Small Business Design Resources

Is Your Business Ready for 2011?

Planning ahead is a great practice for your small business design. It’s never too early to start thinking about the fiscal year. You’re starting over again, so why not make 2011 the biggest year for your business yet? Get your marketing calendar up and running.

Holiday time for ecommerce websites can mean big sales. With one major spending holiday a little less than a month away, is your small business ready to cater to the needs of your clients? We talked last year about preparing newsletters for your business to let potential customers know what you’ll be offering, and there is no better time to get those sent out than before a holiday. How do you know when you need to get these promotional deals and newsletters sent out in time? A lot of it depends on the holiday in question. Valentine’s Day is the next big holiday in the United States. Typically, people are buying Valentine’s gifts for their loved ones within two weeks of the holiday. This usually isn’t great for businesses looking sell their products online, because customers feel rushed and often don’t want to pay top dollar for express shipping to make sure they get their packages on time. What you can do as a business is get a newsletter to your client list as soon as you can. This gets the holiday in their mind, so they’re likely to start shopping sooner. Prepare smaller holiday deals and newsletters about a 3-4 weeks ahead of the event. How do you know what constitutes a smaller holiday? It’s basically everything except Christmas and Hanukah.

Also, for those who order their online gifts within two weeks of the event, guarantee on-time delivery if you can. It’s going to make them feel more comfortable if they know they’ll get their purchase on time. As mentioned before, people don’t like paying extra for express shipping, but you can sweeten the deal by offering free shipping (guaranteed to arrive by the holiday) if a patron purchases over a certain amount. People love that option. They’ll order extra goods that appease them if they know it will save them on shipping.

As for the big holiday shopping season….start getting ready in summer. People are taking their money online more than ever as soon as Black Friday arrives. People no longer wish to deal with early hours, traffic and chaos in the stores to get deals. Multiple newsletters advertising the holiday deals by your small business will keep your company in the minds of online shoppers. You can send a holiday newsletter as early as October. Just remember to send reminders a few times before your sale closes out. You don’t need to send an email out every week until Christmas, but consider making an email to send out in the first week of October, November and December. Be sure to send a small reminder email out during the last week customers can take advantage of your sales.

More and more people are turning to their internet to help them with all of their shopping needs. 2010 had record numbers for internet spending and now in addition to Black Friday deals, they’ve introduced Cyber Monday. Get your marketing calendar ahead of time so you can be prepared to make the most out of your small business during the various holiday seasons.

Business Cards: Do People Still Exchange Them?

I went to a business event the other day and was curious to see if people were still exchanging business cards with each other. I did bring a bunch of business cards with me, as I always do. As I was doing the rounds, talking with colleagues and with prospects, I wondered: did I really need to bring those with me? Do people still exchange business cards?

In a way, you would think that the digital revolution would have rendered business cards obsolete. These days, when you meet someone, it’s very easy to just pull out your smartphones and enter each other’s info straight into the phones, or – better yet – locate each other on social networks and start following and interacting with each other on those networks.

But my careful observation has taught me that business cards are still being used today, and in fact, people tend to ask for each other’s business cards first, and use their smartphones only if business cards are not available. Business cards are still an important marketing tool, and should still be used in combination with other offline tools such as brochures, and – of course – with online tools such as a website, a blog and social media accounts.

This means that business card design is still important, because if people collect hundreds of business cards, most of those will just get stuffed into some drawer and forgotten. If you want people to actually use your business card to contact you, you need to make sure it stands out. Which brings me to these business card design tips. They are basic, but important. Since the vast majority of business cards I see every day are boring and mundane, I guess many people still try to “save” on business cards by using cheap card stock and discount printers. Big mistake!

Business Card Design Tips:

1. Use a logo. Small business logo design is incredibly important, because a good logo can be used everywhere – including business cards, letterhead, brochures, and your website – and help you create a strong image and a powerful brand.

2. Make sure your business card is easy to read. The font needs to be large enough so that people can read it without straining their eyes, and you should never use light font on a light background or dark font on a dark background – those are very hard to read.

3. Make your card stand out. The best way to make sure your card does what it’s supposed to do – bring you business – is to avoid using a standard, boring design. Go for a heavyweight, high-gloss card stock and use bold colors, images and fonts. Flimsy or cheap-looking business cards can actually hurt your business by giving people the impression that you’re not a serious business. Boring, uninteresting cards will usually be ignored or tossed.

Of course, you shouldn’t only rely on your business card to market your business. Your goal is to use a wide range of marketing tools and to combine the power of offline and online marketing, so your business card shouldn’t ignore your online presence. On the contrary – it’s important to make sure that your business card includes not just an address, a telephone number and an email but also your website’s URL and, if applicable, your social media accounts’ URLs.

Free Christmas Graphics Giveaway – Day 7

These are free for you to use for personal and business use, except for resale. Make sure to come back everyday for new graphics to download.

Quick Tip:

Use these holiday icons on your website or blog to add that holiday cheer.

Tis the Season for Giving

This season, people are looking to save big on their holiday spending. You can sweeten the deal by including some specials on your website that will entice your customers to spend their money on your product! Let’s talk about some ideas you can incorporate into your small business design that will have your customers feeling thankful.

One easy way to say thanks to those who purchase from your website is to offer free shipping (in time for Christmas). You can offer this only to repeat customers or those who have signed up for your e-newsletter by sending them a code they can use during the checkout process on your company’s website. Free shipping is something that everyone will be grateful for, as shipping expenses can be quite costly and they only increase as the holiday draw closer.

Another great freebie is gift wrapping and card inclusion. A lot of popular large chain stores offer this for a small fee on wedding and baby registries, why not offer it for free to your customers? Include space for them to type a holiday greeting to the recipient of the gift and your company can ship it right to their home, wrapped and with a personalized card! Best of all, it was free!

You can also thank you customers for shopping with you this holiday season by sending them a free gift for their patronage. This is where you can really show off some creativity. It can be something as simple as a calendar for the new year or even a two for one offer on your products. People love to get free items.

It is the season of giving, so this year treat your customers to some great gifts as a thank you for doing business with your company.

Black Friday Profits for Your Small Business

We are less than two weeks away from this year’s Black Friday. On this day, many wake up still full from turkey dinners the night before at the crack of dawn in search of discount merchandise madness. When we think of Black Friday discounts, we think about retail. We think of heavy traffic anywhere near malls and shopping centers. How often do we think about Black Friday deals online? Small businesses can benefit from holding these specials on their own websites.

Consider incorporating your own Black Friday deals into your small business design this holiday season. First, start by advertising your intentions. Create a newsletter or email message to be sent to your client list. Let them know what deals your website will be showcasing and let them know how long they have to act on them!

Are you unsure about what Black Friday goodies you can offer to customers? A simple discount is always a good start. Some other great ideas are:
• Discounted shipping or free shipping
• Free gift with purchases
• Coupons towards the next purchase

While these are all great ideas for your Black Friday campaign, it’s up to you to decide which promotional deal will be the best fit with your business. Make sure you get your newsletter mailed out about 3 business days before the holiday. It gives people enough time to read it, but not enough time to forget about it. Don’t overlook one of our other previous articles on newsletters and how to keep your company’s emails from winding up in the spam folder.

Have a happy Thanksgiving holiday and a prosperous Black Friday!