Small Business Design Resources

Keeping An Eye on the Competition

In order to keep your small business practices up-to-date, it’s important to keep an eye on the competition. You’ll learn what the latest trends are, find out what’s working and what’s not, and remain responsive to what your customers want and expect from businesses like yours. Fortunately, there are several easy ways to learn about your competitors.

It may sound counterintuitive, but it’s important to learn as much as you can about how your visitors browse your website. If most of your visitors leave before making a purchase, you can bet that there are competing sites that they find easier to use. ClickTale is a great tool that lets you see exactly how visitors use your site, so you can pinpoint what is working and what is not. Looking at visitor browsing patterns will show you what visitors want and expect to see on your site–not only will this help you make changes to retain your visitors, it will also provide important clues about what competitors’ websites offer.

Analyzing your website’s statistics and the behavior of your visitors is an essential part of staying competitive, but what about the people who aren’t visiting your site? Some of your potential customers are visiting competing sites instead, and services like Compete.com can help you discover why. Compete offers access to multiple ways to analyze your competition. You can learn what keywords your competitors are optimizing for, see their site traffic history and other competitive analytics, compare your search marketing performance, and learn which sites on the Internet excel in ways you’re trying to emulate.

You should also take advantage of services like Google Alerts, which will deliver the latest news on your competitors straight to your email inbox. Set up an alert for any topic you wish to monitor–like the name of your competitor’s business, product, or targeted keywords–and keep up-to-date on the latest Internet buzz.

Checking out your competitors’ social media presence is another way to learn about them and how they’re using this newer marketing tool. Look to see if your competitors have Facebook or Twitter profiles and what they’re doing with them. If they have a lot of followers and good interaction with them, that’s a sign that they’ve found an effective way to attract your target audience. Also try searching for their website’s URL on bookmarking sites like delicious.com and Digg.com–you can find out who’s bookmarking and recommending your competitors sites and what tags they are using to identify them.

Make the Most of Your Small Business Advertising Dollars

Advertising can be expensive, and it can also be ineffective–as a small business owner, you want to be absolutely sure that you don’t combine those two and end up spending a lot on advertising only to see a minimal (or negative) return on investment. Luckily, the rise of the Internet has resulted in many low-cost advertising options that are perfect for small business owners.

What’s on the top of our list for the best return on investment? A professional business website. These days a website is indispensable for any small business; while potential customers once consulted the Yellow Pages to find you, the Internet is now their first–and often only–stop. Many small business owners attempt a do-it-yourself website without realizing that professionals specializing in small business design are an excellent return on investment. Think of it as the difference between a single-line listing in the phone book and a full-page, color ad. Which business is going to get noticed? The one whose website looks professional, is on the first page of search engine results, and provides useful content. Investing in a professional with expertise in small business design can help you achieve that, and will quickly pay for itself.

But don’t stop at a website–there are other ways to harness the advertising power of the Internet. Word of mouth has always been one of the most cost-effective forms of advertisement, and social networking sites are the new word of mouth. These sites are reaching more people than ever and are usually free to join. Maintaining a business profile on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other sites is an inexpensive way to build an Internet presence and keep your customers up-to-date. You can even create your own television-style ads and post them on Youtube for free. Feature them on your website and your Facebook page and you might be the next viral video phenomenon! In addition to creating your own profile, connect with other people and businesses whose followers are likely to be interested in your product or services. Become visible to their followers by commenting on their profiles or blogs and leaving a link to your website.

Placing ads on the Internet can also be a good investment if you choose their location and style carefully. Choose which websites to advertise on by keeping your target audience in mind–just like with physical signage, you want to place your ads in locations that potential customers frequent. Finding the most effective placement is easy with sites like BuySellAds.com, which will help you find a target website or blog for your ads or offer advertising space on your own website. The best way to maximize your advertising dollars using Internet advertising is to start small and take advantage of the statistics available to you. There are a variety of tools available that will help you determine where your website traffic is coming from, which customers are buying what, and which ads are most effective. A lot of these tools are free, but staying on top of your Internet advertising statistics does require an investment of your time. However, it’s one that’s well worth it–you can learn what advertising methods work for you before you invest significant money.

Finally, advertising to your current customers is always a good idea. Connect with them via social networking sites, send them a monthly newsletter updating them about your business, and keep your website updated with fresh content, deals and information of interest to them. If you haven’t already, start building an email list for email marketing. Your customers are already interested in you and your business, so you know that you’re reaching a receptive audience. Cultivating their interest will encourage them to be repeat customers and make them more likely to recommend you to their friends.

Building An Email List From Scratch

Email marketing sounds intimidating to many small business owners, but it’s an excellent way to promote your products and services. In addition to being one of the most up-to-date marketing methods, email marketing has the advantage of being relatively inexpensive – no paper or printing costs, no postage fees, and no promotional materials left unused.

But how do you build an email list from scratch? Although you can buy or rent email lists, there are several disadvantages to that method: it can be expensive, you can’t be sure the addresses were obtained legitimately, and you have no assurance that you’re reaching your target audience. Instead, use these simple tips to create a more useful opt-in list, composed of people who have asked to be included:

• Take every opportunity to ask. Promote your email list in correspondence with your current customers, on your printed promotional materials (business cards, brochures, etc.), and in person at networking events. Whenever you exchange business cards with someone, ask if you can put them on your email list. Place a “Join Our Email List” link in your email signature, with a brief description of the benefits of doing so.
  

