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What do women really want?

Sigmund Freud couldn't figure it out, but LinkedIn tried to in its recent survey, "What Women Want @Work." Here's what the poll of more than 400 working women aged 18 to 65 uncovered.

Women at Work: What Do They Really Want?

Women Value Work-Life Balance

In fact, it's the number one factor in whether women at work feel successful or not. Sixty percent of the working women surveyed define "career success" as being able to have work-life balance. (Which is interesting, since I think that’s an unachievable goal).

That's nearly twice the percentage who defined success that way five to 10 years ago.

Women Believe They Can Achieve Work-Life Balance

Nearly 80 percent of women in the survey are confident about the ability to "have it all" – including a fulfilling career, a relationship and children. More than two-thirds (69 percent) of women without children do not think starting a family would hinder their careers or slow their advancement.

Of course, that's easy to say when you don't actually have children. Overall, 39 percent admit that juggling work and family is a career challenge. (Maybe those are the women who have children.)

To help with this challenge, women would like more work flexibility.

Two-Thirds Would Like Greater Flexibility at Work

In fact, flexible work arrangements were more likely to be cited as attributes of a good employer than was "good remuneration/pay." Women at work also say a flexible work environment will be the single most important factor determining the success of the next generation of women.

In comparison to flexibility and work-life balance, salary matters less. Just 44 percent of women say salary is the most important measure of professional success, compared to 62 percent who claimed it was their most important yardstick five to 10 years ago.

What do these results mean for your business?

While flexible work and work-life balance clearly mean a lot to women, a wide range of studies have shown how much employees of all types value these options. Whether your workforce is mostly young men, middle-aged moms or a mix of all ages and lifestyles, you really can't go wrong by offering more choices. This could include:

• Remote work
• Virtual work
• Flexible scheduling
• General paid time off versus clearly defined vacation and sick leave
• Job sharing
• Part-time work
• Temporary work

One thing you shouldn't treat this study as, however, is an excuse to pay women less in return for flexible work. While you may be able to pay less for jobs that offer flexible schedules, you certainly can't make pay contingent on someone's gender, marital or parental status.

In fact, 58 percent of women in the survey believe "unequal pay" is still a major stumbling block for women in the workplace.

The post What Do Women Really Want at Work? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Email makes it easier to manage business and personal communications. But what do you do with the paper mail that still comes to your mailbox and clutters up your desk?

What if you could digitize most of that as well and keep it on your hard drive or in the cloud rather than in your office?

A startup called Outbox aims to do just that with an unconventional approach that involves intercepting your snail mail and creating digital copies for you instead.

How Outbox Works

You sign up for the $4.99 per month service, it’s free the first month. After that, an Outbox employee comes to your door to pick up your mail about three times a week. Your paper mail is scanned digitally and then you can sort through it at your leisure via web, iPhone, Android or iPad. Other items like small parcels or Netflix DVDs, for example, are placed in an Outbox branded mailer and left at your door or delivered to the address you designate and you are notified of the delivery.

While sorting your mail digitally via your Outbox account, you can categorize it by creating folders for bills, coupons, finances and invitations. Unsubscribe to junk mail you no longer want to receive right online. If there is any mail you want to receive in original paper form, just request it and Outbox will re-deliver it for you.

The service is not available everywhere. In fact, currently you can only get it in Austin, where Outbox was founded, and now San Francisco.

But the company just raised $5 million in funding and is planning to expand to other communities.

Mixed Reviews

Testimonials from the company’s existing customers list a couple of obvious benefits in the video below. You essentially don’t have to collect your mail ever again. You can review snail mail you received while out of town by simply checking it from your online account. You can easily eliminate junk mail, sort your remaining mail into categories and most importantly never have to deal with paper mail piling up at your office or home again.

Not everyone thinks this is a good idea, of course. Features editor Laura June of The Verge said a few months ago that the service is overcomplicated. She claims you are essentially paying for someone else to pick up and digitize your mail and then re-deliver it to you if you really want it. The process is likely going to add another day at least to the amount of time it takes you to get your mail. June also points out that with things like bills already available online, there isn’t any point in digitizing them too.

Still, the world is full of services — some very successful — that people pay for, to avoid the hassles of doing something themselves.

Issues of privacy have also been raised, but as Sarah Perez of TechCrunch pointed out recently, most people already receive most of their most sensitive mail in digital form anyway.

Would you be interested in a service that digitizes your snail mail?

Image: Outbox

The post Outbox Will Digitize Your Snail Mail appeared first on Small Business Trends.

We all go to in person networking events and engage online and meet people who we think are interesting and could be great colleagues, clients or referrals. We also work with people on projects, tasks and events on a daily basis. Not to mention those in career transition, changing jobs and trying to find new jobs.

There’s a lot of content and conversations to manage and especially follow-up with today. We juggle multiple communications in our life activities both on and offline, which require us to follow-up. Sadly, I find most people don’t.

We are lost in and bombarded with millions of images, messages and impressions relentlessly coming at us at lightning speed. It’s so easy to fall through the email, social and Web cracks. But that should NOT be an excuse or an out for not improving our follow-up as a core relationship building tool and professionalism quality.

Email, text and social media have become a primary way we communicate in real time. As much as this is our norm, it is has changed the way we follow-up and is creating somewhat of a “lost art of follow up.”

The blending of direct follow-up via phone and the online world gives us so many options and opportunities to touch people. Follow-up is the most important activity you engage in after meeting new people, working with people, job searching and in your day to day communications.

No matter what you do or what profession you are in, the benefits of timely, personable and strategic follow up are many:

• It is essential for leveraging your networking in person and online.

• Its the keystone to relationship building and retention.

• It opens the door for earning referrals, meetings, interviews.

• It builds your authority and your professionalism in your niche.

Following up with people in a thoughtful and strategic way should be the standard that defines your professional style, as well as the professional style of others in your network.

Follow-Up Tips to Make it More Memorable

1. Practice Timeliness

Answer and follow-up with people as soon as you can with your thank you, introduction, information or any request or needs they may have. Unless it’s clearly spam, I try to answer as many people as possible that take the time to contact me.

2. Knowledge is a Powerful Tool

Taking time to research a company or person so that you know what they do and a little bit about them is very smart and strategic for opening conversations.

3. Show a Willingness to Engage

Be willing to engage, so that you exchange knowledge and forge a strong mutual connection as a starting point. Using all the social and online tools and tactics today gives you multiple touch points. Use them.

4. Be Unexpected

Delivering good, or great follow-up and service today is considered sub par. We expect nothing short of exceptional, as the bar is high and competition is fierce.

But, figuring out what your unexpected is can really change perception. Think about little things that are common sense and humane that can have a big impact such as spending more time, thoughtfulness, providing an endorsement or introduction or helping someone when you see they need help because it’s the right thing to do.

5. Make Gratitude and Kindness Your Center

Forging relationships based on the shared values of gratitude and kindness give them the best chance of growing and evolving long term.

6. Be Patient and Persistent and Know When to Move On

Don’t give up on people too easily that you have a relationship with or feel a potential with. We are all so time challenged. Be strategic and persistent and respect people’s time, but know when it’s time to step away and move on. Not everyone is in it to make it happen. Keeping in touch is a lot easier than it’s ever been.

Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up. Never fail to follow-up. It’s a definer.

What do you do to stand out and be more memorable in your follow-up?

The post 6 Things That Make Your Follow-Up Stand Out and More Memorable appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you use Square, the pocket-size credit card reader, in your brick and mortar business today, you could soon be selling to a much larger market online.

The company has just launched Square Market, an online marketplace offering free e-commerce stores to all current Square users.

By offering the free stores, Square is hoping to convert many of the small businesses now using the company’s credit card reader into e-merchants.

How Square Market Works

If your small business decides to open a store on the new Square e-commerce site, your inventory is placed in a neat and tidy layout. The store can be linked to your Twitter account to allow your feed to stream on your store page.

Each item for sale gets its own thumbnail and product page. Transactions are conducted through Square, just as they would be if you ran a customer’s credit card through the smartphone reader. The online store page for a Square account holder also features a map that locates the merchant’s physical address, as well as hours of operation, contact information, and even current specials or promotions.

All sales – both physical and online – are synced on your account’s seller dashboard.

There’s one more benefit in opening your online store on Square Market as opposed to the other e-commerce giants: lower fees. Square takes just 2.75 percent of each sale. That’s much lower than percentages taken by eBay, Amazon, or relative newcomer Etsy.

Following the E-Commerce Trend

Square realizes it’s going to take time and some effort to eventually compete with giants of the e-commerce marketplace like eBay and Amazon, according to a Reuters interview with founder Jack Dorsey.

Square has only been around since 2010 and, in that short time, many small businesses have begun using the company’s free credit card reader and software package  to accept credit card purchases and digitally manage inventory.

But Dorsey says Square Market is a bid to enter the emerging e-commerce market too, where revenue is already estimated to be close to $200 billion annually.

Image: Square Market

The post Square Market Wants to Transform Users Into E-Merchants appeared first on Small Business Trends.

A majority of small business owners (53 percent) believe that running a company improves their health, a recent Bank of America survey indicates. And those in business for themselves are in better shape than those who work for others, a Gallup-Healthways Well-Being survey reveals.

That’s good to hear because entrepreneurs are less likely than other employed people to have health insurance, and their jobs are more stressful.

According to a recent Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, a smaller fraction of small business owners (one-in-five) are obese than people in many other professions. Among the 14 occupations examined by the surveyors, only physicians are less likely than small business owners to be overweight.

Entrepreneurs are also less likely than other workers to have high cholesterol and high blood pressure. The Gallup survey shows that 12 percent of people in business for themselves had elevated cholesterol versus 18 percent for people who work for others. Fifteen percent of entrepreneurs have high blood pressure, the survey reveals, as compared to 18 percent overall.

On average, entrepreneurs have healthier habits. They are more likely to exercise and eat fruits and vegetables than other Americans, the Gallup-Healthways survey reports.

These healthy habits are important. The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that people who work for themselves full-time log more hours than those who work for others full-time. They are also more likely than other workers to experience worry and stress, Gallup's survey indicates.

Entrepreneurs' relatively better health matters since they are less likely than other Americans to have health insurance. While this may change in the future (now that we have the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in place), the Gallup survey shows that one quarter of those in business for themselves go without insurance, as compared to one tenth of other workers.

Insurance Concept Photo via Shutterstock

The post Small Business Owners: Healthier, But Less Likely to Be Insured appeared first on Small Business Trends.

When David Cornejo Chinguel, founder and chairman of Juan Mejia Baca, decided to start a new system of schools in Chiclayo, Peru, he knew he wanted them to be different. David had traveled outside of Peru before to Europe and other South American countries. He wanted to bring the best ideas from these places back with him and implement the good bits all in one place:

What we are helping form here in our schools is a new generation of children that are tech savvy and part of the digital age. This is the product of globalization.

About a month ago I decided to leave my comfortable job and home in the U.S. and move to Chiclayo, Peru, to work for the summer. This is where I met David, in the 4th largest city in Peru, creating a school that serves the two lowest economic classes in the city. In the month that I have been here, I've already learned so much about working internationally, the clashing of cultures and how globalization is real.

As a journalist and as someone who has worked with small businesses previously, I've seen how important it is to keep a global perspective, and David gets it too:

Above all, there is a huge movement in entrepreneurship in Peru. There is strength and immensity found in the entrepreneurial attitude.

Working internationally, whether in another country or from the US, can be a challenge. There are cultural differences as well as different systems and ways of doing things that we are often not aware of. If we want our businesses to grow, we need to understand that going into new markets will require patience and the understanding that we will have to adapt.

A global perspective means being open to new ideas, issues and solutions. Often times, it even means being open to changing the way you do things if you find a new system that works better. It means being culturally sensitive and willing to learn from others.

By having a global perspective you will be able to learn from others and you will open your business up for new opportunities. You will be able to grow in ways that others cannot because they don't understand this concept and you will enter new markets.

David Cornejo Chinguel has a global perspective. His forward thinking ideas and openness is allowing him to form partnerships with people and other universities in Chile, Germany and just recently the U.S. This is a huge success for a university that has only been around for 5 years in a developing country.

This corporation started with zero soles (Peruvian currency), with nothing. But with a tremendous spiritual force and with the strong desire to learn each day we have grown.

Business schools in the U.S. are also recognizing the importance of teaching their MBA students about the global perspective.  Sunil Chopra, interim dean and IBM Professor of Operations Management and Information Systems at the Kellogg School of Management said:

Whether you like it or not, businesses are running globally. What you cannot do is sit in a corner and say, 'I'm going to build a wall and what happens elsewhere is not going to affect me.' Global is where the opportunities are.

A global perspective will help you learn from others and find new ideas to grow your business. Globalization is bringing the world together and it's happening quickly. Be open, be adaptable – and you will see new opportunities knocking on your door.

Global Business Photo via Shutterstock

The post The Importance of Keeping a Global Perspective appeared first on Small Business Trends.

A new video chat platform allows you to create one on one video chats, video conferences or large scale webinars for free – and potentially profit from them too.

Spreecast, now in its beta launch, isn’t just some Skype, Google Hangout or GoToMeeting knockoff. It is a very different tool operating without the need for anything but an email account to sign in.

“Spreecast is a social video platform,” said company CEO Jeff Fluhr in an exclusive conversation with Small Business Trends. “It’s not like Skype or iChat where you actually have to install software on your machine. It works right in a web browser.”

Not Like Google Hangouts

Unlike Google Hangouts, Spreecast is platform agnostic. This means you don’t need to be signed into a social network to participate or create a Spreecast and you aren’t limited to inviting only those with a Google or other social account to participate. (Though you can sign in using your Facebook or Twitter account, if you like.)

Spreecast also offers an unprecedented set of tools to control the conversation and at the same time more interaction for the audience than is possible with the audience watching a Google Hangout through a viewer window, Fluhr added.

Spreecast also differs from other similar services. Unlike Skype, which essentially offers a video phone call service between two or more participants, Spreecast opens the potential for a large scale public forum conversation. Unlike GoToMeeting and other paid video conferencing services, Spreecast offers a free platform to hold private business meetings.

Creators of a Spreecast can decide how they wish to use the site by choosing between several simple privacy settings to decide who has access.

Up to four people can participate on camera at once, but many more can watch and participate via social chat tools.

“Tens of thousands of people can join a live Spreecast in sort of the audience if you will,” Fluhr explained. “And any one of the people in the audience can actually request to join on camera as well.”

To manage all this, the site gives webinar or video conference creators, or “producers” as they are called, the online controls to assign who will participate on screen. Producers can also preview and vet members of the audience who wish to be placed on camera.

Other Spreecast Features

But that’s not all.

Producers and those they designate as co-producers can also share external media such as comments or questions entered by members of the audience, photos from Flickr, Instagram or Facebook, videos from YouTube or Vimeo and even slide decks from SlideShare.

“It’s a fairly robust set of producer controls that you get when you’re a producer or a moderator of a Spreecast,” Fluhr said.

Producers or members of the audience can use the chat section to the right of the screen to pose questions to other participants or make comments about the on-camera conversation.

A screen queue section beneath the screen allows producers, participants or audience members to post comments or external media they would like shared onscreen. Spreecast producers and co-producers decide what to share.

If you would like to charge for access to your Spreecast, in the case of a webinar for example, a pay per view feature collects money on behalf of the producer. Those fees are split 30/70 with the majority share going to you and rest going to Spreecast. (Again, it’s important to remember here that it is free to create a webinar or video conference on the site.)

Spreecast has, however, begun charging for a few extra services, like custom analytics reports showing you the number of people who viewed your webinar or conference, how many shared it with others socially and how many asked questions. There is also a charge to download the video file from your Spreecast to your hard drive for upload to YouTube or another site. However, all Spreecasts are archived and can be embedded in your site or shared via social media for free.

Promoting Your Brand

One of the most important ways small businesses are using Spreecast is to create interaction between customers and brands, said Fluhr. Specifically, he shared three businesses: Founder Institute, an organization for startup entrepreneurs; Tophatter, an online auction house; and Invisalign, creators of a teeth straightening solution. All three businesses use the site to interact with their customers and community.

“Spreecast allows another format for these small and medium sized businesses to engage with their audience or engage with their customers,” Fluhr said.

In this way, Fluhr positions Spreecast as a tool similar to social sites like Facebook and Twitter, a completely free platform where small businesses can build their brands.

