Business Center

Blogs have revolutionized the way that people do business. It seems that all the big companies are making use of blogs to promote themselves and market their products. However, corporate blogs aren’t just for big companies. Blogs can also be utilized by small businesses with great effect.

Setting up a small business blog is easy and has many benefits. They are powerful promotional tools and a great way to communicate with clients.

Here are some tips on using a small business blog:

1. Write Naturally and Honestly

Small business blogs can be more personal than large corporate blogs. It’s best to write in way that feels natural to you. Avoid writing needlessly complex posts filled with technical jargon. Doing so will endear customers and promote conversation, which is what a blog is for, after all.

As with any blog, you must always tell the truth. Blogs should address all issues, be it good or bad. This will ultimately beneficial as it helps builds trust the customers.

2. Post often and Respond to Comments

Remember to post frequently. Provide readers with plenty of content, so that they will keep coming back to your blog.

Comments are a vital part of blogs, providing useful feedback. Respond to reader comments often to build strong ties between them and your company.

3. Promote your business, Promote yourself

A small business blog is an innovative way to promote a business.

A good technique is to document your projects. This is good way to show how capable you are at your profession and to garner trust. This is especially important with small business, where reputations can make a big difference.

Blogs allow for unparalleled interaction with customers. Use this to get closer to clients, and to build bonds of trust. The information gained from readers is invaluable for improving your small business.

4. Be Informed and Informative

Read plenty of other blogs to gain useful information. Post comments and promote your own blog. Be an active part of the blogosphere.

Post links of related information on your blog, and use technology like RSS/Atom feeds to constantly provide your blog with interesting content. This is a great way to promote your business and be informed of everything concerning you industry. Besides informing your readers, it can lead to interaction and possible collaborations with other businesses, all of which will benefit a small business.

5. Search Engines

For those who wish to achieve higher search engine rankings, a blog can be an invaluable asset. The constant updating combined with the right keywords can raise search engine results dramatically.

Small businesses owners often find that there are certain times of the year when cash flow is not as healthy as it could be. This could be due to the fact that the business has seasonal customers, money being spent wastefully or through outmoded business practices. Regardless of the reason as to why money is being lost one thing is for certain good business owners and managers are all looking for a way to save the business money.

One way to save money in a small business is to implement small business management software. Software such as this enables a business with less than 50 employees to be operated via one software application. By being able to switch to one application a small business owner can save thousands every year as all other applications that require a monthly or annual fee to be discontinued.

As soon as they see just what small business management software can do many business owners and managers are keen to start using it. Not only can small business management software save a business money in terms of slashing the number of applications a business has to pay for it also saves money in other ways such as:

Increasing the number of leads that are converted into sales with ease. When using small business management software an employee can create a quote and save this to a customers file. This will contain their contact details and other relevant information. If this quote is not accepted within a certain period of time, this lead can then be chased up by the sales department.

By ensuring that projects are always completed on time a business will not lose customers. With small business management software projects can be assigned and tracked in real time. Managers and owners can quickly and easily check on projects that are nearing their due date in order to ensure that they are progressing as they should be. By utilizing this feature projects should never be behind schedule ever again, which means that money will be saved in the long run through customer retention.

Small business management software also allows employee calendars to be seen by owners and managers at a glance. This means that projects and so on can be planned with regard to staffing numbers. Money is therefore saved by ensuring that all employees are working to capacity and not being diverted to projects which are already fully subscribed.

As small business management software is web based it means that it can be accessed from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection. So if a manager or owner is away from the office on business they can access the application and get any information that they need. This saves business money as laptops and mobile internet is not required when an owner or manager visits potential customers.

These are just a few of the ways in which small business management software can save a business money each month.

As a network computer technician I’ve come to the choice that I don’t think my small business clients that employ between 2-10 people should even bother with installing what we might consider a regular server nowadays. It is overkill, expensive and a major source of problems if something goes wrong. So what do I recommend instead? I would recommend a file server with local and offline backup. What made me come to this decision? A number of real world issues, actually.

Too many computer consultants come from an environment where they were taught and schooled on how to maintain servers. To me this is the old way of doing things. Unless you are hosting your email in-house there isn’t the need for the old server.

Think about this…what services do you really want to provide that are mission critical for your clients? For my clients the most important need is a way to create and access files that are backed up on a regular basis. I have seen too many small businesses shut down for days on end because they put all of their trust in a old server and a tape backup system. Why are these servers and tapes such a problem?

Think about this for a second. If a piece of hardware fails in your server, chance are that you won’t be able to replace that broken or failing part with something you can buy locally. Often times you have to call the server manufacturer and wait patiently for them to ship you a replacement part, all the while your business is at a stand still.

And tapes for backing up data? Unless you have an enormous amount of data, backing up to multiple hard drives is faster. And these hard drives will be able to access that data in other computer while you get your server fixed.

Another solution I recommend is using a service such as Dropbox to backup files. I don’t completely rely on Dropbox, though. I prefer to have a physical backup of the client’s data at the site of their business and then use Dropbox as a way to get a backup off-site. If anything catastrophic were to happen to the small business, such as a fire of a flood, it is easier to get a computer up and running, re-attach it to Dropbox and the data is back and ready to be used.

