Small Business Center

It’s hard balancing a blog with your small business. Even though you know the importance of having fresh content, sometimes life gets in the way. Things get busy at work, you go away to a conference, you have a new baby in the house, or the unimaginable happens and you actually take a vacation. What happens to your blog when you don’t have time to update it? How do you take a blog vacation without it ruining all the momentum you’ve created?
Here are a few suggestions.

Schedule posts in advance: One way to get around going quiet during busy times is to write post ahead of time and schedule them to go live while you’re away. This allows you to continue to publish new content and not give off to customers or readers that you may be away from your computer or busily working away in your store. And because you’re the one writing the content, you don’t have to worry about any changes in voice or bringing in a guest blogger that may take more liberties than you’re comfortable with. The downside to this method, of course, is that you have to make time to pre-write content. Not always the easiest thing to do.

Schedule a Series: Some bloggers use times when they’re away to create a series of posts to unleash to readers. They’ll take a meaty topic, break it down into parts, and then release them throughout the week so readers have something to snack on while they’re going on with their day. Series pieces tend to be magnets for links and comments, but of course, they also bear the burden of having to be written beforehand.

Guest Posts: If you’re going away, why not bring in some guest authors to keep things alive and going while you’re gone? That may mean inviting people from your staff to take turns blogging, inviting colleagues or other industry experts, or opening your blog to frequent commenters or social media friends. Taking on guest posts allows you to spice up your blog with new voices and also takes the responsibility off of you to create content before you leave. If you’re going to allow new people to post on your blog make sure you leave them with some guidelines to help them craft their posts and point them in the right direction.

Highlight your best posts: If there’s no time to write new content then spending a week reposting some of your most well-received or high trafficked posts is another good way to keep fresh content on your blog. Highlighting some of your top posts helps new readers discover them and serves as a showcase of your best stuff. And because it’s content you’re already written, you can spend your time enjoying your vacation or working on something new instead of producing blog content.

Go Quiet: Another tactic some SMBs choose to take it to simply announce they’ll be away from the office for a few days and then let the blog stay quiet during that time. I’m not really a fan of this method, but sometimes (like in the case of personal emergencies), it’s the only viable option. Do this too often, however, and people are going to start losing trust in your blog. Constant updates are a big factor in why people subscribe to a blog. If it’s possible to avoid going silent, take it.

Even the best bloggers find themselves needing to take ‘blog holidays’ at some point. Whether work piles up, conferences happen or you’re on the road, creating a strategy to keep the blog going in your absence can help you retain and even gain readers.

How do you deal with blog vacations?

Popularity: 8% [?]

Sometimes, franchise (and non-franchise) company executives get a bit stuck on the value proposition associated with social media marketing.

To illustrate what I mean, I’ve decided to take on the role of a franchise company executive, who’s a little frustrated with this whole social media scene.  Here’s my story as a franchise executive….

As the CEO of the Three Cheez Pizza franchise empire, I’ve really been getting kind of sick of hearing about how great social media marketing is. For example, whenever I ask my marketing director about the ROI portion of our social media strategy, she seems to always get an important phone call within 30 seconds of my question. Maybe I’m being a little paranoid, but never in my 20+ years in franchising have I ever had such a difficult time justifying my marketing spend.

Now mind you, I do read what some of the social media experts write about social media ROI. Pam Dyer provided some good food for thought on her Pamorama blog;

“Before you try to monitor and measure your social media returns, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish. Having concrete goals and baselines is crucial to calculating your return on investment.”

I’m certainly in agreement with her. One has to start at the beginning. Then I read what Jake Hird of Econsultancy wrote.  He stated that “if anyone says you simply just can’t get a return from social media, I’d say that’s not true. Investment in the channel isn’t necessarily financial and subsequently, neither is the return. Secondly, I’m also happy to suggest that even if you are looking for non-financial return metrics and it’s going badly, then you’ve either got a poor campaign going, or the channel isn’t right for you. This goes right back to the importance of any initial strategy and planning for your marketing activity.”