Learn more about producing a Spreecast in the video below.

The post Spreecast: One on One Video Chats Right in Your Web Browser appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Are you a woman nearing retirement, but thinking about starting a business?

Woman-owned businesses are a critical part of the U.S. economy, numbering 7.8 million according to the latest Census data, and growing at twice the rate of men-owned businesses. For women over the age of 50, small business ownership affords many benefits – additional income, a flexible lifestyle and that unbeatable feeling that comes with being your own boss.

In addition, as a workforce veteran, over-50 entrepreneurs (also known as "Encore Entrepreneurs") bring a great deal to the table – maturity, finance and a broad network of contacts and relationships.

Whether you are looking to start a business right away or are planning to start one once you've retired, what are your options? What entrepreneurial path should you take? Below are tips and considerations to help you become a successful female encore entrepreneur.

Understand the Factors that Drive Success

Success isn't down to securing a bank loan or a buyer for your product or service – small business success is more fundamental than that. It means having a true entrepreneurial attitude – being dedicated and refusing to quit when things get rough.

Networking is also critical. Connecting with potential clients and partners is important, but networking also gives you a broader opportunity to learn from the experiences of other business owners and help fill your knowledge and experience gaps.

Adaptability is also key – successful business owners continuously assess how their business is performing and make adjustments as they go. Likewise, being open to constructive criticism will help your business stay on the cutting edge and avoid potential problems you might not be able to see on your own.

Business You Can Start with Little Capital

Avoid raiding your savings or dipping into your retirement nest egg to fund your business. There are many businesses that you can start with little capital, including the following:

• Consulting for your former employer: Or those in your old industry. It’s more common than you might think (use your network).
• Online businesses: From selling on eBay to professional blogging.
• Virtual assistant: Help other business professionals with their administrative tasks such as email and calendar management, basic marketing and accounting functions – all from home.
• Become a lifestyle product agent/consultant: Beauty products, jewelry, kitchen gadgets and more can be sold at parties and online.
• Social media and content production: Social media and the content that goes along with it is time consuming for many businesses. Writers, photographers and videographers can all become successful content providers.
• Convenience services for consumers: From dog walking to child care to house cleaning.

Does Your Idea Have Income Potential?

This is a tricky one and many entrepreneurs run the risk of wearing blinders through this part of the business planning process. Weighing the costs of starting and running a business against its earning potential is critical, especially if you are already retired and living on a fixed income. Keeping start-up costs low can help alleviate the risk.

Home-based businesses are a great option for reducing costs substantially and can be started for under $1000. Your earning potential will also go up if you focus on doing what you like and what you are good at. Talk to your accountant, small business counselor or mentor (SCORE can match you up with one for free) for guidance on your financial options and good cash flow management.

Don't Neglect the Business Plan

Just as you wouldn't embark on a long car journey without planning your route, don't skip or delay writing a business plan. You don't need to write a polished thesis. A good plan is simple, flexible and manageable – it steers your business rather than prescribes it.

From a big picture perspective, address your strategic direction first, then break down the rest of your plan into mini-plans to include a sales and marketing plan, a financial plan and potentially a staffing plan.

Understand the Legal and Regulatory Steps of Starting a Business

Obtaining the right business license or permit, paying estimated taxes, registering your business name, incorporating – these and other legal and regulatory steps often fall through the cracks, simply because new business owners aren't aware of what they should be doing (or don't have to do) to establish a business legally at the city, county, state and federal levels.

So seek advice – talk to other business owners, browse your state and local government website or visit your local Small Business Development Center or Women's Business Center for the right information about national and local business regulations.

Connect With Your Local Women's Business Center

Located across the U.S., Women's Business Centers (WBCs) provide women entrepreneurs with in-person assistance and business counseling programs that can help them start and grow successful businesses. Each center is tailored to the needs of the specific community and offer guidance and training on a variety of topics including:

• Preparing for business ownership
• Business planning
• Business management
• Marketing
• How to navigate the business loan process
• Opportunities for selling to the government

These can specifically benefit women who are economically or socially disadvantaged and wouldn't otherwise have access to comprehensive training and counseling offered in many languages.

Over 50 Woman Photo via Shutterstock

The post Over 50, Female and Starting a Business: 6 Essentials to Consider appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Images are so much more important today online. With the Web becoming more visual,  entrepreneurs and small business staff are being challenged to hone their design skills.

And that’s where a new learning center called Skillfeed comes in.

Skillfeed is a new service launched in June, from the popular stock photo service Shutterstock.

Skillfeed is a video tutorial center. It provides training videos designed to help you become better at Web development, graphic design, photography, video, mobile development, 3D/motion design, and audio.

There are even a handful of courses on pure business subjects such as learning to use Microsoft Excel and WordPress.  The majority, though, focus on design- and visual-related skills.

The videos include short ones, called “Skill Snacks,”  that provide a quick overview or hone in on one single feature of a tool.  For example, one 4-minute video demonstrates Excel keyboard shortcuts.

And then there are long multi-part, multi-hour courses – we saw some more than 4 hours long in total duration.

Matching Your Skill Level

One of the annoying things I find about presentations, books and learning materials is when the learning level isn’t clearly stated.  If you’re already at an advanced level, you can waste a lot of time sifting through beginner-level material — and get frustrated in the process.

Newbies can be equally frustrated. How many times have you wanted a high-level  introduction to a subject, only to get plopped into the middle of advanced level material that has you down in the weeds? You feel lost.

Skillfeed addresses that by labeling courses according to skill level.  You can sort courses by beginner, intermediate, advanced and expert levels.

For $19 a month, you can have access to as many videos as you have time to watch, guiding you through the intricacies of, say, a software tool like Photoshop.

Skillfeed currently has more than 10,000 videos available. These videos are all quality-vetted by Shutterstock before they’re posted on the site.  With a subscription you can watch unlimited videos on demand. You can bookmark your favorites or ones you plan to watch in the future.

You also can see up to 30 seconds of any video for free.  Consider the 30-second preview the movie trailer for the course.

My observation is that the tutorials can be valuable whether you are a design professional, or simply an entrepreneur who wants his or her website to look better.  For instance, I know that I will never match an expert at using Photoshop. For complex or important projects, I will always seek out a real designer.

But sometimes you just need to be able to tweak a photograph or add some text to an image. It helps if you have some do-it-yourself skills.

An Extension to Shutterstock’s Core Business

Shutterstock founder and CEO, Jon Oringer, noted in a statement announcing the service, “Skillfeed is a natural extension for Shutterstock since we already serve an active, paying community of more than 750,000 professionals who view us as a trusted, creative resource.”

Here at Small Business Trends we are users of Shutterstock stock images to add visual interest to  articles. We are very particular about not just grabbing other people’s images off the Web.  We use only images that we feel secure in knowing will not pose copyright issues later on, and Shutterstock gives us that assurance.

It’s good to see Shutterstock adding another service to help small businesses and entrepreneurs “up” their visual game.

The post Skillfeed: Video Tutorials to Make Your Web Presence More Visual appeared first on Small Business Trends.

For would-be (or current) entrepreneurs, becoming a franchisee, especially for a successful outfit, seems like a shorter path to profitability. That said, the devil’s in the details — and there’s more to a franchise opportunity than upfront costs and prior successes.

We asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation-only organization comprised of the country's most promising young entrepreneurs, the following question to find out what factors to consider when evaluating a potential franchising opportunity:

“What’s one often overlooked thing you should consider when evaluating a franchising opportunity?”

Here's what YEC community members had to say:

1. Check for Proven Systems

“When you buy a franchise, you’re buying a proven business model. But if that opportunity doesn’t come with systems that work, then you’ll be flying blind. There should be systems for everything from payroll and marketing to client services and upsells. You also want to find out if training is included or if you’ll be left to figure out the system on your own.” ~ Kelly Azevedo, She’s Got Systems

2. Ask How They Treat Their First Franchisees

“It is important to track how the original founders of the company have treated their first franchisees to see if it is a right fit for you. Go and make the personal visit to the first group of franchisees if the company is not willing to let you meet them this is definitely a red flag. Remember, once you sign an agreement it is really hard and expensive to buy yourself out of one. “ ~ Derek Capo, Next Step China

3. Examine Earnings Potential

“It can be tricky to evaluate the profitability of a franchise, because you can’t rely on profitability from other franchise locations – that may be affected by location and a variety of other factors. Get a comprehensive list of the financials from other franchises, investigate how the successful ones became profitable, and find out whether other franchises have recently failed.” ~ Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

4. Consider Coaching to be Critical

“One often overlooked, though extremely important, factor to consider when evaluating a franchising opportunity is whether the franchisor offers a well-thought-out, structured and proven coaching program. Great franchisors understand that their success hinges on each of their franchisee's abilities to be entrepreneurial & savvy. Great franchises will invest in their franchisees’ development.” ~ SeanKelly, HUMAN (Helping Unite Mankind And Nutrition)

5. Make Sure they Have Already Succeeded

“Some franchises need specific talents or connections to be successful. Before you decide to take on a franchising opportunity, research who has already done well with that franchise. See if there are any common factors — and if you have the necessary characteristics, as well. “ ~ Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

6. Acquire Territory Exclusivity

“My primary concern when I consider franchising (after the strength of the brand) is whether I can get exclusive territory. If that’s not possible for whatever reason, it makes it much tougher to build and defend a profitable niche.” ~ Erik Severinghaus, SimpleRelevance

7. Know the True Costs of Being a Franchisee

“I review many franchise agreements. There are often hidden fees in addition to the royalty payments, such as required marketing fees or training. Be sure you know the true cost of being a franchisee to make sure the franchise opportunity is the best one for you and your family.” ~ Doug Bend, Bend Law Group, PC

8. Look for Knowledge-Sharing Among Franchisees

“Any good franchise will align the interests of the franchise and the franchisees. One way to enhance your odds of success is to franchise from an organization that connects all of its franchisees. Because you will have territorial protection, you should feel free sharing with (and asking questions of) other peer franchisees. Their experiences will help put you on the right track.” ~ Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

9. Seek Advice From Existing Franchisees

“What do the company's fellow franchisees think? It's easy to get swept away in the great information the company espouses, but what's it really like? I advise every potential franchisor to sit down with someone who has converted and ask him the tough questions. Existing franchisors should be willing to mentor newbies. Their enthusiasm should be contagious!” ~ Kuba Jewgieniew, Realty ONE Group

10. Analyze Market Opportunity

“It's easy to get lost in the FDD numbers and lose sight of the big picture. The dollars and cents are important, but they're also irrelevant if you find out a few months into owning the franchise that your personality doesn't fit with the culture. Attend the "Discovery Day," get a feel for the company's values and vision, and make sure you mesh well with the people behind the brand.” ~ Nick Friedman, College Hunks Hauling Junk and College Hunks Moving

11. Get Comfortable With Company Operations

“When evaluating a franchising opportunity, you should determine if you are comfortable with the extent to which you can modify operations. Quite often, franchises have strict rules on how to operate the business — often not allowing innovative franchisees to explore new marketing strategies or product positioning. Make sure you are comfortable with what you won't be allowed to change.” ~ Chuck Cohn, Varsity Tutors

The post 11 Important Factors to Consider Before You Buy a Franchise appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Professional documents can be time consuming to prepare, not to mention expensive if you have to hire a lawyer to draft them. If you’ve incorporated your small business or are planning to do so, from time to time you’ll need to prepare corporate documents to adopt or amend bylaws, appoint directors, select an accounting period, appoint officers to your board, and more.

Many official corporate actions require proper documentation. If you don’t observe formalities, you can lose the liability protections of the corporate structure.

One solution is to start with corporate document templates you can use for a do-it-yourself approach. CorpNet has launched its Meeting Minutes Templates, a free resource with dozens of templates, with just this purpose in mind.

You choose specific corporate documents you need to generate. You fill in the blanks online. Then you print the  completed document.  And you meet your obligations to follow corporate requirements.

Innovation: Not Limited to Traditional Product Companies

This latest resource is one more example of continuous innovation by a service company.

For instance, in May, CorpNet released its Business Information Zone resource. A cloud-based corporate compliance tool, it lets business owners set up alerts keeping track of important tax and corporate filing deadlines.

CorpNet President Nellie Akalp and her husband Phil founded CorpNet four years ago – but they are not newcomers to their industry.  They are actually pioneers in the legal document filing industry.

The couple launched their first document filing company, MyCorporation, in 1997, then sold it to Intuit in 2005.

After a period of time out of the marketplace under a noncompete, they reentered the industry with their new company.  Since then, the husband-and-wife business owner team has continued to adapt and innovate. The company recently tripled its office space to accommodate a growing staff and has spent an estimated quarter of a million dollars on product development, Akalp says.

She estimates the company has incorporated more than 6,000 small businesses (or helped them file LLCs) in the last year.

“Constantly Innovate”

Akalp suggests that even small businesses in service industries can innovate — and must if they want to stay ahead of competitors.

“You have to constantly innovate and come out with new tools and apps that make the end user’s job easier,” she says. “We came out as the new kids on the block in 2009, and because of our constant product development to date, we are back in the game and right up there with the rest of the leaders.”

Akalp says CorpNet uses SurveyMonkey for client surveys and TryMyUI to get feedback about the company’s website. Both have provided valuable feedback on the company’s products and services, she adds.

She suggests small business owners regularly engage with clients, finding out what they need through customer inquiries, surveys, and Google searches. Then find ways to respond to those needs with an evolving offering of products and services.  ”Just don’t stand still.”

The post CorpNet Adds Free Meeting Minutes and Corporate Document Templates appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Find it hard to get away from your business to attend conferences in person?  Air flights and hotel charges just not in your budget? But still hunger for valuable resources?

We’ve got the answer.

The first ever Bizapalooza virtual conference aims to provide just as much content and information as an in-person event, but without the inconvenience or cost. The event, which will be held online July 16-18, 2013, will include presentations from well-known small business experts like Anum Hussain of Hubspot; Bridget Weston Pollack, Marketing Director of SCORE; Jim Kukral; and Sabrina Parsons, CEO of Palo Alto Software.

There are more than 20 speakers who will present at the event.

Inspiration in Numbers

It's a well-documented fact that there are some 28 million small businesses in the US alone.  Bizapalooza Founder, Ivana Taylor, (you might know her as Small Business Trends' Book Editor) thought, what if every one of those businesses — and from other countries, too — had the resources and knowledge to grow their businesses enough to hire just one more person? What sort of impact could that have on our economy?

Creating 28 million new jobs is no easy task, but Taylor understood the power of the individual business owner in making that happen. She looked at the reach she had as a blogger, author and social media user, and realized she just might be able to reach millions of small business owners through her network.  ”If I could reach a sizable number of those business owners, then I could provide them with a useful resource, like a virtual event, that could help them create just one more job,”  Taylor noted.

From there, Taylor decided to create a virtual event that brings the fun and energy of the rock concert experience to building and growing a business.  She considers Bizapalooza the business version of the 1990′s Lollapalooza music events.  But instead of grunge-wearing teens, the attendees would be committed business owners. There would still be a killer soundtrack, of course.

Bizapalooza Details

The topics will be as varied as the diverse group of speakers Taylor has organized. Some topics slated for the agenda include:

• Rock Your Business; What You and Your Company Can Learn from the Business of Rock and Roll" (David Fishoff, Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp)

• How to Select an Online Marketing Company and Not Get Scammed  (Tim O'Connor, Marcademy)

• How to Become a Twitter Ninja  (Melinda Emerson, The Small Biz Lady)

• How to Increase Your Blog Readers by 10x  (Anita Campbell, Small Business Trends)

• DIY Press Releases: Go from Zero to Publicity in 30 Minutes (Susan Payton, CEO of Egg Marketing — and yours truly)

And that soundtrack? Not a joke. Taylor compiled a playlist of all the presenters' favorite rock songs to inspire the rock n' roll theme for the event.

The virtual conference is free to attend. Register here: http://smallbizapalooza.com/

The post Bizapalooza: An Online Event to Crank Up Your Bottom Line appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Soon you will be able to add images to your search ads on Google. The company announced the beta launch of image extensions to AdWords on its official Inside AdWords blog last month. But it may be a little while before most advertisers can take advantage.

In the post, Awaneesh Verma, Product Manager for Google Ad Formats explained:

Advertisers understand that sometimes it’s easier to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ when promoting a business. As search ads continue to evolve, we want to make it easier for you to do both.

