Publicity for Publicity’s Sake

Internet marketing can be tough. You would need to have an effective strategy in place depending on what stage your business is in. The competition is fierce as everyone vies to take the top spot on search engine results.

online business publicity

There is a saying that bad publicity is still publicity and this is one line in marketing that reputable businesses should never cross. Take the case of the DecorMyEyes scandal. In a gist, the owner of this online eye wear business uses negative customer reviews to be on the top echelon in Google search.

It is a well-known fact that to be in the coveted top spot on search engines, you would need to have high page rank sites link to your site.…

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Planning Your Year-End Business Tax Strategies

planning your tax strategiesWhile everybody else gears up for the holidays, small businesses should have another thing in mind apart from sales: filing taxes. As the fiscal year draws to a close, it is important that business owners review the current financial situation and start implementing strategies to help minimize your income tax.

There’s no better time than the present to start planning which tax strategies are best for your business, for you to get deductions. Before the holiday rush, business owners should already have a plan in place. If you don’t have one yet, now is as good a time as any to come up with one.…

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5 Bad Habits That Keep You From Getting the Funding You Need

bad habits that won't get your business funding

It’s common for small businesses to slip into bad habits that limit their ability to get funding.   From unscreened customers to generous payment terms, here are some of the most common reasons lenders will not loan to small business owners.

1. Not putting profits back into the business

When you hear these pleasant words from your accountant, “You should take a draw before the end of the year,” think again.   Building equity in your business has a positive impact on your ability to get funding.   A lender always looks at your debt-to-equity ratio.   The more equity you have, the better your ratio.  …

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Reaping the Soft Benefits of Email Marketing

In my previous article, Making Money: The Economics of Email, I discussed the customer acquisition cycle and how email marketing fits nicely into that effort, acting as the grease to speed the process along. Email has direct financial benefits, but there are also a number of other benefits that are difficult to track. For example, if your logo appears in an email, you might not see sales from people who drove right over to your store to make a purchase, but it might make your website seem more familiar to a visitor who has seen the email, and that might make her more comfortable making a purchase at a later date.…

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Are You Ready For American Express OPEN’s Small Business Saturday?

American Express Open's Small Business SaturdayEntrepreneurs are getting ready as everyone looks forward to the inception of a new shopping event: Small Business Saturday. The first-ever event will take place on November 27, as part of American Express Open’s plan to support the local economy.

America’s largest employers are still small businesses and it makes sense that the industry gets the attention it deserves by having a whole day dedicated to it. The national movement is getting more traction as the actual event draws near. Advocacy groups as well as the public and private sector unite to support this national campaign. This concerted effort to support small, independently-owned businesses would help to drive sales in the holiday weekend shopping traffic.…

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How Creating an eBook Can Help Develop Your Online Presence

create ebooks to boost your online presence

There are a number of reasons to create an eBook to help develop your online presence. Here are a just a few of them:

Build your email list

As many online entrepreneurs will tell you, building your email list is one of the most crucial things you must do in order to establish presence online regardless of whether or not you intend to make money. Certainly if you want to make money through your website and your presence online, an email list is even more vital.

But how to get people to hand over their email addresses to you – willingly – and with open ears to what you have to tell them?…

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Making Money: The Economics of Email

economics of emailI live close to a golf course, so my garage is always full of golf balls collected by my children. We literally have big plastic containers filled with golf balls sorted by type and condition. While I like to keep a container with the best of them in my trunk to restock my endless need, my children have other ideas.

Mitchell and Madeline, who seems to have the same entrepreneurial spirit I have, would rather sell these balls back to the golfers as they drive by our house on their way home.

The reality is, turning a profit on free golf balls might prove less profitable than they hope.…

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Cloud Computing and Your Small Business

cloud computingIn a constantly changing technological world, small businesses try to keep up with the hype by getting on the innovation band wagon. One such innovation is cloud computing. Designed to remotely host software, servers and data storage, it promises to reduce operational expenses and lower the cost of energy bills.

This of course is beneficial to those who have limited budget and limited knowledge of technology infrastructures such as small business owners. Yet, a cloud hosting survey reveals that more than half of SMB respondents have no intention of using this trend. And the reason for this is that small business owners are not well informed of what cloud computing is and what its benefits are.…

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Antisocial Media: The Opposite of Social Media

Engaging with the media in an interactive manner is no longer a “nice to have” – it is a necessity.   But, how much is enough and what are the true consequences of doing “just enough?”   And, what if “just enough” isn’t? More often than not, “just enough” is anti-social, if not anti-business.

antisocial media

Here’s an example of “just enough” thinking:

Client: “Yes, we are even more active on Twitter and LinkedIn. We even post a blog now and again.   We are with the program and making great progress. Let’s move on to talk about upcoming press releases.”

It was another one of THOSE meetings.  …

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Small Business Data Protection Tips

data protection tipsLoss of data is one of the reasons why a business may result in failure. Since businesses run on information, when data is lost or access those data are disrupted, the impact may threaten business operations.

According to Ontrack Data Recovery Findings, there are five causes of data loss:

  1. Human Error
  2. Computer Viruses
  3. Natural Disasters
  4. Hardware or System Problem
  5. Software Corruption or Program Problem

The above-mentioned root causes account for loss of revenue for businesses across different industries which are alarming especially for small business owners. The lack of disaster recovery plans may spell disaster and this is not uncommon for SMBs who typically do not have the budget and internal IT expertise compared to large enterprises.…

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