After reading that post, I was left scratching my head as to whether or not we were even doing our social media marketing activities correctly. We had just started with a Facebook Fan Page, we opened our Twitter account, and were even starting some discussions over on LinkedIn. I felt that we were on the cutting edge, but I wasn’t really sure if we were spending our marketing dollars, or even our marketing time, wisely.

As far as I was able to tell, we hadn’t made a dime that I was able to specifically trace back to our social media marketing spend. Major frustration was starting to set in.

Recently, we started investing a few hundred dollars a month on Facebook ads. I like the fact that we can target our ads to other Facebook users by age and location. It’s a little too early to tell if the ads are helping us brand ourselves in the locations we have chosen, but, we’re willing to spend some money to try to make it work. (Lots of other franchisors aren’t.)

I know that some social media marketing techniques are still being tweaked. I feel that I’ve been pretty patient. Our company has been at this for almost a year now. Obviously, I’m willing to try new things. If the social media space is where I’m supposed to be, I’ll stick around - but not forever. Something has to change . . . I think I need a “game changer.”

I would imagine that hundreds of CEO’s feel the same way as my fictitious franchise executive. The social media scene is still pretty new. Some companies have been able to capitalize on this way of marketing. It seems that most have not. I think he’s right. A “game changer” is needed.

That “game changer” may have just arrived on our doorsteps. Twitter recently announced that they’re launching a program called “Promoted Tweets.”  Here’s what a “Promoted Tweet” will look like;

Do you think that the CEO of Three Cheez Pizza will be excited to try this out? I do. As a matter of fact, if I was running the show at these types of franchises, I would jump on this bandwagon right now;

• Fast Food Franchises – Tweet out weekly specials every Monday
• Automobile Franchises – Put a discount code in a Tweet for an oil change or a free tire rotation
• Hair Care Franchises – Tweet out monthly promotions, and Grand Openings
• Printing Franchises – Run a special on color printing for a day, and Tweet it out
• Pet-Related Franchises – Have a Saturday dog wash with proceeds going to a local shelter, and Tweet it out
• Fitness Franchises – Tweet out membership drives
• Lawn Care Franchises – Tweet about products and services that are season specific, along with coupon codes
• Tax Franchises – Tweet reminders concerning tax filing deadlines combined with service offers

According to Ben Parr over at Mashable, The Twitter Promoted Tweets are starting to roll out. This is the first phase. Companies like Best Buy, Starbucks, and Red Bull are the first advertisers that are going to be appearing. The folks at Twitter want to roll this out slowly, which is a smart thing to do. I certainly don’t want to see my own Twitter stream overrun with ads.

I’m excited to see how this is going to play out, and if you’re a franchisor, I strongly suggest that you keep an eye on this new social media marketing platform. It could be an important one. And a game changer.

Do you have any ideas of your own with regard to the types of Tweets that could be used by franchise and non-franchise businesses? Would you like to share some of them with the Small Business Trends Community?  Leave a comment below, please.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Recently, I spent some time with Cleveland, Ohio’s Mark Geyman.  Mark owns and operates OhioBiz.com which is (and has been since 2000) Ohio’s largest locally-owned business directory.  Mark is an active member of Northeast Ohio’s tech community.

Question 1.  You created one of the country’s first local/regional business directories back in the 90’s. (Ohiobiz.com) Since then, what’s changed the most in your business, and in local business search?

Mark Geyman: Change happens at such an exponentially rapid pace now, versus back in 1995 when I started my first local business directory.  It’s mind-boggling! I believe the rate of change and the degree of sophistication of the tools used for personalized human communication are the areas that have changed most. This is true in many industries, let alone those of us in the electronic communications industry. More specifically, in my business, going from developing strictly business information and eCommerce websites to how to best integrate a client’s marketing efforts with those sites and the newer social media platforms – it’s a fluid world along with constantly new challenges and opportunities.

In 1995, the emphasis on utilizing the Internet was “global, global, global,” with very minimal emphasis on local aspects of business communications via the Web. As the search business matured over that time period, people’s searches have trended more local and more specific in nature. Broad, general, one and two-word searches were the norm, and now they are the exception. Multiple, geo-specific word phrases are now the new normal, as people, in general have become much more sophisticated in their knowledge discovery efforts. People pretty much have followed the advances in search technology with a corresponding degree of search sophistication – there is a direct correlation.