The addition of images to AdWords will give more visual appeal to search results pages on Google. One example of the format for the new image extensions shows three images presented horizontally across the column above the first hyperlinked text for the ad (pictured above).

Google estimates that currently more than one in six searches return results with visual content. Search ads with image extensions will be more likely to be displayed on pages that include these kinds of results.

Eventually, any business that takes advantage of Google AdWords will be able to choose whether to include images with an ad campaign. However, AdWords image extensions is currently in beta test stage and Google says the current service is for English language only.

The number of advertisers able to participate will be very limited while Google is experimenting with setup, reporting and performance for the new ads.

Google is asking small business owners and other advertisers to fill out an image extensions interest form if they’d like to participate in the beta. The company said it hopes to bring all interested AdWords advertisers that want the photo accompaniment online with the official introduction of image extensions later this year.

Image: Adwords Blogspot

The post Google AdWords Image Extensions Coming Soon appeared first on Small Business Trends.

When you really think about it, online marketing and business intelligence were born to work with each other. Both fields are built on utilizing data to make decisions in order to improve processes and optimize ROI (return on investment). However, for many companies, business intelligence continues to be an elusive concept that never quite finds its way to the top of the priority list.

In my experience, once you learn how synergistic these two disciplines can be, it makes sense to prioritize their integration. From advertising to audience research, below are five great ways that business intelligence and online marketing can work together.

Business Intelligence and Online Marketing Can Work Together

Advertising

Providing comprehensive target audience data across offline and online platforms can help campaigns be more targeted. Business intelligence allows companies to craft their ideal audience behavior patterns across multiple forms of media — including television, radio, print and online.

This type of research often translates into a starting point for building an online advertising campaign. Along the same lines, online advertising can usually generate faster results reports because they are commonly based on impressions, clicks and online purchases. Instant data can benefit offline advertising campaigns by offering an initial glimpse into the effectiveness of a seasonal campaign, branding colors or new product ads.

Demographic & Behavioral Analysis

Business intelligence firms like Domo already offer real-time analytics based on online marketing efforts, so it makes sense for Web analytics to have more a presence here. Both social media and search engine marketing campaigns can benefit from the structured analysis that business intelligence experts are already using.

Search engine marketing is slowly becoming more of an analytical position, as many analytics platforms (like Google Analytics) now provide a large depth of data that includes basic demographics as well as user search behavior. For instance, if 90% of all American visitors to your website go to a specific product or services page, then it would make sense to further develop marketing and advertising for that product in the United States.

A 2011 article in Search Engine Land highlights that slow shift in emphasis in data analysis for many available search engine marketing positions. By placing a bigger emphasis on the data behind online marketing campaigns, traditional business intelligence reports can translate how online marketing efforts are (positively or negatively) affecting the bottom line.

Additionally, social media engagement data is a great way to get a good glimpse at the overall demographics (age, gender, location) of users that are engaging most with the company online. The raw data from social media is definitely overwhelming at first. Fortunately, key metrics and formulas that business intelligence analyzers normally use can help filter and make sense of the key information social media can provide.

Besides demographic data (IQ), social media also provides emotional pattern data, as social media comments and behavior is an indicator of brand sentiment. This can help businesses see how their customers feel about their brand, as it’s not alwaysabout the numbers.

Event Research and Analysis

When offline events are promoted online, it can give good insight into overall customer patterns, thus helping to increase event marketing effectiveness. By learning the time, location and ways that customers interact with event ticketing, event planners can learn when the best time is to promote events, what types of events do well and adjust ticket prices optimize sales.

A proper online event marketing campaign can track a customer’s interaction from start to finish. This includes tracking how they found out about the event through metrics such as entrance pages, referral sites and custom promo codes.

The chance to combine real world events and promotions with online marketing campaigns is one of the best ways business intelligence and online marketing can work together.

Content Strategy

If big data from business intelligence is giving online marketers a good idea of their target audience, then marketers can understand what type of online content results in the most traffic and conversions. This gives the company a good idea as to what their target audience is most interested in, allowing the company to modify its content strategy going forward.

For instance, e-books and white papers take quite a bit of effort to create, but if they result in a higher conversion rate, then it might be worthwhile to focus on them more than infographics or daily blog posts.

Overall Marketing Strategy

According to digital marketing agency AccuraCast, business intelligence can give marketers a better view of how to effectively interact with their customers online:

With clearly defined objectives and marketing strategies in place, companies can use business intelligence to improve the overall effectiveness of their website by examining the site performance, usage trends, visitor loyalty, audience circulation, content and product placement, search engine performance and overall visitor behavior. A company can therefore use these elements to understand how their site is used, maximize revenue from affiliates, and improve site design and layout.

It's much more accurate and efficient to combine existing website knowledge with proven customer behavior patterns to create actionable marketing goals. Any marketing campaign, online or off, needs set goals to track progress.

Conclusion

Overall, when it comes to business intelligence and online marketing, taking big data, forming it into goals and then translating it back into actionable insight is one of the best ways to craft a marketing and advertising strategy that works and is continually optimized.

Business Analytics Photo via Shutterstock

The post 5 Ways Business Intelligence and Online Marketing Can Work Together appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Back in January, Facebook announced a new search feature called Graph Search, which you may have heard about. According to Facebook, “tens of millions of people” used it, and gave feedback.

And this week the social media site says it tweaked Graph Search and rolled it out to all U.S. Facebook users.

The extent to which Graph Search will benefit businesses, however, remains to be seen.

Back in January some observers were underwhelmed and/or put off by invasion of privacy implications.  Techcrunch”s Natasha Lomas pronounced Graph Search “humorless, creepy and doomed to disappoint.”

Sam Biddle at Gizmodo pointed out how individuals may reveal information they might not want the world to know.

And while I haven’t revealed anything on my personal Facebook profile or business Pages that I don’t want the world to know, some others have.  For instance, I was shocked to discover almost 10   people I’ve never heard of claiming to work for Small Business Trends!  That’s something I learned by searching on our trademarked brand name.  See screenshot above of the employees I never knew we had.

Aside from that little tidbit  – which I still am not sure what to do about — it’s hard for me to see how Graph Search will be of much value to my business.

But there is one type of business I can see immediately getting some value from Graph Search:  local businesses.

Let me give you a quick look of what Graph Search can do for your business (or not).

Searchers Have to “Activate” Graph Search

The first thing you should know about Graph Search is that users may still have to “activate” it if they haven’t used it yet.  Luckily that’s a simple process.

Go to the Facebook Graph Search page. Scroll down until you see the large button that says “Try Graph Search” and click on that.  If you’re not able to click on that button, it means Graph Search is already available to you.

In my case, I had to click that button, log out of Facebook, and immediately log back in, before I could use Graph Search.

Next, to use Graph Search, you simply insert a search phrase in the recently-enlarged search box that now appears in the top left corner of Facebook. When you do that, you will see many new searching options, presented in the drop-down.

For instance, let’s say you are looking for blue widgets. When you search, the first item to come up likely is the Facebook Page for Blue Widgets.  But if Graph Search is enabled, most likely you will  also see some new search options, such as:

• Photos of Blue Widgets
• Pages about Blue Widgets
• My friends who like Blue Widgets
• People Who Like Blue Widgets

See the screenshot below showing some of these new search options. If you can see those sorts of search options, you know that you have Graph Search enabled.

Which Small Businesses Will Find Graph Search Useful?

Whether small businesses will get value out of Graph Search — at least in its current form — all depends.  It depends on the type of business you have, and your needs.

Getting Your Business Discovered: Local Businesses

One benefit of Facebook Graph Search is that it may make some businesses easier to get discovered.

That’s not true for a business like ours, Small Business Trends.  We’re not a local business. Not many people will be searching for our type of business by location. Nor will they be searching by, say, type of product to find us.

Local businesses or retailers that sell particular types of products, is a different story. Graph Search may be more helpful to them, to get discovered.

For example, let’s say you run a pizza restaurant. If someone is searching for pizza that their friends like, in their local town, your pizza place may get discovered that way.  And for a local business, that could be valuable.

For example, I searched for pizza places my friends visited in Cleveland, Ohio, and got a nice list with reviews.

If you are a local business, make sure your location is spelled out clearly on your Facebook Page.  Take the time to describe your business — the products you sell and services you provide.  The more detail on your Facebook Page, the more that can show up in a search.

Also, the bigger your following or fan network, the more benefit you get out of Graph Search.  Facebook Graph Search is really about search at the intersection of word of mouth.  Graph Search is very good for helping someone find out what their friends like.  The more people who Like your business, the more chances of your business appearing in the Graph Search results when users search for what their friends like.

So keep growing that fan base.  Ask satisfied customers to leave reviews of your business, also.

Using Graph Search for Marketing and Advertising

Another use of Graph Search could be for prospecting for new customers and connections based on very specific interests, i.e., microtargeting.  It can help you identify specific people who like something.

Of course, reaching out to them directly might seem intrusive, and backfire.

Some Wall Street analysts have talked about the power of upcoming Graph Search ads.  While that makes for a good investor theme (Facebook is under pressure to increase ad revenues, after all), some of the analysts making those assertions appear not to know much about advertising on Facebook.

For instance, you can already slice and dice your ad targets on Facebook.  Facebook ads excel at their ability to target people with certain interests.

True, those ads don’t appear in search results.  But Facebook’s search results are not Google’s search results.

Unlike when people search in a search engine, they are not usually searching with buying intent when using Facebook Graph Search. As Eoin Keenan of Silicon Cloud points out, in Facebook “… most searches will have nothing to do with brands. Searches are designed to find content, like photos or posts that are specified by locations, friends or another identifier.”

Besides, Graph Search ads are experimental and something for the future.

You still can’t search through Facebook posts and comments, either, although Facebook is reportedly working on those.

Bottom line:  don’t expect too much out of Graph Search when it comes to your marketing – at least in its current iteration.  Aside from helping local businesses get discovered more/better, it may not provide much value to your business.

For Those Concerned About Privacy on Facebook

Finally, if you get alarmed at the idea of others being able to search so easily for everything you’ve personally ever shared on Facebook, go to the Graph Search Privacy page.  You will find instructions to control what you share publicly.

The post Best Small Business Use of Facebook Graph Search: Local Businesses appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Trade shows are both fun and lucrative, especially when you’re trying to bring in a bigger customer base. The problem is that some of those booths look the same. After a while, they all start to blend together. With everyone on social media these days, you can actually make your trade show booth space much more dynamic by playing up its social reach—just turn your booth into the proverbial social butterfly.

Get Cute with a QR Code

QR Code Photo via Shutterstock

QR codes are the next big thing, and they’re only getting bigger. You see them in stores, restaurants, and even dry cleaning businesses, plus they’re on business cards, in magazines, and all kinds of other ads. Including a big, bold QR code on your trade show booth offers several benefits, all of which can pull people in and make them eager to try your product or service:

• Drive traffic to your site, email newsletter, or social networks
• Offer new and existing customers special deals
• Invite feedback from visitors
• And keep people informed of all upcoming trade shows

Set Up Networking Pages for Your Booth

Online Networking Photo via Shutterstock

Having a Facebook and Twitter account for your business is great, but why not piggyback on those pages and increase your reach? One fun, helpful way to make your trade show booth more social is to make other pages specifically for the booth or the events you’re attending.

You might go for an informative angle or a humorous one. If you’re not keen on creating all new pages on Facebook or Google+, set up events on those sites and invite your fans. Then think outside the box and start a fun but informative Tumblr page for your booth. It’s a new twist, which promises to grab attention.

Invite Interaction with Cell Phone Integration

Cellphone Networking Photo via Shutterstock

With so many people using smartphones and tablets, you have a fantastic opportunity to promote your booth. Make sure you’re signed up on sites such as Yelp and Foursquare, so visitors can rate your booth or business and check in while they’re there.

You can take things a step further and offer a giveaway or prize that people enter by either checking in at your booth or leaving a comment on your Facebook or website. You can then do a random drawing. This gets people to check out your booth, plus it gives them incentive. Once you draw them in, they’re far more likely to come back.

How About an App for That?

Apps Photo via Shutterstock

If you don’t already have an app, now’s the time to start thinking about it. It could either be tailored to your business or strictly for trade show events. You can create an app that lets users see where you are at the show, or at all the shows you plan to work in the future. If it works for what you offer, any sorts of games or coupon codes are sure to go over big.

It’s a social world out there, even if a lot of it gets done over phones, tablets, and computers, so use it to your advantage.

How do you make your booth social?

The post 4 Ways To Make Your Trade Show Booth More Social appeared first on Small Business Trends.

It's that time – you have to pitch in front of a prospective investor, convince them and get the necessary funds for your startup. This can be a great experience or your worst nightmare. Everything depends on how you prepare for it.

Let's take a look at the points that can make the venture easier for a new entrepreneur.

5 Tips to Pitch Investors

Do Your Homework

The investor you face may have a minuscule knowledge about your field of work or they may be an expert. Whichever category of financiers you face, they expect you to have knowledge of every aspect of the business.

Typically, an investor looks for pitches to convey answer to basic questions:

• What problem do you solve?
• Who are you?
• What have you done until now?
• How do you plan to make money?
• How can the investor help?

If your startup is about selling computer applications and you have no knowledge about the information technology industry or don't have a business plan, an investor may not feel confident about putting their money on you.

You need to have mastery over all details about your business, your industry, your competitors, your budget and your objectives. If you fail to provide a definitive answer, an investor may not be impressed with your pitch.

Memorize Specific Details

An incompetent entrepreneur says that their business can generate savings for customers. A competent entrepreneur says that their business can generate savings worth $100 for customers.

The easiest way to distinguish a good pitch from a bad one is the way you make it. If you are vague, investors may not think of you as an ideal candidate to invest their money in.

Definitive answers always work best. Be prepared with facts and figures. Whether an investor knows all or nothing about the field, they will be impressed if you have clear-cut points and explicit answers.

Have a Story

Your pitch before an investor is not about rattling off key statistics. Almost all entrepreneurs can memorize and deliver a speech. The problem is – it will fall flat and fail to impress anyone if it's not connected to you.

A pitch is only a good one if you can relate to it. This becomes possible if it is associated with your life. If you are impersonal about the endeavor, chances are high that the investor will be able to sense your lack of interest.

An investor is not automated. He/she is human. Like every human being, he/she will be more interested in your ideas and knowledge. He/she will only feel enthused about your business concept if you yourself are excited about it.

A simple trick – practice your presentation in advance. If possible, record it. This will help you evaluate your presentation and modify it to make it attractive.

Hone Your Communication Skills

On the personal front, you may have excellent communication skills. However, you need to make sure that your business communication skills are also appropriately perfected before you make the pitch.

Many times, an entrepreneur fails to make an impression on an investor because he/she tries too hard. If you are too formal or too serious, or perhaps too much of a flatterer, things may not turn out the way you wish.

Pay attention to what you say. Pay attention to what the investors ask. Be respectful. Be friendly. The prospective investors you face today may become the solid foundation for your business tomorrow. Treat them the way you would like to be treated by business associates.

Be Open to Feedback

A know-it-all attitude conveys the wrong message to an investor. When you are a new entrepreneur on the lookout for startup funds, you cannot afford to send such a message out.

Keep in mind, every entrepreneur learns throughout their journey from a startup to an established business. Your pitch to impress investors may be very good; however, there is always the opportunity for improvement.

If an investor asks something you don't understand, politely ask them to explain the question. If they have something to say about your pitch, listen to them carefully. You may learn a lot from experienced investors but only if you have the right attitude.

An investor is human. You can create and nurture a good business relationship with them if you have the right approach. Remain coachable as it will ensure that you continue to learn new things about your area of business from these pros.

The key to success is to be prepared and be yourself.

If you have a mentor, practice your pitch before him/her. You may also get help from a career coach. If you know someone who has pitched in front of investors successfully, ask them for a review of your pitch.

Business Pitch Photo via Shutterstock

The post 5 Tips to Pitch Investors the Right Way appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you run an e-commerce business, you should know that how a customer finds your site makes a difference in how much they spend with you.

A recent study by Custora, a predictive analytics platform for e-commerce marketing, says customers that find your site through search engines provide the greatest lifetime value (PDF), 54 percent above average.

That’s just a fancy way of saying that these customers will spend more at your online store over a longer period than other visitors who might make only a single purchase and never return.