When running a small business, marketing your products and services is an important aspect your must consider and plan for. No matter what industry you play in you will no doubt have competition. Even if you provide a better service or product you still need to stand out so consumers know. Marketing can be a big cost but there are also many affordable alternative to advertise your business.

Here are three simple advertising ideas and suggestions to give you high visility.

Vehicle back windows

A rear car window covererd with a sticker of your business is an affordable option to promote your business. Whenever your car is being driven around your business is being seen. For as little as one hundred and fifty dollars this is a small investment. Depending on how many years your sticker last, the breakdown cost of purchasing you rear window sticker works out to be even less.

Don’t overload the sticker with too much details. Keep the sticker bright and colorful. Avoid a cluttered look with too much details. Keep it simple. Don’t put more than three items of information. Your logo with business name, phone and tagline is all you need.

Car magnets

Large car magnets are another cheap alternative. These magnets are strong enough to withstand high speeds. To repeat – keep the design simple. Order many at a time and hand them out to your friends for their cars. You can purchase four magnets for as little as fifty dollars.

An alternative to magnets is use multiple smaller sized ones. A stack of twenty five magnets can be bought for about thirty dollars. Get people to take notice by scattering you car with these. When people take your magnets you know they’re working.

Outdoor banners

Ask your signwriter to print you a large banner. The cost of a small banner can be as little as one hundred dollars. We’ve even seen banners from as low as six dollars.

Use the small banners effectively by parking at the front of a busy event or location. Hang the banner from the side of your car. Your car and banner can’t be missed.

These are three simple advertising ideas to kick start your marketing on a budget.

Click Here to see Ryan Johns working these advertising ideas

Marketing is the keyword which makes businesses run, no matter what their running capital is. From huge energy companies to companies who sell sports goods, you always require a good marketing tool or a help to get your job done. Small business marketing is a tricky area and if the marketing is not proper, it can even kill your business.

This is where Ad trackers come to bail out and rescue small businesses. Advertising a small business with an Ad tracker helps you monitor your online advertising expenditure against your actual earnings and revenues from the website, in real time. This way you can know which ads produce results for you and which do not and hence choose ads accordingly.

This will undoubtedly help you market your small business in a better way by attracting the right traffic to your website. Let us see the other attractive ways by which you can market your small business for FREE.

Online free video sharing sites like YouTube.

Create a Jingle!

Use the jingle as your caller tune!

Ad tracking = Affiliate Marketing

Undoubtedly, a lot of money can be made from affiliate marketing, more precisely Ad tracking. People are making money and the very fact that they are making money by launching not-so-useful sites must wake you up and get running to get affiliate marketing tools to your benefit.

The catch lies in how smartly you choose your ads. For example, the most incentive oriented affiliate product might not bring in good revenues! It depends on the relevance of the product with your small business and also how the ad is being displayed on the site. It is not hard to imagine that flashy sites with some relevance will get clicked on first than those ad links which are in words only.

If you can use Ad trackers, you will benefit from the software and get more worth and return for your vested business. This can be found from a service provider with some monthly fees or can be purchased with a 2-3 year license or as the product comes with. The best part is that they keep their algorithms updated by synchronizing with their main server and thereby giving you the best results. This is handy tool to organize your small business especially if youre hosting advertisements for multiple affiliate products.

There are other ways to run a business than to just run it on pure gut feeling or intuitions. You may get lucky once, twice or even thrice, but will not be able to sustain a long run. Planning is therefore of prime importance and small business marketing with advertisement trackers can help you achieve the optimum.

If you are thinking to grow any small business in todays era then you need to focus on new avenues that many have been avoiding so far. What many business sales consultants do is simply work on doing more of whats already being done. Making more ads and do all the phone calls. What one can effectively do and find success is all by changing their approach. Thinking big and exploring new avenues which the competitors have missed are the solution for all small business to grow bigger.

Many have tried all doors to expand capital needed to grow business. Even traditional bank lenders show their back in need of working capital. And if the time is anyway related to recession then it surely gives an excuse to them to move out.

The newest technique suggested by sales consultants was opting for a specialized form of asset based finance in which all the money is lent against companys purchase orders. This thing works like a transactional line of credit in which they are able to give 100% credit to foreign suppliers for producing goods. During challenging economic times, inventive solutions were approached by few sales consultants like this to help companies stay afloat and remain competitive. It is a time for any businessman to reinvent all strategies as according to the situations prevailing and stay financed to do all the market and sell. Many turnaround ideas for entrepreneurs to be used are:

One can create independent sales with distributorships or franchises. The more people you have it will get shared for the better. Sometimes one can find partners with more capabilities that you were finding difficult to handle.

Attach with a complementary business. For instance if you are making cars you can try your hands on companies that can make tyres for your car. The technique exposes you to a new customer base and all marketing and promotional expenses get shared too.

Expansion in the form of new location open new scales and avenues in steps of entrepreneur. This attracts whole new crowd and gives you a potential to sell more or grow up however the prospects can be vice versa too.

Getting online is a must for any business these days and is helpful in boosting up business. It gives an exposure to a small business on a wider circle with many prospective leads, new markets and collects new idea from all around the world.

Enhance your customer base as it is the most cost effective way to grow your business. Acquiring new customers always involve high costs so introducing new lines in your current product keeps complimenting each other.