relationships.

Creative Facebook Pages

Roland Reinhart — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 10:00:11 +0000

I love how creative some people can get with mundane things like your Facebook profile/page. Check these inspirational examples out…

My personal favorites from above tie together the profile image with the header image:

Slide #13 Armani
Slide #18 Google
Slide #45 Phillips

My personal favorites from above:

Slide #7
Slide #10 & 51 — Member of a team group photo
Slide #11
Slide #17
Slide #20

Should You Use Google Sites To Build/Host Your Website?

Roland Reinhart — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:00:09 +0000

While counseling small business owners, I hear many complaints about free website design and hosting solutions. For entrepreneurs starting out on a tight budget, this will have to do until they can afford something more sophisticated that offers the controls and customization they may eventually want.

I’m often asked about Google Sites. Technically, it has functionality that a do-it-yourself entrepreneur can grasp. While it might be fine for personal sites, your online resume, or activity groups, I do not think of Google Sites as a good method to build and host your business website.

The purpose of this blog post is not to definitely tell you what to do. I’m just sharing my observations based on trying to help other people who used Google Sites.

You can:

Create and host multiple websites on Google Sites.
Host a website without registering a domain name.
Choose from variety of templates to get you started with layout/design.
Use widgets to incorporate a variety of functionality.
Track site visits with Google Analytics by simply entering the account’s unique id code. [Here's how]
Map your Domain to your Google Site [Here's how]
This is awkward. You can make domain name with leading www. resolve correctly. But the domain without leading www. will resolve to the default path (e.g., https://sites.google.com/site/yoursitename)
Here’s how Google explains it: “Mappings are restricted to sub-domain level only, such as www.example.com, wiki.example.com, or support.example.com. You can’t map your domain to what is known as a naked domain, such as http://example.com.”
Create a contact form so you don’t expose your actual email address. But it’s ugly and you see links like this below it:
Embed PayPal buttons.

You can’t:

Change the footer text. It automatically displays:
Map the “naked” domain name as explained earlier in this blog post.
Easily migrate the site code, content, functionality to a non-Google website hosting provider.

I hope this was helpful. If you’ve used Google Sites, please share your experience in the comments below.

Thanks!
-Roland

Social Media For Child Care Professionals – April 14, 2012

Roland Reinhart — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:08:20 +0000

Each year Raritan Valley Community College presents the Child Care Conference. This year – with a focus on “Best Practices,” brings together teachers and administrator to presents the “best of the best” teaching and institutional practices that are driving success throughout the profession.

Download brochure (PDF) for list of all workshops and registration information.

Social Media Marketing For Child Care Professionals: What You Need To Know

This workshop focuses on how to use social media tools and services to create a competitive advantage.

Areas to be covered include:

What makes sense for you
How to use social media
Building your online networks
How to get value from your efforts.

If you don’t know whether LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ fit into your marketing efforts, you don’t want to miss this workshop.

Instructor: Roland Reinhart, Marketing Consultant, Reinhart Marketing Group

How To Run A Profitable Small Business

Roland Reinhart — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:51:45 +0000

A colleague of mine asked whether the rates he was charging were appropriate as compared to others in the industry. He also expressed overall concern about how some projects can quickly spin into unprofitability. So this seemed like a great opportunity to share my tips to run a profitable small business.

Running A Profitable Small Business

Charge a realistic hourly rate. Important thing to remember is hourly rate needs to factor in business overhead and balance it with the reality of your target customer in the current economic climate.
If I’m hired by another company to be outsourced to their client, I’ll typically charge a higher fee if they cannot guarantee a certain number of hours.
Every project is different, but I typically charge a minimum project flat fee. Over time it’s become evident to me that I’ll often invest the same amount of hours for smaller budget projects, so I have to be disciplined and say no to those projects that are destined to not be profitable. I hate to say no, but there are not enough hours in the day.

I try to not invest more than 2-3 hours of work before a contract is signed. Of course this can vary depending on risk/reward. You’ll have to decide that for yourself.
I decline pitches that require spec work. Sorry, you’ll have to pay me for my time. I’ve sadly been involved in many pitches over the years that ended up being lies to generate/steal ideas with no intent to award a project or compensate the participants.
I create processes that help streamline my work flow.
Let the client pay the out-of-pocket costs directly, when appropriate. That way I don’t have to lay out large amounts of cash and chase after the client for reimbursement.
Keep the time spent dispensing free advice to a minimum. If someone tries to “bend my ear for a tick” for more than 20 minutes, I frankly let them know they can hire me or schedule a counseling appointment on the days I’m available to coach small business owners.
Keep the overhead expenses low. Start with a plan for the year, set a monthly budget and stick to it.

Just Say No

As a business owner, there are too many projects and things requiring my attention. To run a profitable small business, I have to say NO especially if:

I do not believe the prospect’s business model will work.
I honestly am not confident I can achieve success for a particular prospect.
My “spider sense” starts tingling that the prospect will be difficult to work with.

My Most Important Tip

I question myself frequently throughout each workday:

“Is what I am doing right now profitable? Will it advance my business in some way?”

If the answer is clearly no, I get back to working on something that is.

(The answer to this question right now is yes, because I turned these tips into a blog post for my website.)

I hope you find this helpful.

Do you run a profitable business?

Please share your tips in the comment field below.
Thanks.
-Roland

Increase Your Sales With Online Video – March 15, 2012

Roland Reinhart — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 05:01:24 +0000

Learn how to create impactful video content for your website and social media marketing. Engage your prospects dramatically to turn leads into sales. From planning to production to publishing, this class pieces together the skills and tools you’ll need to create desirable content to promote your brand or organization. Workshop is especially designed for small businesses and entrepreneurs on a limited budget.

When & Where

Thursday, March 15, 2012, 9am-12pm
Location: Brookdale Community College,
765 Newman Spring Rd
Lincroft NJ 07738

Register

Instructor

Roland Reinhart
Marketing Consultant/President
Reinhart Marketing Group
http://ReinhartMarketing.com