CPC and Email Also Effective

Other high performers as far as delivering customers of above average lifetime value to your e-commerce business are Cost Per Click advertising and e-mail marketing, the study said.

Customers reaching your site through Cost Per Click ads represent 37 percent above the average lifetime value to your website.

Meanwhile, e-mail marketing delivers customers who are 12 percent above the average lifetime value to your e-commerce business.

Social Media Lags Behind

And where did social media place in the ranking based on the Custora study?

Well, not too high, as it turns out. For all the fuss made over social media, customers visiting from these sites can actually represent relatively low lifetime customer value for e-commerce.

In fact, Facebook visitors represented only 1 percent above average customer lifetime value for e-commerce merchants. Worse yet, the lifetime value of customers acquired through Twitter was 23 percent below average.

Conclusions

So does this mean social media marketing has no value to e-commerce businesses at all? Gary Shouldis of 3 Bug Media doesn’t think so:

No, it's just that marketing to people on social media is usually a top of the conversion funnel activity while search and PPC customers are usually at the end of that conversion funnel, with wallet in hand. Understanding where potential customers are in the buying cycle is important when creating your marketing plan.

Using Google Analytics tools, Custora conducted the study by looking at 85 retailers and tracked about 72 million customers who were making purchases online.

Image: Custora

The post Customers Via Social Media Are Less Profitable Than Those From Search appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Legal help for a small business owner can be quite a financial setback, no matter how necessary the help may be.

A new Web service allows small businesses to pay for just the services they need from an attorney. UpCounsel, which launched last year, lets attorneys submit quotes on specific services posted by small business owners an others. Gigaom compares the service to TaskRabbit, a site that allows part-time workers to bid online for various tasks and errands posted by members.

As with TaskRabbit participants, attorneys working on UpCounsel are screened before being permitted to participate. In addition to a quote on the particular service posted, attorneys are permitted to post a brief personal message to help clients make up their minds.

In a post on the official UpCounsel Blog, co-founder and CEO Matt Faustman explains the rationale behind the service:

We at UpCounsel saw some problems in the market for legal services – especially for those offered to small and mid-sized businesses.

Faustman, a former practicing small business attorney, said he’d been inspired to found UpCounsel after an experience with two startup entrepreneurs who, he said, had taken a DIY approach to legal documentation when setting up their company.

Faustman said the pair had used a well-known online legal document service to set up their company with disasterous effects. The business’s set up turned out to be all wrong costing the partners thousands in legal bills just to fix the problem.

He said UpCounsel was created to addressed a specific issue. Small business owners cannot afford the costs of legal fees, especially when starting out, and resort to doing many of the legal tasks themselves to cut costs.

Current online resources of legal information are sometimes lacking and following their advice can sometimes lead to additional problems, Faustman said.

Image: UpCounsel

The post UpCounsel Gets Laywers to Bid for Your Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

By now you probably know that, as a merchant, both the law and credit processing agreements allow you to offer discounts to customers who pay in cash.  So why wouldn’t you offer such a discount?  Who doesn’t love cash?

While cash has its advantages, there is a downside to consider.  We'll show you both sides of the coin.

The Pros

The upside to cash is pretty straight forward:

• Keep all of your money.  It's clear:  with cash, you avoid credit card interchange fees.  The cash you take in is the cash you keep.
• Everybody loves a discount.  Customers appreciate a discount and some may be more likely to return to your business to take advantage of the savings.  Plus, you're providing consistently card-wielding customers an incentive to start paying in cash.
• A discount is sometimes the difference between a sale and no sale.  Especially for big-ticket items, the savings could be enough to make a customer run to their ATM.
• Differentiate yourself from big box stores.  If you're a small business, offering  discounts for paying in cash is one way to compete with bigger, well-known competitors.

The Cons

Here a few reasons why you may not want to encourage cash payments:

• Cash is riskier.  More cash on site means a greater security risk. It's also a lot easier for cash to go quietly missing from your drawer.  Ask any business owner who's had a sticky-fingered employee counting their register each night.
• People spend more when they pay with a credit card.  There are a number of studies out there that all point in the same direction:  we spend more when we are handing over a credit card instead of cash.  If a customer is not limited to what's in their wallet, adding a few extra purchases to their tab is much more likely.
• Cash can be costlier to your business. The costs of dealing in cash are hard to quantify.  Credit card fees have a definite number attached to them, so you know what it's costing you to handle credit card payments.  With cash, those costs are less concrete. But make no mistake, transporting, counting and preventing cash theft all come at a cost.
• You could anger or lose card-carrying customers. Offering discounts for paying in cash can just as easily be viewed as a surcharge for paying with credit.  That perspective can lead to unpleasant surprises at the register for card-carrying customers.  Customers caught without cash and unaware of your cash discount offer could become annoyed that they have to pay more, just because they need to pay with plastic.  Which is also related to the next point:
• Credit cards are more convenient for customers. More and more people are paying with plastic and generally expect the option to do so without penalty.  Considering the point made above, is it good customer service to “add a surcharge” for credit card payments?  Your card-carrying customers are not likely to think so.

Consider all sides of this important issue, and remember to view it from the perspective of the customer.   You know your customer:  what would she or he prefer?

For those of you looking for more information on accepting credit and debit cards, check out Community Merchants USA. This online resource includes a plethora of information to help you add more value to your business through credit and debit card acceptance.

Shutterstock: Paying at register

The post Pros and Cons of Offering Discounts for Paying in Cash appeared first on Small Business Trends.

First off, let me tell you this: I fail – a lot… and I’m ready for more failures. Before you say, “Are you out of your mind,” let me explain a bit.

I hate the feeling of failure.  Nobody likes to fail.  But I learned during my entrepreneurial career that if you want to achieve entrepreneurial success, you need failures. You need to fail and the more you fail, the closer you are to your goal.

Embrace Failure to Reach Entrepreneurial Success

I’d like to illustrate this in the game of basketball.

Do you know why Miami Heat won the NBA 2013? No, it’s not because of the LeBron James.  Of course, it’s a team game, so everybody contributes.  However, there’s a tipping point which has changed the course of the game: Ray Allen’s 3-point shot.

I’m a fan of Ray Allen.  Ray is a seasoned NBA players, with 17 years of NBA experience under his belt; he was a superstar, but he has passed his prime years. He is a clutch player, meaning on crucial moments in a basketball game, he will most likely to be the go-to player to take the final shot. I’m sure Miami Heat hired him due to that reason among some others.

It’s not easy taking the final shot. Only a few NBA players have the mentality to do it.  It’s nerve-wrecking, especially when the destiny of your team is within your hands – literally.

Shooting the last basketball (called a buzzer-beater,) Ray made some and missed a lot.  Again, it’s not easy.  But this time, when Miami Heat was on the brink of losing the NBA Finals, Ray made a three-pointer a second before the game was over. The game went into an overtime and Miami won the game – and go all the way by winning the next game to grab the title.

The Moral of the Story?

When you see opportunities, you need to give it a go. When you fail, try and try again.  Before you know it, you are used to taking risks and when you are used to the fail-and-try-again cycle, eventually you will make it – big time.

You see, entrepreneurship is not about finding success on your first try.  Entrepreneurship is about finding success through a series of failures – the faster you fail, the faster you will find success.

Why Do I Need to Fail?

The answer is: You don’t NEED to fail. However, in entrepreneurship, you WILL fail in one way or another. That’s how things go.

An entrepreneur I know told me that he was willing to go through many failures for just one success. Why? Because he has proven time and time again that the successes he achieved were well worth the failures.  He’s ready to fail 100 times for that 1 success – and he’s ready to fail more.

The guys in Silicon Valley know it very well: They embrace failures – pretty much in the similar line of thinking.

Here’s another one for you: Thomas A. Edison, the inventor of light bulbs, once said in his epic quote:

I have not failed 1,000 times.  I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb.

So, do you want entrepreneurial success?

Well, get ready to fail – and make sure you learn something from every failure you’ve experienced. Otherwise, failures will be – well, failures.

Miami Heat celebration Photo via Shutterstock

The post If You Want Entrepreneurial Success, Learn to Embrace Failure appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you publish eBooks, you may be wondering how a recent antitrust case against one of the world’s best known eBook sellers affects you.

A U.S. District Judge recently ruled against Apple Inc. saying the tech giant violated federal antitrust law when it entered into agreements with five major publishers to drive up eBook prices.

Though Apple has vowed to appeal the ruling, the case shows the U.S. Justice Department’s commitment to ensure Apple can no longer use its position in the industry to influence prices.

Apple vs. Amazon

Amazon, one of Apple’s chief eBook selling rivals, isn’t directly involved in the case. But observers say the issue really goes back to the competition between the two.

With a much larger share of the eBook market, Amazon had initially used a strategy of buying eBooks at wholesale and then selling them below cost simply to promote its Kindle eReader devices, Reuters reported.

An agreement with Apple allowing five major publishers to set higher prices for their eBooks in Apple’ store forced Amazon into a similar arrangement, the court said.

An Advantage for Small Publishers

The court decision, which some say shifts the advantage back in Amazon’s favor, creates certain advantages for smaller eBook publishers too.

While close competition between big publishers may standardize eBook prices, small publishers, depending on the platform they choose, can set any price they wish.

Rob Eager, a book marketing expert, suggests several strategies when pricing eBooks.

Because eBook readers tend to be very price sensitive, Eager recommends beginning with a price below the standard $9.99 per title established by Amazon.

Better yet, Eager suggests following the lead of eBook authors like Seth Godin. Godin has recommended eBook authors give away their first book free in an effort to build an audience.

As an alternative, Eager says eBook authors can offer an eBook free for the first thirty to ninety days of release.

eBook Concept Photo via Shutterstock

The post Apple Antitrust Case: What It Means for Small eBook Publishers appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Customer interaction and payments to your website are more and more likely to be taking place from a tablet or other mobile device.

A continued decline in the number of PCs being shipped and presumably bought worldwide shows that tablets are displacing them with consumers, especially in emerging markets.

What the Numbers Say

A recent report from Gartner Inc. shows a 10.9 percent decline in PC shipments in the second quarter of 2013. It is the fifth consecutive quarter of decline, the longest sustained decrease in shipments in the industry’s history.

Meanwhile, a separate report from International Data Corporation suggests an even more precipitous drop in PC shipments for the second quarter of about 11.7 percent. But IDC insists total shipment were actually higher than projected.

What This Means

This doesn’t mean small business owners will necessarily be using tablets instead of PCs to operate their businesses. But it could mean that most of your customers especially outside the U.S. might be mobile.

In a prepared release, Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner explained:

We are seeing the PC market reduction directly tied to the shrinking installed base of PCs, as inexpensive tablets displace the low-end machines used primarily for consumption in mature and developed markets. In emerging markets, inexpensive tablets have become the first computing device for many people, who at best are deferring the purchase of a PC. This is also accounting for the collapse of the mini notebook market.

At the same time, tablet shipments have seen a sustained increase, going from 18.7 million in the first quarter of 2012 to 40.6 million in the first quarter of 2013.

Sales generated from mobile marketing continue to increase as well. For example, in the U.S. alone, those sales are expected to increase by 52 percent by 2015 to an estimated $400 billion.

Small business owners must make sure their websites are mobile and able to take mobile payments to prepare for this growing demand.

Tablet Consumer Photo via Shutterstock

The post Tablets Are Displacing Personal Computers with Consumers appeared first on Small Business Trends.

With so much information flying around on the Internet, you’d think it would be easy to keep up with everything that’s going on in your market and amongst your competitors.  But it’s more a matter of knowing what information is important in understanding how well you match up. Being able to focus on which networks, content and metrics will help you beat the competition is the name of the game in this age of real-time information.

John Clark, CEO of RivalIQ, a competitive intelligence platform provider, joins Brent Leary to share his thoughts on how to approach CI (competitive intelligence) in today’s environment along with some best practices for making the most of the information at your fingertips.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: Can you tell us a little bit about your background?

John Clark: My first software company actually started when I was 17. I have continued through a variety of industries to take us to what is today, Rival IQ, where we focus on helping marketers within companies and agencies extract competitive insights out of their market landscape.

Small Business Trends: What is competitive intelligence today and how does it compare to a few years ago?

John Clark: There are so many more channels of activity for the typical marketer to have to deal with. There is a tremendous amount of activity, it is a non stop flow of information. The reality is there is a ton of information that you can gleam from the market, but at the same time it is easy to become essentially obsessed with it as well.

So we talk a lot about how you would be a fool not to watch what your competitors are doing, but you would be a fool to obsess about it.

The trick is having systems in place and those can be manual or automated to essentially gather this information and when it is valuable for you to see what is going on with your competitors.

Small Business Trends: What are some of the main things a company should be looking to do when trying to understand what is the competitive landscape around them?

John Clark: People should spend their energy understanding who the players in their market are. So we talk about building your market landscape or your competitive landscape. It is really understanding who are the companies that are either directly competitive to you or are tangentially competitive to you in a way that you think that you can learn from their behavior. I would characterize the latter as aspirational targets. People you think are really doing well in the market you can learn from them.

So those are the three types of companies that would be important to assemble. It is important just to know who those are and then there is the Web or online presence that you can explore. There is a whole variety of social channels that are important to be evaluating. There are a variety of other metrics like SEO base metrics, that are important to be identified that are certainly the big groups that are important to gather information on and be watching on a periodic basis.

Small Business Trends: What kind of things can you find out, or what you should be finding out, in order to understand what is going on in the industry you are in?

John Clark: From our prospective, important things to do as you setup a competitive landscape are have the list of people that you think are valuable that you can learn from and you can inform your strategy from. Then you want to start doing some base lining or bench marking which would be going and looking at how they cross all of the various marketing channels and how they describe themselves.

The positioning is a perfect example. We spend a decent amount of energy on how to talk about your business and how do your competitors talk about their business and how they compare.

If you go and pull descriptions from ten different competitor websites and line them up against each other, or the title text or how they describe themselves on say Twitter or Facebook, and you look at them side by side, you are going to discover a common things that you want to make sure you get in to your own description as well.

Making sure that you have assembled the competitive metrics, which is essentially for your industry, then look at who's present on what channels. Look at Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn, and ask yourself, “Am I on those channels and are my competitors on those channels?”

The final thing would be looking at the effectiveness or the engagement on those various channels. What are people doing and are they effective? Because you can certainly be present on Facebook, but being present on Facebook and having deep engagement with your customer base are two very different things.

Small Business Trends: Lets say you are in this certain industry and you have a list of competitors and you can look across the different social networks and how you compare to them, but you dig deeper to see the industry is really heavily using Facebook. How can I get up to speed or use Facebook and look at each individual but also look at the overall industry and how it's doing?

John Clark: Exactly. Not just the overall industry, but the trick on engagement is to go and figure out who is doing the best. Because this is where some of the learning is coming from. Whether it's SEO or engagements or what-not, as you dig in, see who is being the most effective. Dig into what are they doing, are they posting videos or doing contests or promotions, or are they doing something that seems to resonate with a customer that is common to my customer – and decide if that is something that might be worth experimenting with.

This is where some of the learning comes from. You are not going to change your strategy day in and day out based on this information, but are you evolving your strategy. If you identify things that are working for other folks it is something to evaluate. It may be something that you want to make a part of your tactics.

Our product is always evolving so we are adding more and more to it. But one of the things that we present to people is where it has seen significant moves and changes in the market. So that you can figure out where to go dig deeper for insights.

That's the value of using technology. Because the reality is, everything that I have described, given enough time and energy, can go by hand and be gathered in spreadsheets to assemble it. It is very tedious, very hard and tough to maintain, but it is accessible. If you have something that is on an ongoing 24 x 7 basis, then you are able to go quickly look at the results to see where there have been significant movements.

I would say that people are starting to seek tools to essentially manage this chaotic, rapidly changing amount of information. Because they realize they can learn from it, but they don't know how to manage it. That is really the problem that we are trying to solve at Rival IQ.

Small Business Trends: What is the difference between generic social listening and what you guys do with competitive intelligence?

John Clark: There is definitely some overlap. I'd say that we have approached the market from a slightly different way that goes back to that premise that – you don't want to obsess about your competitors, but you don't want to ignore them either. If you accept that as a valuable premise, our goal is to make it easier for you to build up that market landscape or that competitive landscape of people that you want to watch and learn from.