Question 2.  A huge number of Ohio businesses appear in your Ohiobiz.com search directory. What resources did you use when you started, and what resources are you using now, if different?

Mark Geyman:  When I started my first iteration of OhioBiz (Geyman’s Northern Ohio Directory of Businesses) 15 years ago, I wanted to focus on local business presence on the Web. Growing up in rural northern Ohio and knowing there are a lot of great rural Ohio-based companies, I wanted to give them some online exposure as well.

Back then it was rather easy to “seek out” local business websites to include in my directory. It actually started out as a link directory versus more of a yellow pages model, so the emphasis was on discovering and listing the business or organization’s website link. The original site morphed into Sitesonline Ohio around 1997 and actually became OhioBiz.com when I started my own business in 2001.

Originally, I found links by utilizing the engines and large national directories at the time. As time progressed, more businesses found out about my local directory and started submitting their business sites to me.  Over time, the process became more sophisticated, as it now is a combination of site submission, purchasing databases of information  and re-purposing/customizing it for my directory. Rarely, I’ll actively search for new business sites, but it’s a time- intensive process and these days, who has that kind of time?

Question 3.  Do you compete with Google, Bing, and Yahoo.com?

Mark Geyman:   You always compete to a certain degree with the “monsters” in the industry.  A site like mine competes for eyeballs, time, and knowledge discovery. Luckily, my directory has had reasonably good search engine rankings in all of the major traditional search engines for targeted phrases such as “Ohio business,” “Ohio companies,” “Ohio business directory,” “Ohio search,” etc. Typically, this gives the businesses that list in the directory, great additional marketing exposure for local business searches around their targeted key phrases.

For so many reasons, it’s extremely important to the keep the directory’s data “fresh.” It is the largest challenge for any business directory. It also is one of distinguishing factors that separates OhioBiz.com from its competition along with offering data not readily available elsewhere in a user-friendly format.

4. Do you know of any other state specific business directories?

Mark Geyman: Sure, there are many of them out there. As with any industry, there are some directories that are better than others. Many of them are very incomplete and do not offer a very comprehensive data set. Some are yellow pages format, versus a link directory.

There are what I call “bottom-up” directories, such as OhioBiz.com and The Michigan Business Directory. They are directories that started with some sort of niche, in this case, geographic, not trying to be everything to everyone. There are also the top-down directories that are national in focus and divide their sites up into smaller segments (by state) for example, USCity.net and LocalPages, in order to attempt to target smaller geographic segments.

Question 5.  Looking back, what do you wish you would have done either differently, or sooner, as it relates to OhioBiz.com?

Mark Geyman:  In looking back, honestly, I wish I could have better marketed and monetized the site before “local” actually caught on. Being a small Web consulting firm, client work takes top priority over personal projects.

That said, I still really enjoy working on the site 15 years later, since I am still passionate about helping local small businesses seek greater exposure and more sales in targeting a local audience. Sure, I’ve made some money off the site both directly and indirectly over the years, but I’d rather be remembered as having helped others versus making millions of dollars!

Question 6.  What advice would you give to local businesses that want to get found online, nowadays?

Mark Geyman: If you are just starting out, research and explore as many realistic opportunities as possible to get your name and brand out there. Know who your clients / customers are and where they “hang out” online. That means not only developing your website but having a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, other social networks, blogs, participate in pertinent forums, videos, local directories, and industry-specific directories. Make sure to cross-promote your various online presences.

If you already have a presence out there, make sure your basic company information is correct and current.  I can’t stress that enough! Use a service such as Universal Business Listing (ubl.org) to make sure your business information is current on all major data provider services, search engines and directories. Make sure you are accurately listed in Google Places and the Bing Local Listing Center.

Question 7.  If you had an opportunity to have face time with representatives from the biggies, like Google, and Bing, what would be the one question you would ask them?

Mark Geyman: I would definitely ask them if there will always be a place for us “little guys” in the local search business?  And if so, what opportunities or what roles they see us fulfilling that may not make sense for them?

