Smallbiztechnology.com

Survey Results: Growing Small Businesses to Spend More on Marketing, Especially Online

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:48:59 -0500

The results are in from the survey we brought you last July in partnership with Campaigner and research firm Hurwitz & Associates. Respondents were small businesses with 1-20 employees, and shared how they are succeeding today and adapting their marketing plans and budgets to compete more effectively.

The survey found that small businesses expecting growth are more likely to spend more on marketing, and are shifting more of their marketing efforts from traditional media to online tools like social media and email marketing.

“The survey clearly reveals that the use of low-cost Web-based marketing tools is playing a strategic role in helping businesses succeed,” said Laurie McCabe, partner, Hurwitz & Associates. “Making a few changes to incorporate more online tools into the marketing mix seems to be a key ingredient to small business success.”

Key findings include:

New Online Advertising Service Reinforces Your Brand: ReTargeter

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:00:00 -0500

ReTargeter is an innovative online advertising service that lets you follow customers who visit your web site, to other web sites. This increases the visibility of your brand in front of them.

I met Arjun Dev Arora, CEO and Founder of ReTargeter at BizTechDay 2009.

ReTargeter is pretty simple.

New Contests & Awards for Small Businesses

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:02:15 -0500

Every other week we update our list of contests and awards for growing companies - here are some new ones. This listing is brought to you by Small Business Trends and Smallbiztechnology.com.

2009 Home Business Awards (United Kingdom Only)

Enter by: November 6, 2009

Run by UK home-business website, Enterprise Nation, there are five categories with thousands of pounds worth of profiles and prizes to be won. Deadline date for entry is 6 November with winners being announced at the Enterprise Nation Conference on Home Enterprise Day on Friday 20 November.

* Home Business of the Year
* Home Business Couple of the Year
* Home Office of the Year
* Young Home Business Owner of the Year (under age of 35)
* The 5 to 9 Home Business (open to anyone holding a day job and building the business at nights and weekends)

Prizes include a company profile on the Enterprise Nation site and in a national newspaper, home office supplies and technology from companies including Regus, Staples, Douwe Egberts, Access Storage and Moneypenny, a brand review with top creative agency, free entry to the Enterprise Nation Conference, and a romantic get-away break for the Home Business Couple of the Year. To enter download the entry form here.

5 Easy Steps To Safer Computing For You and Your Employees

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0500

Security is like the forsaken child of technology. It's something we all think about, yet few of us have policies in place to ensure our businesses are as secure as they should be. We know about social media, we're still struggling with email marketing, many of our web sites are useful and impotent tools (but at least we know it), our sales could be so much better, I could go on.

But security - we don't have the faintest clue what to do or how to protect ourselves. We think we'll never be hacked or attacked. Yet many businesses, yeah, small businesses are attacked each month.

The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and Symantec have partnered together to conduct a survey on the cyber security awareness practices and habits of roughly 1,500 small businesses in the United States.

The results showed that while 65 percent of those surveyed believe that Internet security is critical to their business, only 28 percent have formal Internet security policies.

Is It Time to Starting Loving A Particular Phone? HTC's New Campaign

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:00:00 -0500

Many people either love or hate a particular wireless service provider? I love Verizon Wireless and have been a long time customer. Others of you are in love (or hate) with Sprint, AT&T or T-Mobile.

What I see coming (or am I late?) is where more customers are in love with particular telephones and/or particular telephone vendors and wireless carriers. I think at this time many businesses focus on the carrier and the monthly fee. Unless there is a specific application they are building that needs a particular device.

Motorola, Samsung, LG, Nokia, BlackBerry, Apple and HTC. They and others all make phones with a dizzying array of features. All of their phones also connect to a variety of wireless carriers.

The depth of how productive you are with your phone and how well you enjoy using it hinges on two factors. How well the wireless experience is (coverage and wireless rates) - this burden rests solely on your wireless carrier. And the features of your phone - this rests on the shoulders of the phone manufacturer.