Then focus that filter on companies looking at a bunch of different metrics, not just social. Social is important, but also SEO related metrics, Web based metrics and how they are changing meta data and title tags and things like that that effect search. So it is a related but slightly different task.

Small Business Trends: Where can people learn more?

John Clark: RivalIQ.com

This interview on competitive intelligence is part of the One on One interview series with thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This transcript has been edited for publication.  

The post RivalIQ's John Clark: Using Competitive Intelligence Amongst Limitless Information appeared first on Small Business Trends.

I was reading an interview recently with the head of a company who said something about their recent success being the result of countless suggestions from employees.

First off, I was surprised that this company not only was interested in employee ideas, but actually asked for them.

Sounds great right?

Then I started thinking back on some of my past co-workers and ideas they might have floated if they’d been asked. Add in a few focus groups and consultants and this cartoon just sort of presents itself.

The post After Countless Suggestions, It’s Terrible appeared first on Small Business Trends.

We are back with other awesome, outstanding, stupendous (OK, you get our drift) list of small business events, small business awards and contests.  We’ve got something for everyone — from solo entrepreneur to a small business with a handful of employees, to midsize businesses with hundreds or even thousands of employees — check out this list.

It’s a vetted list.  We accept listings from the community, but all submissions are reviewed by our Editors to make sure they represent quality, offer value, and are likely to be worth your time.

This is a partial list.  To see a full list or to submit your own event, contest or award listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar.

Featured Events, Contests and Awards

Bizapalooza
July 16, 2013, Online

Bizapalooza, a virtual conference, will provide resources and education for small business. The event is scheduled for July 16-18, 2013, and is free to attend. 25 Small Business Rock Stars will share tips and strategies that you can use to grow.  If you can’t attend those days, the event is archived for later viewing.  No cost!

REGISTER

Big Awards for Business
August 14, 2013, Online

The Big Awards started with a mission of recognizing real talent and performance. Real business people, those with experience and knowledge, judge the Big Awards. Request an entry kit today and submit your nomination by August 14, 2013.
Discount Code
SBT50 ($50.00 off)

NOMINATE

INBOUND 2013
August 19, 2013, Boston, MA

INBOUND is a 4 day marketing experience that brings together thousands of marketers from around the globe for an annual event held in downtown Boston, Massachusetts.

REGISTER

Small Business Influencer Awards 2013
Online

The 2013 Small Business Influencer Awards recognize the apps, organizations and people who have a strong impact on small businesses in North America. Now its 3rd year, the Awards are a coveted recognition for those who serve small businesses.  Check to see who’s already been nominated, and nominate yourself, or someone or some organization or app you admire.   No fee to enter.

Twitter hashtag: #SMBinfluencer.

NOMINATE

WomanCon 2013
September 25, 2013, New York, NY

This conference brings together amazing women entrepreneurs, both on and off the stage. Hear real behind-the-scenes stories of success including JJ Ramberg, Sarah Endline, Janine Popick, and Pamela O’Hara. Expert keynotes and panel discussions include: Getting Funding for Growth with Kay Koplovitz & Peggy Wallace, Turning Ideas into Companies with Yao Huang, 5 Strategies for a Stronger Brand with Julie Cottineau, and a journalist panel on Pitching the Media. SEATING IS LIMITED.
Discount Code
SBTRENDS ($50 off)

REGISTER

More Events

• Code: eysmax50
  July 15, 2013, Online
• Annual Sassoon Academy Seminar
  July 15, 2013, Murray, UT
• CROWDFUNDx NYC
  July 17, 2013, New York, NY
• Soukle Speak
  July 20, 2013, Atlanta, GA
• More Leads & Sales, Less Heavy Lifting
  July 23, 2013, Philadelphia, PA
• NYC July Business Networking Event
  July 23, 2013, New York, NY
• Online Branding: Claiming Your Space and Standing Out From the Crowd
  July 24, 2013, New York City
• Almost Free Teleseminar – Targeted Branding
  July 26, 2013, Online
• Web.com Small Business Forum – Pittsburgh
  August 01, 2013, Pittsburgh, PA
• Small Business Summit
  August 06, 2013, New York, NY
• How to Use Twitter, LinkedIn, & Google+ For Your Business
  August 06, 2013, Online
• How to Use Facebook, Pinterest, & YouTube for Your Business
  August 13, 2013, Online
• Affiliate Summit East
  August 18, 2013, Philadelphia, PA
• INBOUND 2013
  August 19, 2013, Boston, MA
• Content Marketing World
  September 09, 2013, Cleveland, OH
• Small Business and Entrepreneur Leadership Conference
  September 09, 2013, Galveston , TX
• Leading in Local: SMB Digital Marketing
  September 11, 2013, Austin, TX
• The Social Shake-Up
  September 15, 2013, Atlanta, GA
• 2013 Incite Marketing and Communications Summit
  September 18, 2013, Online
• Conversion Conference East 2013 Boston
  September 30, 2013, Online

More Contests

• Win a Grouponsultation for Your Small Business
  July 16, 2013, Online
• Huggies MomInspired Grant Program
  July 31, 2013, Online
• 2013 Big Awards for Business
  August 14, 2013, Online
• Harbortouch Business Upgrade Contest
  August 15, 2013, Online
• Manta #SmallBizLove Photo Contest
  August 31, 2013, Online
• 2013 Small Business Influencer Awards
  September 09, 2013, Online
• Women 2.0 PITCH Las Vegas 2013
  September 15, 2013, Las Vegas, NV
• The Citi Salutes: Realizing Your Dream Business Competition
  November 08, 2013, Online

This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology.

The post Learn and Network at One of These Small Business Events or Awards appeared first on Small Business Trends.

When Christine Goldbeck first opened her brick and mortar art gallery in Middletown, Pennsylvania in 2008, she never thought she would rely so heavily on the Internet for both sales and promotion. Online selling was far from her mind.

At first, Goldbeck said she used a few online promotion methods, including an email newsletter and online advertising. She used those in conjunction with more traditional techniques like direct mailers and print advertising, which she does very little of now.

As time passed, Goldbeck decided to dive further into online promotion with a blog and some "photo of the day" and "painting of the day" features. She then graduated into online selling.  She began selling those daily works on her own website, ChristineGoldbeck.com.

"It's great because when I'm sleeping or out at a show, I can come back, check my email and have sales waiting for me," she said. "So I can be asleep and my brick and mortar store can be closed, but the online stuff is still out there and it's selling."

This year, Goldbeck said that about 50% of her business's overall sales have come from her website. She uses the website to sell different types of art compared to what she sells in her gallery and other local shops.

"Right now I primarily sell bigger products in my physical location and other galleries around town," she said. "My smaller products and prints tend to sell better online."

Goldbeck continues to employ some more traditional promotional techniques along with her online presence. In particular, she enjoys going to local art shows and events. But she maintains that using both online and traditional methods are essential to her success.

"If you're not at least promoting yourself on the Web you're at a distinct disadvantage," she said. "I would advise any visual artist to at least have their own website or blog, even if they don't want to sell directly online."

She also had some other advice for artists and creative entrepreneurs looking to sell or promote their work online.

"I try to tell a story about each photo or painting that gives potential clients an experience," she said. "I've had clients tell me that they've been to my blog and read the stories before ever buying anything. By creating an experience you can build a following and keep people interested and coming back."

View a slideshow of Christine’s work below.

Morning Swim

Sunset on the Log House

Town and Country

Morning Flowers

Double Sunshine

Punch Buggy

The Watcher

The Path

On the Rocks

Skyfire

The Cat is IN the Bag

The Right to Assemble

The post Artist Uses Online Selling to Complement Her Local Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

One challenge the Internet presents is too much choice when one has a preference for simple entertainment.  For example, when I want a mini–break from writing or analyzing data, I casually watch YouTube reviews of new vehicles. Reviewing cars is part of my car enthusiast childhood. It helps me recall the three automobile magazines subscriptions my dad would bring home.

But the volume of YouTube auto review sites can eat up my time.  Too much choice can overwhelm, forcing me or anyone to applying judgment to not overindulge in variety.

I share that personal aside to frame the purpose behind the book, Number Sense: How To Use Big Data To Your Advantage by Kaiser Fung. Fung is a professional Harvard educated statistician and author of Numbers Rule Your World.  

He wrote Number Sense to heighten the ability of readers to discern when the plethora of choices of data has value and when it does not.   I learned about the book through NetGalley and sought an advance review copy before its July publication.

Number Sense: Making Sense of Numbers

Number Sense is written for organizations in general, not just businesses.  All types of organizations are facing more data-based decisions by the day.  In establishing a wide scope Fung makes a solid claim that big data increases the operations possible in an organization:

“The reason why we should care is not more data, but more data analyses. We deploy more people producing more analysis more quickly…. With so much free and easy data, there's bound to be more analysis.”

Fung goes on to note how there is now more chance for error:

“Data gives theory legitimacy. But every analysis also sits on top of theory.  Bad theory cannot be saved by data. Worse, bad theory and bad analysis form a combustible mix.”

To enlighten us on how the chances for error are occurring, Fung supports the details with a case study approach in the text.  The book lays out its chapters into four segments – Social Data, Marketing Data, Economic Data, and the intriguingly titled Sporting Data. Each segment contains enterprise and societal viewpoints to highlight how data-derived decisions can misinterpret the models an organization creates from the data.

A superb early example is a Republican model for the 2012 presidential election.  Fung notes a set of polls enhanced with a data model that predicted a last minute groundswell of Republican support and a Romney victory.  It's a poignant example of how competitors can shoot themselves in the foot even with equal access to the same data.

Readers who own small restaurants, retail shops and services reliant on Groupon-like digital services will benefit from the two chapters examining personalization within – wait for it – Groupon.  The takeaway is that personalization extends the value of customer segmentation, but not always as expected from a planned strategy. Fung explains how tech can go beyond intention:

“Target technology is one tool that can strengthen the economics of a Groupon merchant. But the punditry fails to comprehend how. Targeting as described is not so much concerned with sending more relevant deals to subscribers. It works by directing coupons to profitable segments of customers, away from the free riders and towards the first timers.”

Ideas like this can enhance small business actions when it comes to strategy (see Megan Totka's  article “How A Small Business Can Use Big Data” for more big data suggestions).

Examples in Number Sense read like cases, so business readers should not rush into the text for answers, or else they'll overlook the salient points.  The end chapter on data and fantasy football surprises in its presentation, but its takeaways were simpler than the text describing the example.

In some instances I did prefer asides to explore the details.  When Fung notes that analytic solutions "can have a gap as high as 20-30%" he gets the number right, but the book does not deeply explore the current state of technology solutions being applied to big data challenges.

Read Number Sense to Learn, But Be Cautious to Apply

With Number Sense, Fung seemed ambitious in expanding on McKinsey Global Institute's definition of big data. And I appreciated Fung's humility and fairness in mentioning that he can be in error as well – "Even experts sometimes fall into data traps.”  The tone shows an eye for continual learning and inspired exploration – the ultimate takeaway readers should have for business intelligence books.

Ultimately readers enamored with stats-books like Moneyball and Big Data will not be disappointed.  In narrowing the choice of where to starting researching the concepts behind big data, Number Sense makes a credible read that can show where the big data story is heading.

As for small entertainment until my next book review … I am still stuck choosing which auto review video to watch (smile).

The post Understanding Big Data with “Number Sense” appeared first on Small Business Trends.

We bandy acronyms about so much that sometimes we assume everyone knows what they mean. Take the acronym ROI. While experienced business people may have an idea of what that means, I’ve had new entrepreneurs and non-native English speakers sheepishly ask me, “What is  ROI?”

ROI stands for “return on investment.” Often you see “return on investment” defined for an investment in a company or a business, say as a stockholder or angel investor.  For instance, if you’ve invested in a startup — someone else’s or perhaps your own startup — you probably should calculate how much of a return you have gotten on your investment in that startup company.

ROI Really Means: Are You Investing Your Funds Wisely?

Return on investment tells you if you are using your money wisely, when you invest.  One thing that professional investors do is evaluate the potential ROI in a startup, compared with other investments they could make.  For instance, can you get a better return investing in your nephew’s Internet startup — versus investing those same funds in the stock market?

Now, you may want to invest in your nephew’s startup just to help out your nephew — regardless of any ROI.  In that case, you’re not really investing based on ROI.  Your motivation is to help out a family member.

But professional investors and non-family members will most likely be looking for the ROI.  As a startup entrepreneur, it’s going to be up to you to paint a picture of the potential return, calculate it realistically — and ultimately make sure there actually is a return on investment.

Fred Wilson, the well known investor in tech startups, has a helpful spreadsheet and accompanying explanation, on how to calculate a return on investment.

Get Used to Calculating ROI for Expenditures

However, ROI doesn’t need to be limited to measuring a  return on investment in a new company.

Apply the ROI  (return on investment) analysis more broadly to each expenditure.  Ask yourself: if we spend that amount, will we really get a return, and how much can we expect to get?

As a business owner, when you discipline yourself to think about each expenditure in terms of what you get back from it, it will help keep your business profitable.

For example, if you are investing in a new advertising initiative, evaluate the results of that initiative in terms of “ROI.”  Calculate how much you’ve spent on the marketing, and try to calculate the return.  Calculating expenses is usually the easy part.  Calculating the return just from that initiative can sometimes be the hard part.

Let’s take an easy example.  If you’re selling with e-commerce, it’s usually not hard to calculate ROI on pay-per-click ads.  With the right tracking technology, you can determine what you spend on pay-per-click ads, and the exact sales you get for those expenditures.

If only all businesses were that simple!

Unfortunately, they are not. In many businesses, it’s much harder to track exactly what triggers a sale.  That’s because buyers often don’t make a buying decision based on a single factor or activity, such as clicking a pay-per-click ad.

You’ve probably heard the old truism that it takes a minimum of 7 marketing “touches” to get to a sale.  That means it’s going to take multiple marketing activities over time to convince a buyer to buy — not just a one-time click.  Before deciding to buy, a buyer may click on a search result, AND see a full-page magazine ad, AND read a blog post written by a company executive or about the company’s products, AND view  some online banner ads AND enjoy the vendor’s Facebook updates — together all of those could have an impact. They could cause you to put that company at the top of your list, when you’re ready to buy.

ROI will be much more challenging to calculate in many industries and businesses.

If It’s So Hard, Why Bother Calculating ROI?

Just because it’s challenging, that shouldn’t be an excuse to throw in the towel.  You should still attempt to calculate ROI.  Even if you can’t attach a precise dollar number to a marketing activity, you may be able to determine that in general sales went up after you initiated a certain marketing campaign.  You may be able to collect anecdotal stories or testimonials that a particular sale came as a direct result of a particular marketing activity (that’s why you should always ask new customers how they learned of you).

Track your expenditures in as detailed a way as possible.  Identify expenses related to certain activities, or certain products or services you deliver.  Use –really use — analytics tools.   And calculate as best you can the value your business gets specifically after certain activities, or that certain products or services bring.

This overview at the Marketo blog outlines different methods of calculating a return on marketing, for instance.  It points out the level of detailed analysis you need to get into.

The more data you collect and analyze, the better you will get at figuring out ROI.  And the better you will get at spending your money wisely in your business.

ROI, Shutterstock

The post What is ROI, or Return on Investment? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

In case you missed it, here is the “must read” small business news from the past week.  Highlights include a new e-commerce tool from mobile payment company, Square. You can also read about a startup that offers you a new resource for video chat — and another offering a way to digitize your snail mail.

The Small Business Trends editorial team collects the news that will help you grow your business, and puts it in perspective. Read on.

E-Commerce

E-Merchants Get Boost From Square Market. Square, maker of the pocket-sized credit card reader, has launched a new e-commerce site giving each user a free online store. Is your business represented in the new Square Market?

Where do your best e-commerce customers come from? If you answered social media, some recent data collected by Custora will surprise you. Learn more about the customers that bring your online business the greatest lifetime value.

Online marketing is an art. Meet Christine Goldbeck. In 2008, Goldbeck opened a brick and mortar art gallery in Middletown, PA. But today her website, ChristineGoldbeck.com, accounts for a large amount of her saless. Goldbeck’s experience can show local small business owners what online marketing can do for their bottom lines.

Startups

Spreecast offers video chat in your Web browser. Online video chat options include Skype, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting and more. So what makes Spreecast so different than the rest? Start with the fact that it’s not part of another service and requires no software to download.