Popularity: 5% [?]

I just finished reading Joseph Jaffe’s latest book “Flip the Funnel” and boy is my brain tired! (And I mean that in a good way.)

You might have heard of Joseph Jaffe from his popular blog “Jaffe Juice”  where he blogs about all things “new marketing.”

His latest book is BIG on energy, BIG on content and BIG on opinion.  It’s customer experience commentary, examples and data on steroids.  It’s intense, it’s serious, and it’s required reading for any CEO who is fond of saying things like “We value our customers” then creates ridiculous policies that make it darn near unpleasant for those customers to do business with his company.

Let me begin by saying that this is one of those books I received from the publisher, but that I would have purchased ANYWAY.  As a reluctant sales rep, the idea of flipping the sales funnel was extremely appealing to me.  I mean who wouldn’t want to increase their revenues, by selling more stuff to existing customers?  No cold calling, no persuading, just blissfully building deeper relationships with people who are already convinced of your value.

You’d think everyone would be doing it.  As it turns out, not nearly enough companies are doing that at all.

Flip the Funnel Uncovers a Pathetic Pattern of Profit Passivity

Throughout the book, Jaffe is building a case for giving at least as much attention to the customers we’ve got as to the prospect we haven’t brought into the fold.  The book is written in three sections:

1. Getting Priorities Straight – In this section, you’ll get to meet Jaffe and really see how he thinks and how his brain works.  He describes how prospects become customers, how we currently measure success and how vapid, empty, shallow and unfulfilling the whole process can be.
2. A New Way Forward – Here Jaffe shows us that this whole funnel flipping idea has merit by giving us examples of how successful, profitable companies are using these simple human techniques to show customers they matter.  He also brings up the strategy of focusing on employee engagement and satisfaction as a key ingredient in creating engaged, loyal customers.
3. Making it All Happen – The last section gives your ideas, possibilities and examples of how to create your own funnel flipping culture.

Jaffee Tells You What Your Customers Won’t

Jaffe gives lots of examples and well researched data that show just how much money and time most companies devote to attracting new customers only to ignore them.  Throughout the book Jaffe will let you peek inside his email as he makes some very frank and snarky commentary on things that many business people take very very seriously – like the customer satisfaction survey.  Here is just a snapshot of Jaffe’s notes and thoughts on a survey invitation he received from Hertz in his email:

“Ref: Rental Record 169257082

As a valued customer MY NAME IS JOSEPH JAFFE, WOULDN’T YOU KNOW THIS ALREADY, CONSIDERING I’M A “VALUED” CUSTOMER?. We would appreciate your taking a moment to complete this brief Customer Satisfaction Survey regarding your recent rental……if you have already completed this survey by calling the telephone number, we thank you. ER, SHOULDN’T YOU KNOW THIS ALREADY? BESIDES, DO YOU REALLY THINK I WAS MOTIVATED OR THAT BORED TO READ THROUGH MY RENTAL RECEIPT?”

And that’s just one example of many.

Who Will Get the Most Out of “Flip the Funnel”?

• CEOs – Jaffe is talking to YOU! He’s telling you everything you need to hear.  He’s showing you what your customers and your employees don’t have the guts to say.  He’s giving you examples of companies and how they are successfully implementing funnel flipping solutions that cut costs and build profits.
• Marketers – The same holds true for you folks. Jaffe calls out lazy, inauthentic communication with customers and how it actually works against all the resources, strategies and efforts that you go through to get and keep loyal customers.  Assuming your CEO is open to funnel flipping, you will find lots of great ideas here that you can insert into your next strategic plan.
• Sales – If you’re a sales professional, you will be inspired to build additional sales with your existing customers.
• Customer Service – Even if your organization isn’t subscribing to this philosophy, you will be inspired to have a different quality of conversation with each customer.  You will look at your job differently and you might even find yourself having fun.

“Flip the Funnel” isn’t just a book, visit the companion site “Flip the Funnel Now” where you can see videos and get enhanced content (just like a DVD – stuff that didn’t quite make it to the book).