• Make it easy. Provide a simple, interactive form on your website. Place it in a prominent area on the front page, above the fold, and include a form on every page of your site so visitors will be reminded to sign up as they browse. If you have a physical location, offer a way to sign up at the cash register or front desk.

• Offer incentives. People rarely give away their email address for no clear reason, but provide it willingly as a way to enter a contest, receive discounts, and take advantage of Internet-only specials. Giving away a free e-book, white paper, or other useful information in exchange for an email address is another popular method. This is a great opportunity to share some of your personal expertise with your customers by creating your own guide or brief e-book.

• Respect your clients’ privacy. People are wary of spam email, so make it clear that you will not sell or rent your email list to third parties, and you will only send emails that your clients have opted-in to receive. Although it can be tempting to use your sign-up form as an opportunity for market research, don’t ask for personal information like age or phone number. People are much more likely to sign up if they only need to enter their email address.

• Use a professional. Email marketing services can be surprisingly affordable, and their tools and expertise can be well worth the price. Keep in mind that many professional email marketing services require that address lists you provide be confirmed by the email users before you can begin emailing them. The best way to be sure the email user will confirm is if they provided you with their email address themselves, which is another reason to use the above tips to create your own list instead of buying one. This is the case with AWeber, the email marketer I use and one I highly recommend (they have a great autoresponder feature that I love).

• Make it worth it. Use your email list as an opportunity to provide your clients with high-quality information, great deals, and real expertise. Your subscribers will look forward to your communications and forward them on to their friends, keeping your email list – and customer list – growing.

Related articles by outside sources

• “Email Ethics” Or Why My Autoresponders Will Be Changed To Noreply (howtospoter.com)
• Subscription forms: list growth and sign-up language (email-marketing-reports.com)
• Call That Spam (weatherby.net)

10 Websites That All Small Business Owners Need to Know About

There are millions of websites, but as a small business owner I’m sure you don’t have time to search for the most important ones. Here’s a list of websites where you can read articles or even ask questions that will help improve your small business:

1. www.entrepreneur.com
2. www.smallbiztrends.com
3. www.toolkit.com
4. www.smbceo.com
5. www.startupnation.com
6. answers.business.com
7. www.inc.com
8. www.allbusiness.com
9. www.sba.gov
10. www.smallbusinessbrief.com

Choosing Your eCommerce Solution

I probably don’t need to tell you that starting an online store is a great way to supplement your income, and  – overtime – to hopefully generate a full time income while working from home.

People have always been drawn to the idea of working from home and being their own boss. The best thing about an online store is that the risk is minimal – unlike a brick and mortar store, your initial investment can be very low.

After two years of a shaky economy, more people than ever are looking into opening an online store. If you’re one of them, one of your very first decisions is which ecommerce solution to use.

When choosing the software that will run your online business, it’s important to have all the facts and to make an informed decision. You basically have three options when it comes to ecommerce software:

1. Building your own ecommerce system

This option provides you with the most control of course, but it’s not a viable choice for most small businesses because it’s very expensive. While building a custom online store is the best way to make sure your store looks and functions exactly the way you want it to, going this route will require you to either have programming skills or to hire a programmer, and programmers are expensive.

Even the most basic custom store will cost you at least $10,000, and in most cases, it will cost you much more. For most small business owners, it makes much more sense to use an existing ecommerce solution.

2. Using open source e-commerce solutions

Open source ecommerce solutions such as osCommerce and Zen Cart are widely accessible, and supposedly free. But are they?

OsCommerce states on their site that their solutions “allow store owners to setup, run, and maintain online stores with minimum effort and with no costs, fees, or limitations,” and Zen Cart say that other solutions – not theirs – are “complicated programming exercises” that are “nearly impossible to install and use without an IT degree.”

But these open source solutions are not as simple as they seem to be. While the software itself is free, and while the hosting you would need to purchase is cheap, most business owners would have difficulty handling the installation and customizations by themselves and would need the help of a software developer. As I said before, programming services are expensive, and since the entire idea behind an online store is to lower your risk by spending as little as possible on creating the store, open source ecommerce software is often not the best choice.

3. Using all-in-one ecommerce solutions

This is my favorite option. It is the easiest and most affordable so it makes a lot of sense for most small businesses. You find a reputable provider (I like Volusion), pay a very affordable flat monthly rate (just $25 per month for a small store), and they basically take care of EVERYTHING – no need for you to worry about programming, hosting or backup – they do it all. By the way, I’m not just saying this because I’m an affiliate for Volusion, I really do recommend them to all my clients.

While some ecommerce providers limit your choices of what your store will look like, one of my favorite things about Volusion is the flexibility they offer in terms of the look and feel of your site. I also love how easy it is to build and manage the store – the web-based administration area is very intuitive, you can upload products to the store via a spreadsheet, and the entire experience is very non-intimidating and friendly. Another important feature of the software is that it’s SEO-friendly, which helps your site get found on the Web.

Starting your very own online store is exciting! Make sure you keep the costs down by choosing the right ecommerce solution for your needs.