Outbox digitizes your physical mail. A growing startup has a new solution for dealing with your snail mail. They’ll pick it up from your house or mailing address and turn it into digital form for easier management. This service is only available in two cities so far.

Let lawyers bid for your business. UpCounsel takes the principle used by TaskRabbit and applies it to the legal profession. Instead of hiring people for errands as in the case of TaskRabbit, UpCounsel lets you post your legal needs.

Latest Trends

Your customers are using fewer PCs. A decline in the number of PCs shipped over the last five quarters marks the longest slump in the industry’s history. But what does this decline signal for small businesses whose customers find them primarily online?

A new survey tells us what women want. At work anyway. And the answer, based on data collected by LinkedIn, is balance and control. Check out this overview from Rieva Lesonsky.

Small business owners healthy but uninsured. Small business owners are in better shape, health-wise, than those who put time in for an employer. That’s a good thing, says Scott Shane, Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University. Because they’re also more likely to be uninsured.

Resources

Corporate document templates for free. CorpNet’s got them. Resources include Meeting Minutes Templates. These will help you prepare corporate documents to adopt or amend bylaws, appoint directors, select an accounting period, appoint officers to your board and more.

Google AdWords Unveils Image Extensions. If seeing is believing, then a new Google AdWords feature will increase the persuasiveness of your ads. Here’s more on the new Google AdWords upgrade.

Facebook rolls out Graph Search to all U.S. users. But the benefit of the newly tweaked service to   small businesses remains to be seen, says Small Business Trends founder Anita Campbell. Here’s an overview.

Entrepreneurship

Thinking of buying a franchise? Keep these 11 important considerations in mind. The Young Entrepreneur Council suggests you do your homework when selecting the franchise that’s right for you. Avoid mistakes by evaluating your options carefully.

The business world is increasingly global. Tessa Farnsworth Curry, managing editor and regular contributor of a site about women in business, is on an adventure. Living and working in Peru for the summer, Curry tells us what she’s learned about the importance of a global perspective.

Failing your way to success. No one likes failure, entrepreneurs perhaps least of all. However, as entrepreneur Ivan Widjaya explains, failure is absolutely necessary for future success. Ivan gives an example from the NBA and teaches us more.

Competitive intelligence. Brent Leary interviews John Clark, CEO of RivalIQ, about using business intelligence to your company’s advantage. Multiple channels and an unending flow of information provide both more opportunities and more challenges.

Continuing Education

Bizapalooza is coming. A free online conference aims to improve your small business bottom line. It’s the brainchild of Ivana Taylor.  If you can’t make the live webinars, you can always watch the archives later on your own schedule. Sign up!

Shutterstock sends you back to school. The popular stock photo site introduces Skillfeed. It’s a set of video tutorials. The aim is to improve users’ skills in Web development, graphic design, photography, video, mobile development, 3D/motion design, and audio.

Books and E-Books

Apple and the small e-book publisher. A U.S. District Justice recently agreed with the U.S. Justice Department that Apple was guilty of violating federal antitrust laws. For all the small e-book publishers out there, the decision and its fallout may affect your strategy for the future.

A book about using big data for your business.  There is more information available to your business today than ever before. That means more data to make your business competitive. But it also means more opportunities for error. Pierre DeBois reviews Number Sense: How To Use Big Data To Your Advantage by Kaiser Fung which explores both issues.

Newspaper, Shutterstock

The post “Must Read” Small Business News This Past Week appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Once upon a time, we were building a website for a client who wanted to save time and money by supplying their own photographs rather than paying for stock images or a professional photographer to do custom work. Being agreeable – the customer is always right, right?  I said sure.

This was a decision I immediately regretted when I saw the images the client provided. They weren't horrible, exactly, but they weren't anywhere close to being good, much less good enough to be used for marketing purposes. So I called the client and said that if we wanted to go forward with the images, I'd need to have a member of our team edit them so they'd look better.

They agreed and my team put their Photoshop skills to work. Transforming those substandard images into pictures we could use took two hours. This infuriated the client. "There's no way a little thing like that should have taken so long" they protested.

Do you know what happened?  We'd run right into the Blink Factor.

The Blink Factor

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Time flies when you're having fun?"

It turns out that time can move pretty quickly in a number of situations. You may have experienced this yourself when you've sat down to work on an administrative task connected to your business, such as ordering some inventory or looking over employee time sheets. A task that you thought would only take a few minutes winds up consuming over an hour – perhaps even an entire afternoon.

How does this happen?

Cognitive researchers, the folks who study how we take in and process information about the world we live in, have identified two distinct processes people use to estimate how long it will take us to complete a given task.

When we estimate how long it will take us to perform a physical task, such as walking to the corner store for a cup of coffee, we're using implicit time processing. When we estimate how long it will take us to perform a mental task, whether it's tedious in nature, think data entry, or creative, think writing copy or programming a website – we're using explicit time processing.

While people tend to be fairly consistently accurate when using their implicit time processing skills, there's a pervasive universal tendency to underestimate when we use our explicit time processing skills. We think mental work takes less time than it actually does whether we're doing the work ourselves or someone else is doing it.

The Blink Factor is the disparity between how long a mental task takes to complete and how long we, or more importantly our customers, think it should take. Obviously, the Blink Factor can introduce an uncomfortable amount of tension into an otherwise good working relationship. There are two elements to beating the Blink Factor.

Beating the Blink Factor: Know Yourself

Data is your friend. As a business owner, you should be tracking how you use your time. Being able to look at objective records that detail how long it takes to perform given tasks will enable you to provide more accurate time frame estimates to your clientele.

Don't guess. Know. Using a simple online tool like Toggl or the time tracking features in project management software like Basecamp can provide you with objective, reliable data that will make it easier for you to accurately project how long a task will take.

Beating the Blink Factor: Communicate With Customers

Knowing how long a task will take is only half the battle when it comes to beating the Blink Factor. You need to let your customer know how long the job will take as well. Managing expectations is essential to customer satisfaction.

That's why we now put a detailed cost breakout into every proposal, sharing how long each element of our process will take to complete and what that will cost. The time to discuss whether your team works fast enough should happen before the job begins – not while the project is in process.

Having an accurate time frame discussed and agreed upon gives us a base line to come back and refer to in case the Blink Factor threatens to disrupt your project. Integrating time tracking into your daily routine will deliver significant rewards in terms of customer satisfaction.

That's how you beat the Blink Factor.

Time Flies Photo via Shutterstock

The post The Blink Factor: Time Management Can Build or Break Your Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

As I write this review I have a very interesting experiment going on.  I’m promoting a rather large event with a varied group of organizations; some are large brands with humongous email lists and some are not-so-large brands with smaller lists.

I've given them all a custom link so that I could see the results of our promotional effort.  So who do you think has the better conversion rate?  The big companies with the large lists or the slightly smaller folks with the more modest lists?

While you think about that, let me tell you about a book I’ve been reading; Networking is Dead: Making Connections That Matter. The book is by Melissa G. Wilson (@MGWilsonAuthor) and Larry Mohl (@lmmohl).

I received a review copy a little while ago and I have to admit that the title took me aback.  ”How can networking be dead? It’s the oldest, best way to build referrals and get new customers!”  I simply had to see what the authors’ point of view was and to possibly find a better way to build a more engaged and profitable customer base.

Ten Lessons That Will Take You From Irritable to Irresistible

Maybe this is the point in the review where I tell you that this is one of those “business fable” books.  That means if you like books like The EMyth, or Built to Sell, you will eat this book up with a spoon.

I think that the genre of book is important here because the authors seek to teach you the principles of building meaningful relationships by actually building a relationship with you through the story.

The book follows a cast of three characters: Lance and Meredeth (the students) and Dan (the teacher) as they explore this ten-step process.  Lance and Meredith are looking to grow their business network and are introduced to Dan, the business connection coach by their yoga instructor.

Dan has a firm opinion that networking is a bad word. Dan’s opinion is that building your business by referrals isn’t just about collecting business cards or a social network following, but casually culling your existing relationships and judiciously nurturing the right new relationships.

Dan serves as the expert guide through these ten powerful lessons.  Each lesson is highlighted as a chapter and at the end of each chapter is a lesson summary.  You will definitely appreciate that because you are likely to get so engaged in the story that you forget that it actually has a purpose — to help you grow a profitable business through connections that matter.

Let's get on with a few of the lessons I thought were truly outstanding.

Why You Connect is More Important Than What You Want Out of the Connection

This is the first lesson in the book and it comes at you fast. It's the first chapter in the book and the lesson is actually woven into the story in a rather subtle way.  Lance and Meredith (the two business folks) are meeting for coffee with their yoga instructor who is introducing them to Dan.

You may not have caught on to the lesson, but the authors allude to it; people are drawn together by their shared commitments to what truly matters to them.  In other words, people with like values and beliefs are more likely to be friends.  There's a cliche for that — "Birds of a feather, flock together."

What the authors are trying to point out is that many of us have gotten a little too focused on targeting specific industries and collecting quantities of followers, friends and business cards.  What really counts in business is the strength of the relationship and that strength comes from shared values and commitments.

Focus on Quality Rather Than Quantity

You will get nothing but agreement from me on this point.  And I'm sure you've heard this before.

But what I really liked about the authors' approach in this book is the critical way they teach you to look at each of your contacts.  The authors tell you to separate them into three groups: Givers, Takers and Exchangers.

You can guess what those categories mean:

• Givers are those contacts who help you grow your business and give you the things you need to grow it.
• Takers— well, they just take.  They give nothing and expect everything.
• Exchangers are there to partner with you for mutual benefit.

A New Way to Profitably Grow Your Business Through Relationships

Networking is Dead is not only a fun summer read, it will have you step into autumn with a new, more powerful way to build great relationships.  You'll find yourself working less on building referrals and working more with people you love to work with, who also love to work with you.

Which Promoters Connections Convert Better?

Now let’s get back to the question I asked you to consider at the beginning of my review — which lists got better responses to the promotion sent out for the event?  Was it the list from the big brands or was it the lists from the small experts?

If you read carefully, you’ll guess that the smaller experts who were more engaged with their lists had more than 200 times the response rate of the big brands.

The lesson here — the big brands have big lists, but small relationships with those lists.  You can actually be more successful by having a smaller but more engaged list.  Once again, it isn’t about quantity but quality.  And you can put that idea to work in your business today.

The post Read “Networking is Dead” to Make Profitable Connections appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Are you planning a move to another state? You probably already know how to change your mailing address or switch your cable service. But how do you legally move a corporation or LLC from one state to another?

When a corporation or LLC conducts business in any given state, it must register with that state. So, if you're planning to move your business to a new state, you'll need to register it with that state.

In general, there are two ways to handle this – and the right approach will depend on whether your move is permanent and whether you're planning on operating your business in both your old and new states.

Move Your Corporation: First Approach

Dissolve the Corporation in the Old State, Start it in the New State

If you're permanently moving to a new state and you have no plans on operating your business in the old state, then the cleanest approach is to close the corporation/LLC in your original state and register a new corporation or LLC in the new state. While specifics may vary by state, here's a general overview of how to do this:

• File an "Articles of Dissolution" or "Certificate of Termination" document with your previous state's Secretary of State in order to dissolve the corporation or LLC. Your company will need to be in good standing (i.e. up to date on your state taxes and state filings) in order to be dissolved.

• Form a new LLC or Corporation with the Secretary of State in your new state.

Move Your Corporation: Second Approach

File a Foreign Qualification in the Second State

In those situations where your move is only temporary or you'd still like to conduct business in your old state, then it doesn't make sense to close your business and start a new one.

In this case, you should keep your corporation or LLC registered in the original state and then foreign qualify in your new state. This is also the procedure you'd take if you're not moving, but just plan on conducting business in another state.

Here's a general overview of how to foreign qualify (again, specifics vary by state):

• File foreign corporation paperwork with the new state. In some states, it's called the Statement and Designation; in others it's the Foreign Qualification application. This paperwork will resemble the Articles of Incorporation document you first used to file your corporation. For example, you may need to enter details like the name of your corporation, your domestic state, stock information (how many shares authorized, etc), list of corporate officers, registered agent, and the principle office or location you'll be using in your new state.

• In most cases, you'll also be required to have a Certificate of Good Standing document from your domestic state in order to foreign qualify.

Summer moves can be busy. Yet in the midst of a physical move, you'll also need to take your legal obligations seriously whenever crossing state borders.

Filing upfront will be simpler and far more affordable than having to deal with the consequences of operating improperly.

Moving Photo via Shutterstock

The post Planning a Summer Move: Move Your Corporation From One State to Another appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you’re still searching for the right video conferencing service to interact with your business partners, your customers, and your suppliers, Podio has added a new Podio video conference feature you may want to consider.

Audio and video service was launched this week for Podio at no extra cost for users of the collaboration software whether you have a free or premium account. Anders Pollas, co-founder and product manager at Podio, introduced the new service recently on the official Podio blog.

There are at least 200,000 Podio clients already using the business collaboration platform. With the new video chat app, users will be able to interact with each other using video and audio. But that’s not all.

The workplace management and social site also recently added instant text messaging to go alongside its suite of other business apps already geared for group input and interaction.

Use Podio Video Chat to Increase Collaboration

Using Podio, you can see which projects other members of your team are working on. You can then use the new video chat app to start a quick one-on-one or group video conversation with them.

All chats are stored in the archive so they’re accessible at a later time. The new video chat feature will also allow users to share files through cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and Microsoft SkyDrive.

The video chat service from Podio does require a one-time browser plugin download. It’s currently available for PC and Mac browsers and will soon be available in iOS for iPhone and iPad, according to Citrix, which owns Podio.

Image: Podio

The post Podio Launches Video Conference App appeared first on Small Business Trends.

The SEO industry is wrought with folklore. Much of what is said doesn't come with the evidence to back it up. Granted, we're not immune to truisms of our own, and sometimes it's not a bad idea to put intuition first. But there's a difference between truisms or ethical stances and opinions masquerading as facts. I'd like to debunk a few SEO myths today, so let's get started.

SEO Myths

1. Links Are the Most Important Ranking Factor

This is the one SEO myth that gets said so often everybody accepts it as truth. It's so ubiquitous that I wouldn't be surprised if we accidentally found ourselves saying it at some point in the past. Links are just so crucial and so hard to earn that we tend to think of them as the most important ranking factor.

The truth is very different. Relevance is the most important ranking factor. Take a look at the latest compilation of ranking factors from Search Metrics:

Sure, at first glance, it looks like the number of backlinks is more important than having the keyword in the title. After all, backlinks had a correlation of 34 percent and having the keyword in the title had a correlation of zeropercent. They must be useless, right?

Not even close. The correlation was zero, because across thousands of searches, the top 30 search results all had the keyword in the title. There was no correlation because it was a prerequisite to rank in the top 30.

It's simple. To get traffic, Google needs to fetch your page as a match to the query before you even show up. Having the keyword present in your content, preferably in the title, is by far the most important factor.

Not to mention, take another look at those ranking factors. Google +1′s correlate with rankings better than links and Facebook activity is tied with the number of backlinks. In fact, Search Metrics reached the same conclusion back in 2012. This is just correlation, not causation, but keep in mind that that's just as true for link data.

The messier truth is that the importance of ranking factors changes depending on the search query, because different ranking factors are prioritized under different circumstances. High quality links are important because they are hard to get, but they are not the most important ranking factor. You need to take a more holistic approach if you want to succeed consistently.

2. Bounce Rate is a Ranking Factor

This SEO myth comes up a lot more often than I would ever expect and it's completely false. Matt Cutts has flat out said that Google does not use bounce rate as a ranking factor, nor do they use analytics data.

This should be rather surprising, considering that Google can, in fact, easily tell if you have clicked back from a search result and how much time you've spent on the site. So maybe they don't use bounce rate, but instead use time on site before returning? This quote from Matt Cutts suggests that's also unlikely:

Bounce rate doesn't measure quick answers you get. You get the answer and leave, so it isn't a good metric for Google to use.

A more convincing argument is that Google uses "pogosticking" to infer user satisfaction. In other words, if a user clicks on your page, leaves quickly and then clicks on a different page and stays on it for a long time - thenthat user probably wasn't very satisfied with what you had to share.