What Constant Contact's Event Management & Mkting Service Means To Your Business

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0500

Constant Contact started out by providing just email marketing services. It expanded into surveys (competing with Survey Monkey) and now its recently launched an event management service (competing head on with Event Brite, the service I use.

Constant Contact's launch of its event management service instantly begs the question, is it best to use a service from a vendor you already use, or is it worthwhile to use a service from another vendor if the service is better than that offered from your existing vendor?

As expected, Constant Contact's email marketing service is VERY easy to use, with simple instructions. No need to read a manual to know how to use it.

Are Big Businesses Really Focused On Your Small Business: Separating the Hype

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0500

Many companies claim to have products, services and customer service specifically geared to small businesses. The important thing for YOU is to know what companies you should take the time to develop long term relationships with who are TRULY focused on meeting YOUR needs.

In September, Cisco announced new solutions specifically designed to help small businesses secure and connect their business.. The key components of this enhance focus include:

Cisco working closer with partners to help them sell better to small business
additions to its existing line of small business communication products
financing is one of the biggest challenges small businesses
Cisco is providing interest free financing

Earlier this month Sprint announced the formation of its Small Business specialty team to sharpen the company’s focus on the rapidly growing small business market segment.

According to Sprint's press release The Small Business team will serve as a single, common interface for all groups across Sprint that sell and serve small business clients to ensure consistent focus on addressing the unique needs of business owners and their employees. The Sprint groups include marketing, customer experience, product development and all channels that reach small business customers, including telesales, online/web, Sprint retail stores, and third-party retail partners.

What does it really mean to be focused on small businesses?

Storing Customer Credit Data: You Risk Way More than Losing the Sale. Free Webinar Nov. 11th

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:34:11 -0500

We hear them occasionally in the news - horror stories of a huge company that had thousands of customers' personal information stolen, their identities at risk. What would be the impact if this happened to your business? Would it even survive?

ProPay and SmallBizTechnology.com have teamed up to host a webinar specifically designed for Small Businesses.

Ramon Ray and industry experts Bryce Thacker and Darrel Welling of ProPay will be discussing topics such as risks associated with with storing credit card data, who is trying to steal your information and how they are doing it, and how you can protect yourselves from data thieves.

They will explore the unique challenges small businesses face in securing their information, and explain steps and best practices to follow that can help to protect your business against data thieves.

Any business owner who accepts credit cards can benefit from this very important discussion.

Click here to register.

Date: Thursday, November 11, 2009
1:00 pm EST

Is Your Web Site Ready To Boost Online Sales This Holiday Season

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:00:00 -0500

I was recently looking at some refreshments of web sites and was amazing and how great they look. What about your web site? Is it the same web site from last year? Did you want to refresh it but never took the time to do so?

There are only a few weeks left before the shopping rush of the holiday season and it is most important that you ensure your web site is as ready as it can be to increase sales.

A few fundamentals are:

Ensure your web site is very well designed
Ensure customers can reach you before the sales (customer service)
Make it easy for customers to purchase once they are ready

You might find my 10 Web Site Musts of use.

In a recent article the WSJ gave some tools for you to consider in boosting sales from your web site:

Are Your Dusty Backup Tapes A Liability? Is Online Storage An Option?

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:12:30 -0500

Even in this age of online backup, where so many companies are able to send their precious data to an online data center, many businesses still rely on tape backup.

Their tapes are stored in some closet with rat droppings, old boxes and piles of dust.

It's time to change this.

Dave Minns, client services manager at Storage Guardian. "What we're telling small-business owners, and the resellers and managed service companies that work with them, is that the time is right to migrate that information from those dodgy tapes to the safety of online backup. The economics make sense, and they're assured that they conform to best practices in data storage."

If your data is in a box of dusty tapes, CDs, DVDs or other media, it's time to consider moving the data to online storage.