This is a super summer reading business book.  You’ll not only learn something, you’ll get a kick out of Jaffe’s writing style and even crack a “Glad I he’s not talking about me” smile.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Where is small business headed? There are many trends out there, but a few important ones emerging include increased online marketing by small business and increased tensions between big government and small business leaders as economic hard times continue. In today’s business news roundup, we look at the specifics of how these trends are playing out in the small business environment of today and will play out in  the small business landscape of tomorrow. Of course, here at Small Business Trends we’ve always believed the key to the future is the leadership of small business and have always focused on supplying the tools business owners need to make change happen.

Online

What will the top search marketing trends be for 2011? Lee Oden says they break down to three basic categories. Drum roll please…We’re talking about online and offline marketing integration, mobile device and mobile search and social media advertising. Even if you broke number two down into two parts, this list would be a great resource during the seismic shifts to come. TopRank

PPC campaigns and your small business. You’re competing with the big guys when it comes to Pay Per Click campaigns, even if the entry barriers for doing business online are significantly lower than in other more traditional businesses. Still there are easy ways that small businesses can compete, if you know the right tricks. Tips include mastering negative keywords, geo targeting, keyword development, match types and more. Develope an effective PPC campaign and transform your marketing strategy online. Search Engine Journal

Operations

Does your business have an effective CRM? Developing Customer Relationship Management for your small business is one major step towards establishing stability, especially in an online business. Steps include working toward a more predictable cash flow, carefully monitoring growth, finding more customers and automating more of your operation. But it can be far from an easy task. BusinessKnowledgeSource.com

Six ways your small business can save money. Sure, your ultimate goal is to grow your business, your client or customer base and your cash flow with them. But in these tough economic times when even some governments around the world seem intent on giving up their spend thrift ways for a bit of austerity, it may also be time to cut back a bit to insure your business can live to fight another day. Also remember that any money you save could later be re-invested into more profitable projects to grow your business in the future. MarketWatch

PR

How to get blog coverage. Author Tim Ferris has claimed in interviews that in promoting his first book, The Four Hour Work Week, he actively cultivated popular bloggers by striking up conversations with them and eventually mentioning his book. The all-powerful blogosphere did the rest. But is it really that easy? Well…no. Actually, getting coverage from other bloggers is both possible and achievable. But consider these important dos and donts first. Small Business Trends

Finance

Hire a new employee and get a discount on your interest rate. JP Morgan Chase has taken a page from the federal government’s play book, offering breaks, in this case on interest rates for credit lines, to companies who add new workers. (You may recall a similar federal proposal to offer businesses tax credits for new hires.) The problem for small businesses is similar too. If your business is already planning to hire and take out a credit line, this might be a welcome added bonus. But the program will not persuade businesses to either hire or take on additional debt in a tough economy. The New Entrepreneur

Policy

Think government programs can help small businesses? Think again, writes Scott Shane, the A. Malachi Mixon III Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University. For all the increases of funding proposed, Shane insists money for government loan programs will address such a small sliver of the small business market in the U.S. as to be totally or largely ineffective. How do we help small businesses? Provide better access to sources of funding outside the banking industry. The American

Another look at the Senate small business bill. While it’s touted as a solution for small business financing, it’s hard to see how the bill can address the real underlying obstacle to economic recovery, weak consumer spending. Without that spending, small businesses will simply be taking on more debt without increased cash flow to address it. Instead, an effort should be made to lower government spending and taxes in an effort to spur consumer spending and small business growth. Web CPA

Marketing

Hey, there. Planning to wade into the deep end of the social media pool? Well, before you do, check out the rules at the life guard station. They will keep you from getting in over your head. Before you plunge into social media, make sure you’re ready to swim and not sink. Here are nine tips that will help you become an expert. Small Business Trends

Australians! Your customers are online. According to a post by Google in Australia, an amazing 80 percent of Australians research products online…even though the majority of small businesses in Australia aren’t represented there. Numbers are likely to be similar in other parts of the world, so consider checking where your customers are today. If you want to know why your business needs to be online, think about who will be buying your products or services and where they shop. The Official Google Australia Blog

Popularity: 9% [?]