More importantly, Google has a large collection of other user behavior metrics, some of which they are almost certainly using:

• Google has flat out admitted that they use Google Toolbar data as a ranking signal.
• Google also collects various kinds of click data from Chrome, including anything you type into the address bar with Google Instant enabled, bookmarks, Gmail and Docs data.
• Ex-Googlers have also admitted that Google can track every click within Chrome.

Not to mention the growing collection of Google+ and signed in user data. Click-through data is likely used as well.

But not your bounce rate.

3. Domain Age is an Important Ranking Factor

Some people swear by domain age and may even call it a more important ranking factor than links. But, once again Matt Cutts has come right out and said that the impact on search results is very small once you get past a couple months and that links are a much more important ranking factor.

So why is it that some people swear by domain age as such an important ranking factor?

Undoubtedly, older domains are more likely to have accumulated links over time. They have been around long enough for more user data to be taken into consideration and their competitors have had more time to get punished or demoted for guideline violations.

In other words, when domain age seems important, it's really because stronger ranking factors have been influenced by the domain's age. Just having an old site isn't going to benefit you. But having a site that has proven itself consistently for extended periods of time is another thing entirely.

4. You Can't Compete With High Domain Authority Results

SEOs can often find themselves obsessing over domain authority, especially during competitive analysis. In reality, we don't even have strong evidence that there issuch a thing as domain authority. At the very least, it is loosely defined and defined differently by everybody that uses it. We've used this terminology ourselves, but really it's just a way of generalizing the potential of your internal links.

Let's start with Moz's own correlation data. Among site-wide factors, even their own domain authority metric isn't the best factor to use. It has a correlation of 21%, while the total number of linking root domains with partial match anchor text has a correlation of 25%.

This is actually identicalto the correlation for the number of linking root domains with partial match anchor text among page level factors. Again, 25%.

Is there any reason to suspect that what we call domain authority is anything more than the power of internal linking?

In my experience, I haven't seen any data to suggest that domain authority exists in any meaningful sense. I'm more inclined to believe that internal links are essentially as helpful as external links.

If you come across a competing page on a high domain authority site, all you really need to do is look at the links to that page, whether they're external or internal. Treat the host domain just like any other.

In other words, if the competing page just has one link from the home page, all you would need to do is get a link from a page with more authority than their home page and you'd have them beat.

I'm simplifying, of course, since there are so many other ranking factors to deal with, but as far as "link juice" goes, I've never seen any evidence to suggest you should think about it any other way.

5. The Best Way to Grow Traffic is to Boost Rankings

And finally, we come to a foundational SEO myth that might shake some SEOs right to the core.

We strongly believe that it's important to improve your ranking potential with inbound links, relevance, purposeful content and many other factors, but rankings are not the only way to increase traffic.

I've successfully made the front page or the top spot enough times to realize that my traffic estimates for keywords are inconsistent at best. Google's keyword tool is a poor guide and the only way to accurately estimate traffic is to buy PPC ads and pay enough to show up every time. Since it takes tremendous resources to improve your rankings for competitive keywords, you can end up pouring a lot of wasted effort into a single ranking.

A less risky way to grow traffic is to continue investing in promotion while producing content for relatively low competition keywords. When promotion fails to improve my rankings, I often find it more useful to just move on and produce more on-site content.

You want to have a system that chooses keywords with relatively high traffic potential with little or no promotion for that individual piece, as well as writers and developers who can put together the best piece of content on the subject. You need to think of this as a process and get some project management in place. It's a good idea to use a tool like WorkZone or the heftier MS Project to keep your process in check.

Conclusion

Successful SEOs put myths to the test and don't take advice for granted. I hope this has been enlightening. If you have counter-evidence or other SEO myths to add, I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Myth Photo via Shutterstock

The post 5 Ridiculous SEO Myths That People Believe appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Google recently unveiled a new tool that allows you to view a variety of the company’s research, in one place, through a simple to browse dashboard.

It also enables you to easily combine the data of your choice into custom infographics to share with your customers and audience.

Introducing the new Databoard for Research Insights on the official Google Inside Adwords blog, Adam Grunewald, Google’s Mobile Marketing Manager explained:

It's important for businesses to stay up to date about the most recent research and insights related to their industry. Unfortunately — with so many new studies and with data being updated so often — it can [be] difficult to keep up. To make life a bit easier, we created the Databoard for Research Insights, which allows people to explore and interact with some of Google's recent research in a unique and immersive way.

Simply enter Google Databoard and choose the research that most interests you or is most relevant to your business.

What You Can Find in Google Databoard

For example, one collection of studies entitled Mobile Search Moments examines mobile search and how it affects conversions and consumer behavior. Another entitled The New Multi-Screen World looks at how customers engage with smartphones, tablets, laptops and other screen-based communications.

A third section on mobile in-store research looks at specifically how smartphones have transformed retail. A fourth called Our Mobile Planet simply looks at how consumers use the Internet with the arrival of the smartphone.

You can download a study in its entirety in PDF format or select a portion of the study you would like to view. Once within the study you can click on individual “data tiles” containing specific data and graphs providing more detailed information.

Share or Create an Infographic

If you want colleagues, customers or social media followers to have the information too, Google has made the process very simple.

A button at the top of each page lets you “share” the information you are looking at via Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail. You can also copy a URL link and place it in an email or on your website or blog.

Another feature lets you add selected data tiles into a customized infographic which you can then share on social media channels, through email or through a URL link.

The below video gives a simple overview to get you started with using the Databoard for Research Insights for your business, customers, clients and followers.

The post Google Databoard Lets You View Research, Create Infographics appeared first on Small Business Trends.

In an earlier post, I discussed how venture capital deals have changed since the financial crisis and the Great Recession. Today, I want to point out some changes in angel deals and angel investments over the same period.

Because there is a lot less information on angel investing than on venture capital, I will concentrate on just four dimensions of angel finance:

• The number of investors.
• The amount invested annually.
• The number of businesses funded each year.
• The average size of the investments.

Number of Angel Investors

The number of angel investors isn't appreciably different now from what it was before the Great Recession. The Center for Venture Research (CVR) at the University of New Hampshire estimates that there were 258,200 angel investors in the United States (PDF) in 2007 and 268,160 in 2012.

That's a change of less than 4 percent.

Amount Angel Investments

The amount of financing provided by business angels has changed by much more, declining 20 percent inflation-adjusted terms from before the recession to last year. According to CVR’s estimates, angels invested $27.3 billion in 2007 versus $21.8 billion in 2012 (both measured in 2010 dollars).

Number of Companies Financed

In contrast to the amount of money provided to entrepreneurs, which is now lower than before the start of the Great Recession, the number of companies receiving financing is currently substantially higher. The CVR estimates a 17.3 percent increase in the number of companies funded by angels between 2007 and 2012 (from 57,120 to 67,030).

Angel Investment Size

The decline in the amount of capital provided by angel investors combined with the increase in the number of companies that business angels have financed has led a sizable drop in the size of average angel investments.

As the figure below shows, average angel investments were roughly one third lower last year than in 2007, when measured in real terms. Moreover, the relatively constant size of the average angel investment in the early part of the 2000s and again since 2008 suggests that the financial crisis and Great Recession has led angels to fundamentally alter the size of their investments.

Source: Created from data from the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire

In short, angels have responded to the changed economic environment, not by exiting the market, but by providing less money to more startups, thereby dramatically reducing the size of the average angel investment.

Business Angel Photo via Shutterstock

The post Angel Investments Since the Economic Downturn appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you Google the phrase "fastest growing online ad format" you'll see there's not much debate about the answer. It's video.

As an online ad format, video is now more popular than search, more popular than email marketing, more popular than blogs and more popular than Facebook. The facts related to that growth are staggering.

For example, in 2011 the Internet Advertising Bureau reported that in the UK alone, the online video spend was up 90%.

When you think about it, it's not that surprising. Online video has always been popular. And with the growth of smart phones and tablets and the ease of creating and sending video content, it makes sense that Web video is only becoming more popular.

If you're a small business owner or manager, there are tons of facts to support adding more video to your website and marketing efforts. Below I've listed what I consider to be the top 7. After reading them, please feel free to add more reasons of your own.

Why Video is Growing Online

1)  People Retain More With a Visual and Auditory Combination

People retain 58% more with both visual and auditory stimulation according to Forrester Research.

2)  Video is Now More Searchable

Via Google AdWords for video, video is now more searchable by search engines. In fact, a video in Google’s index is 53 times more likely to appear on first page search results according to Forrester Research.

3)  Video Has More Potential

Versus other media, video has more potential to be shared and go viral.

4)  People Take Notice

65% of senior executives have visited a vendor’s website after watching a video according to Forbe’s Video in the C-Suite report (PDF).

5) People Prefer Video Over Text

According to the same Forbe’s report, 59% of senior executives prefer to watch video instead of reading text and 80% are watching more online video today than they were a year ago.

6)  Video Increases the Likelihood of Purchasing

People who view a Web video are 64% more likely to purchase than those who don't according to Comscore.

7)  Video Provides Purchasing Confidence

According to Internet Retailer, 52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in their online purchase decisions. When a video is information-intensive, 66% of consumers will watch the video two or more times.

In a 2012 keynote address at CES, YouTube's VP of Global Content, Robert Kyncl, predicted that video would soon be 90% of Internet traffic. While Mr. Kyncl may be slightly biased, I wouldn't bet against him. In the next decade, Web TV will be a game changer contributing to even more explosive video growth.

No wonder why Social Media Examiner reported that 76% of marketers say they plan to add more video (PDF) to their marketing effort.

Are you?

Video Photo via Shutterstock

The post 7 Reasons Why Video is Now the Fastest Growing Online Ad Format appeared first on Small Business Trends.

So you’ve got an outstanding business and you’re beginning to develop an online presence? Keep in mind that when you move forward in cyberspace, you’ll need to follow a few rules.

One of those rules is not to let the electronic barrier between you and your prospective customers prevent you from becoming more personable in your marketing efforts. You want everyone in your target market to feel like you are reaching out to each one of them individually, rather than constructing an online presence meant to appeal to the proverbial masses.

Get Personal Online

1. Responsive Web design

Marching forward in the 21st century, you’ll find that responsive Web design is no longer an option. It’s an absolute necessity if you want your business to stay competitive.

Responsive Web design refers to the principle that the website is easily viewed and used on a screen of any size. It uses a technique known as a “media query” to determine the screen resolution of the device on which the viewer has called up your site. Then it renders the output appropriate to the screen size, so every user sees a visually appealing and easy-to-navigate Web page on his or her device, no matter how big or small.

As you might have guessed, responsive Web design is implemented primarily so people using mobile devices can view websites without “paying a price” because they are not on a traditional PC or Mac.

Given the overwhelming growth of the mobile market, your website absolutely has to feature responsive Web design.

2. Customized User Preferences

Enabling customized user preferences is a great idea. It’s especially useful if your website is meant to cater to differing target markets. For example, your Web presence might be an online auction site for various types of fine art.

Some bidders might only be interested in paintings while others are primarily seeking finely decorated pieces. People with disparate tastes should be able to configure their preferences on the site so that when they log in, they see only the kinds of art they are interested in purchasing.

You can also go the extra mile with this principle and allow people to change the actual look and feel of your website to suit their own tastes, at least to some extent. The important thing is that you market to customers in a way that they find easy to customize. That’s a very good thing.

3. Use Social Media

Social media goes by that name for a very good reason. It’s an online means of becoming more social. This provides no small amount of benefit to businesses that wish to cast aside the corporate persona and opt for a more approachable “personality” in their online marketing efforts.

You might be surprised by how many of your customers take to social media with customer service inquiries. Make sure that you monitor your various social media channels consistently, so that you respond to those inquiries. If visitors see that you’re perform responsive customer service on social media, they will swiftly accept you as a business person.

4. Personalized Birthday Gifts

Perhaps you have an online business that asks for people’s date of birth when they register with your site. If that’s the case, then use that information to boost online interaction.

How?

You can provide personalized birthday gifts. This is a great way to say “I care” to someone who is interested in your products or services. It will pleasantly surprise the recipient, because the odds are great that your competitors aren’t doing the same.

You’re giving your prospects a warm, fuzzy feeling about you as an individual and that will likely pay off for your business.

Online Gift Photo via Shutterstock

The post 4 Ways Your Business Can Get Personal Online appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Quotes are powerful. They pass the test of time, surpass the expectations of those who said them and even survive the fall of empires. One statement made by a figure in history, regardless of who they are, can resonate just as strongly hundreds or even thousands of years later. Well into the future, you can be sure that a good quote will still be circulating, both from antiquity and from what is today modern.

How can you use this to your advantage?

If you have a social media presence, you will notice that content containing quotes are quick to go viral. But even better, they have a timelessness that allows them to stay there. While relevant to a current event, the entire point behind one of these sayings is that it is applicable well after the events they are applied to pass.

Re-Package Quotes Into Viral Content

Know Your Market

Who are you aiming to market this content to? Not knowing who your chosen demographic is will be a quick path to failure. Viral content has been shared and reshared, capturing the attention of a group so they feel they just have to spread it. If you don’t even know who that group should be, how will they know they were the intended audience in the first place?

Once you know your market, you will also be able to catch their eye through direct reference. One great way is by using modern experts in your field for the quotes. Not only will this stroke the ego a bit and give you a line into a possible connection, but it will make the quote recognizable to others in the industry. Helping to solidify who the message was for and who should be passing your content on.

Another benefit of marketing with quotes is knowing exactly what that group will be looking for in content. You can isolate the perfect statement to share and the perfect way to share it.

Repackage With Fresh Media

Viral Image

If there are quotes on your site already, perhaps from interviews or even reader comments, you can repackage it into new content for a fresh perspective. For example, if you asked for opinions from your readers on a certain issue, you could cherry pick the best. Then take those quotes and make them a text-over-image for easy sharing and appeal to social networks like Facebook and Pinterest.

Quotes look fabulous on the image. Look at how Quoto makes its quotes flye with its picture quotes feature, for example.

Tool: Quotes Cover + pick sources of free blog images for the awesome backgrounds.

Infographics

Another way is by creating an infographic with the details you quote from a past piece of work. Statistics take on a whole new and effective meaning when presented more visually. The same goes for slideshows, videos and other visual media.

Tools: Piktochart and Infogr.am.

PowerPoint Presentations

If you have a series of quotes, they can be easily re-packaged into inspirational presentations.

Tool: Haiku Deck (free).

Videos

Expand Your Reach

Once you have repackaged your content, it is time to expand the reach of that content. Social media is going to be your best friend in this regard. Both Pinterest and Facebook have been mentioned already and they will be your primary networks for gaining visibility thanks to their popularity and frequent use of image sharing. But don’t discount the help that sites like Google+, Reddit and even LinkedIn can provide, depending on your demographic. Then there are other media sharing sites, such as Youtube and Vimeo.

Share all content often and in many places at once. There are tools out there that will let you post to all of your social networks from a single dashboard, such as Hootsuite. While not necessary, it can be helpful and more productive than doing each one manually.

Be sure to encourage your followers to ‘like and share’ your content. Sometimes that little call to action can make all the difference.

Collect and Curate

Start sharing other quoted content. You can do this on most sites, but Pinterest is going to be your main source. Since you are pinning images from other sources, you will be gaining attention each time. People will be more likely to follow your boards when you collect and curate content – and quotes are especially big there.

Do you have any tips for repackaging quotes for viral content?

Confucius Photo via Shutterstock

Image: Quoto

Reach Photo via Shutterstock

The post How to Re-Package Quotes Into Viral Content appeared first on Small Business Trends.

The playing field may be leveling for small independent musicians who, up until now, had difficulty earning money from their music when used on websites like YouTube.

Major record companies and music publishers already have agreements with YouTube to get paid when their songs are featured in videos posted by users, reported Bloomberg Businessweek recently.

Now a small startup called Audiam says it can do the same for the small independents.

Audiam launched overseas last month and should be available to independent musicians in the U.S. by the end of July, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.

The company says its service is free for artists. Once a musician signs up for an account and uploads their music to the site, Audiam begins scouring YouTube for videos that utilize their music.

According to the FAQ page on its website, once Audiam has found the artist’s songs on YouTube, the company authorizes text ads or commercials to be placed on the videos and collects revenues on the artist’s behalf.

Signing up for the service means an artist is allowing Audiam to represent them in the pursuit of revenue for their music on YouTube videos for one year. The agreement renews unless cancelled. Every time a YouTube user clicks on an ad or watches at least 30 seconds of a commercial on an Audiam client’s video, the company will collect money from YouTube.

Audiam takes a 25 percent cut from the revenue it collects for its artists for the service it provides and artists retain all rights to their work.

The service provides a potential alternative for small independent musicians who might not be able to earn sufficient revenue selling recordings via iTunes or Amazon.

The post Audiam Wants to Find Money for Musicians on YouTube appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Chances are, if you and your company are doing something right, you've attracted the attention of a giant. That could mean you've spent years perfecting your product or service only for Google, Amazon or Microsoft to step in and launch their take on your idea. Then other companies catch onto the trend, too.

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery.

There's nothing wrong with playing in a crowded space with leaders or even jumping in a little late on the action, assuming you're playing your cards right. While it may feel like there's a competitor waiting for you behind every corner, the key to your business' success isn't contingent on empty markets, but rather the strengths that drive your business forward in a validated market.

Instead of panicking when a giant enters your space, or at least after the initial stages of panic, reassess what this means for your company and how you can keep growing to push past the noise.

Tips for Competing With Big Players

1. Move fast, release quickly and launch often. You’re way faster than the big boys.

While competing against the giants (and their seemingly bottomless budgets) may sound daunting, there are several benefits of being a bootstrapped startup and speed is at the top.

Change and refine your product quickly and often if it means enhancing the user experience. It takes big, public companies easily one full quarter to implement a product update and your team can have a modification up and running in just a few days — no politics involved. Use this to your advantage by responding to customer feedback immediately with adjustments and continue to push the innovation envelope.

The big guys put too much at risk when taking chances and are, therefore, too scared to make mistakes.

2. In terms of marketing, know where the puck is going.

Anticipate that giants are going to come after your booming market and coin the right terms as part of your core messaging. For example, let's say "cloud" has been part of your tagline from the start. When Microsoft launched its "to the cloud campaign," your search traffic easily doubled — if not tripled.

Stay current with the language relevant to your space so you can easily jump in the conversation.

3. Respect your customers by not just responding quickly, but changing the product. Please them.

We've all had that same burdensome experience when you wait on the phone for hours, be it with your bank, insurance company or an airline, to get the help you need. Even worse, you could be dealing with a robot telling you to "press 5 for more options."

Customer service from corporate giants is notoriously frustrating and as a small business, you have the major advantage here. Your employees are not only more accessible to customers, they're near and dear to the product, making their customer care more sincere and insightful.

And since customers have become a business' best marketing tool, the impact of quality customer service is immeasurable.

4. Distribute your company under a giant’s brand through partnerships.

That's right — giants can be your friends. While a direct competitor may not be a fit, another giant that could benefit from leveraging your services could be a great candidate for a partnership. Bigger companies that are outside your immediate industry are your best bet, as they'll appreciate saving the time and effort that goes into building the product themselves, especially if they don't have existing expertise in the field.

They benefit from extending their offering to include your services and you're able to capitalize on the giant's wide industry reach.

5. Lastly, the most important element of all – put forth an excellent product.

Of course, there's no use competing in a big, busy market (or any market at all, for that matter), if you're not putting forth an excellent product that people love. The product is the DNA of your business and you can't pursue steps 1 – 4 without mastering it.

Ultimately, you don't need to panic if an industry leader joins your playing field. And if you're considering starting a business, don't be disheartened if a lot of other companies are already offering a similar kind of service. If you carve your own niche, there will be room for your business to grow.

You should still look before you leap and do your research on how you can stand out, but play into your strengthens and don't let a saturated market stifle your ideas.

Big Versus Small Business Photo via Shutterstock

The post 5 Tips for Competing as a Little Guy in a Big, Busy Space appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Welcome to our latest curated list of events, contests and awards for small businesses, solo entrepreneurs and growing companies. To see a full list or to submit your own event, contest or award listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar.

Featured Events, Contests and Awards

Big Awards for Business
August 14, 2013, Online

The Big Awards started with a mission of recognizing real talent and performance. Real business people, those with experience and knowledge, judge the Big Awards. Request an entry kit today and submit your nomination by August 14, 2013.
Discount Code
SBT50 ($50.00 off)

INBOUND 2013
August 19, 2013, Boston, MA

INBOUND is a 4 day marketing experience that brings together thousands of marketers from around the globe for an annual event held in downtown Boston, Massachusetts.

Small Business Influencer Awards 2013
Online

The 2013 Small Business Influencer Awards recognize the apps, organizations and people who have a strong impact on small businesses in North America. Now its 3rd year, the Awards are a coveted recognition for those who serve small businesses.  No fee to enter.

Check to see who’s already been nominated, and nominate yourself, or someone or some organization or app you admire.  Twitter hashtag: #SMBinfluencer

WomanCon 2013
September 25, 2013, New York, NY

This conference brings together amazing women entrepreneurs, both on and off the stage. Hear real behind-the-scenes stories of success including JJ Ramberg, Sarah Endline, Janine Popick, and Pamela O’Hara. Expert keynotes and panel discussions include: Getting Funding for Growth with Kay Koplovitz & Peggy Wallace, Turning Ideas into Companies with Yao Huang, 5 Strategies for a Stronger Brand with Julie Cottineau, and a journalist panel on Pitching the Media. SEATING IS LIMITED.
Discount Code
SBTRENDS ($50 off)

More Events

• Spark and Hustle Tour – New York
  July 08, 2013, New York, NY
• Web.com Small Business Forum – Salt Lake
  July 11, 2013, Salt Lake City, UT
• SUMMER GALA presented by the Pittsburgh Airport Area Chamber of Commerce
  July 11, 2013, Coraopolis, PA
• CROWDFUNDx NYC
  July 17, 2013, New York, NY
• Soukle Speak
  July 20, 2013, Atlanta, GA
• More Leads & Sales, Less Heavy Lifting
  July 23, 2013, Philadelphia, PA
• NYC July Business Networking Event
  July 23, 2013, New York, NY
• Almost Free Teleseminar – Targeted Branding
  July 26, 2013, Online
• Web.com Small Business Forum – Pittsburgh
  August 01, 2013, Pittsburgh, PA
• Small Business Summit
  August 06, 2013, New York, NY
• Affiliate Summit East
  August 18, 2013, Philadelphia, PA
• INBOUND 2013
  August 19, 2013, Boston, MA
• Content Marketing World
  September 09, 2013, Cleveland, OH
• Leading in Local: SMB Digital Marketing
  September 11, 2013, Austin, TX
• The Social Shake-Up
  September 15, 2013, Atlanta, GA
• 2013 Incite Marketing and Communications Summit
  September 18, 2013, Online
• Conversion Conference East 2013 Boston
  September 30, 2013, Online
• Demandcon Boston Sept 30-Oct 1st 2013
  September 30, 2013, Boston, MA/USA
• SMX East
  October 01, 2013, New York, NY
• MACsWomen’s Entrepreneur Summit and Business Expo
  October 04, 2013, Eastchester, NY

More Contests and Awards

• Win a Grouponsultation for Your Small Business
  July 16, 2013, Online
• Huggies MomInspired Grant Program
  July 31, 2013, Online
• 2013 Big Awards for Business
  August 14, 2013, Online
• Harbortouch Business Upgrade Contest
  August 15, 2013, Online
• Manta #SmallBizLove Photo Contest
  August 31, 2013, Online
• 2013 Small Business Influencer Awards
  September 09, 2013, Online
• Women 2.0 PITCH Las Vegas 2013
  September 15, 2013, Las Vegas, NV
• The Citi Salutes: Realizing Your Dream Business Competition
  November 08, 2013, Online

This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology.

The post Check Out One of These Small Business Events, Awards or Contests appeared first on Small Business Trends.

The federal government has again failed to meet its goals for small business federal contracts.  Last year, Washington fell short by an estimated $3 billion in prime contracts short of the goals set for awarding federal contracts to small businesses.

The Small Business Administration reported that just 22.25 percent of the estimated $400 billion spent by the federal government in 2012 was directed at small businesses across the country. SBA revealed this data in its 2012 federal spending scorecard which monitors contract spending by the federal government. While that figure is up from the 2011 total, it’s still short of the minimum established by the Small Business Act of 1953, according to a report at Entrepreneur.com.

The House Small Business Committee says it is the seventh consecutive year the federal government has missed its goal set in the 60-year-old legislation.

In a prepared statement, House Small Business Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO) commented:

The fact that the federal government hasn't met this meager 23 percent small business contracting goal for seven years is simply unacceptable, and further proof that our government continues to give lip service to small companies. We passed legislation last year that takes a step toward holding senior agency executives accountable for meeting the small business goals by making goal achievement an element in their performance plans. Nevertheless, the Administration must make meeting this goal a priority because it is efficient governance, and not just a law that makes small businesses feel good. Improving small business opportunities through federal contracts creates jobs and saves taxpayer money because small businesses bring competition, innovation and lower prices.

Although the shortfall may seem inconsequential in terms of percentage points, that $3 billion is more than enough to keep several small businesses thriving.

The government also failed to reach its goal in awarding sub-contracts to small businesses on which separate data is kept.

U.S. Flag Photo via Shutterstock

The post U.S. Shorts Small Businesses $3 Billion in Federal Contracts appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Based on a recent “AdWords survey” conducted of pay-per-click (PPC) professionals and the ensuing conversations it has led to, I believe that Google is out of touch with small advertisers using their AdWords advertising platform. And here is why I think that.

But more importantly, this piece is not to complain – but to try to get action. At the end I have a concrete suggestion.

First let’s take a look at what the recent (admittedly informal) AdWords survey showed.

What PPC Professionals Think “Small” Means

I decided to ask my fellow PPC professionals what they considered a "small" PPC advertiser to be. I asked the question, “Which amount below would you say is the largest monthly budget you would consider a ‘small’ PPC advertiser?”

Here are the results:

If you do the math, you’ll see that the average “small” advertiser would be spending $6,783 per month on their PPC efforts. that’s according to the pay-per-click professionals who took this survey.

But what does Google think?

What Google Thinks “Small” Means

Obviously, this is a tough question since Google is a huge company with thousands of employees. However, I had the chance to hear from 2 Google representatives at a recent meeting of the Salt Lake City Search Engine Marketers group (SLC|SEM).

The first rep worked as a dedicated account manager for companies advertising with Google. During the Q&A she repeatedly referenced her “smaller clients,” so I asked her what kind of monthly budget these smaller clients have. She deferred to the other Google rep (who had been her boss before) and he proceeded to dance all around the question so as to not give any number. Not even a range.

So Google won’t tell you how much a “smaller client” would need to spend in order to merit a dedicated account manager.

How else might we get an idea?

What Justifies A Google Rep

Fortunately, I know a few advertisers with large enough budgets to merit an account rep. They all spend over $75,000 per month with AdWords and feel like they’re on the smaller end of the spectrum.

After posting the results, I did hear of some accounts at the $30,000 month level with account reps, but I also heard this:

@Mel66@robert_brady@adwords Sadly, a large vendor of solutions in our space used the term “Mom & Pops” to describe <$50,000/mo. budgets.

— Andrew Goodman (@andrew_goodman) June 28, 2013

So what could Google do to help smaller advertisers?

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Let’s acknowledge that Google is making a sizable effort already. Here are 3 things Google already is doing to connect with and support small business AdWords advertisers:

(1) They have the 866-2-GOOGLE number that is available to any advertiser.

(2) The online help is quite thorough (though it gets out-of-date at times with all the changes).

(3) The Google AdWords Forum has some very helpful people who are giving out great advice and solutions to the pressing questions of the day.

However, my primary suggestion for Google would be to put some of their best & brightest reps on these “micro” accounts around $5,000  per month or lower. Let them see how differently this size advertiser behaves to compete with such large competitors. Then have these top reps come back to the product team 6 months later and give input.

This first-hand experience will help the platform become more friendly to small advertisers. If you’re a small advertiser, do you think this would help you?

The post Is Google Out Of Touch With Small Advertisers? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

"I knew you'd say that." – Sylvester Stallone as Judge Dredd

That may have been Stallone's catch phrase in the movie Judge Dredd, but these days a CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) or even your marketing strategist could easily say that phrase as well.

These days analytic solutions are breaking down more data from many sources, creating more accurate sales and operational models.  Businesses are learning to compete through innovation, but how does one model the volume of analysis and concepts presented?

Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die by Eric Siegel, PhD serves as a clarion call for business managers to understand the possibilities and myths.

Siegel is the Founding Conference Chair of Predictive Analytics World and President of Prediction Impact, an analytics services firm.

I was really excited when I came across the book. Several new analytics books are being released this year, so I asked Wiley for a review copy.

Breaking Down The Basics – How Data Relates to Your Customers

The word "analytics" means "to break down" in Greek.

This kind of break down in predictive analytics means correlating data to discover new opportunities with the given resources.  This new capability is also breaking down department "silos" in organizations, our preferences in our behavior and, at times, our privacy measures.

Siegel notes how people can overlook the omnipresence of the opportunity:

“Most people couldn’t be less interested in data. It can seem like such dry, boring stuff  ***  Don’t be fooled. The truth is that data embodies a priceless collection of experience from which to learn. Every medical procedure, credit application, Facebook post, movie recommendations, fraudulent act, spammy e-mail and purchase of any kind – each positive or negative outcome, each successful or failed sales call, each incident, event or transaction – is encoded as data and warehoused. This glut will grow by an estimated 2.5 quintillion bytes per day….”

Siegel uses seven chapters to show how we are increasing our understanding – and our misunderstanding – of the world through data.  Hewlett-Packard uses analytics to predict if you are considering quitting your job – valuable given that seeking a new employee can cost more than retention.  Another interesting correlation experiment is the "Anxiety Index," a correlation of blog mentions against S&P 500 performance.

Fun correlated observations abound — among the practical measurement delights, is that vegetarians miss fewer flights ("Airline customers who pre-order a vegetarian meal are more likely to make their flight ….  The knowledge of a personalized or special meal awaiting the customer provides an incentive or establishes a sense of commitment.").  These discussions can frame personas; the kinds of customers who exist:

“By its very design, PA (Predictive Analytics) fosters serendipity.  Predictive modeling conducts a broad, exploratory analysis, testing many predictors and in so doing uncovers surprising findings….”

You can tell Siegel adores the subject, but not with blinders or false salesmanship to the reader. When he says, "Data prospectors see value and value is exciting," you know he really means it.

Siegel shares further personal insight, having been used as a "foil" on a Fox news segment on Target's outing of a customer's pregnancy.  Speaking of privacy, Siegel wisely dedicates a chapter to the subject.  He uses it to debunk myth with minimal bias, such as distinguishing predictive analytics from data mining:

“PA [predictive analytics]  in and of itself does not invade privacy – its core process is the opposite of privacy invasion. Although it's sometimes called data mining, PA doesn't "drill down" to peer at any individual's data. Instead, PA actually "rolls up" learning patterns that hold true in general by way of rote number crunching across the masses of customer records.”

Such distinctions are critical in understanding perils with personalization programs. Reading this book will help managers who think digital only means flipping a switch.

Businesses small and large can uses this book to help frame what segments of data make sense. For example, Siegel explains how a learning machine works through a decision diagram – although used in the book to frame an enterprise-level predictive model, small businesses could use the idea in framing their own data conundrums.

Other highlights include Chase Bank's mortgage risk predictive model, IBM's data usage for Watson on the game show Jeopardy and a 147-example cross-industry table of predictive models in use today.

How Does This Book Compare With Other Analytic Texts?

Consider this book as an extension of data based marketing and more specific than Davenport's Analytics at Work (Davenport provides a preface, by the way).

The book has comments that can make data entertaining, though with less of a spin than Avinash Kaushik's book Web Analytics 2.0.  Ultimately it's an excellent primer for developing some ideas on how data can enhance a business.

This makes the book more actionable than Big Data, although no deep database discussions are included.

Get This Book to Make Better Models for Your Business

Predictive Analytics is excellent, not just for its trend-of-the-day subject, but for the way it treats its subject – respect and reverence, with the right scientific doubt.

The book honors the work from business intelligence professionals like Thomas Davenport, Eric Sterne and Eric Stiegel. It also honors analytic practitioners or managers looking to increase their business's competitive advantage.

I do not need data to know that competitive advantage is what any business is looking for.

The post Review of “Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click” appeared first on Small Business Trends.