Advertising in newspapers is a bit of a waste of time unless you have a full or half page ad, as it is a scattergun approach. If your ad is buried in the small print in the classified section, it will easily go unread by the vast majority of readers.

One way you can use newspapers for free advertising is to write a quality article about your chosen field of expertise and

submit it to all the papers and magazines which already published articles relating to that field. Tell them that you require no payment for your article, merely an acknowledgement of your authorship and a link back to your website or a telephone number where interested people can call you. Obviously your chosen media should be in some way related to what you have to offer. Have a look at the kind of ads that they are publishing already and you will get some idea of whether that particular medium is right for you.

Some media outlets will let you book standby space, where they will hold your article until they have an unused space. In these cases the ad rates will be much lower than the standard rates. Just check with them that they have this policy.

As a variation on this theme, if you have the nerve, is to offer yourself as a guest speaker on radio or television interview type programs. Just write a letter to the programme producer and explain why your particular subject will be interesting to the program’s listening or viewing audience. Newspapers and other communication media are always looking for fresh content, and provided your field of expertise is helpful or interesting enough they should welcome your suggestion.

Another way of getting free advertising is by going back to the old-fashioned method of posting notices and flyers on local community notice boards. Just make sure that you are able to do this by checking with the rules for posting. Areas where you might be able to post could be on the boards outside supermarkets, laundrettes and local businesses where people are sitting around waiting, like bus stops, barbershops and beauty salons.

Don’t discount the method of handing out flyers to shoppers at your local shopping centre, especially on weekends. If you don’t want to do this yourself, you can always hire a high school student to do it for you.

One thing you must always do with all your advertising is to offer something for nothing, a free report for instance.

Advertisers know that nothing beats giving away something for free to get a response to an ad. It could be something as simple as inviting prospective customers to contact you for a catalogue of your products, a free trial of your product, or simply further information.

Just use your own imagination, and I’m sure you could come up with some more innovative ways of cutting your advertising bill.

One thing you need to do is to stop sudden impulse buying. We have all done this at the supermarket, where tempting goods are on display at eye level and at the checkout, and this failing can easily transfer to the business environment.

I can still remember many years ago the owner of the business where I was working bought about 5000 ballpoint pens, with the name of the business on them, purely because of a pretty sales girl. When I left the employment some nine years later, we still had boxes and boxes of those pens in the stationery cupboard.

If you are in charge of a company is much easier to contain this impulse buying by having strict controls over your purchasing procedures, which should require a second signature on the purchase order, but if you are a one man band you will just have to control yourself.

When sales take a dip you must be especially hard-nosed with salespeople coming in off the street and trying to sell you something, so don’t allow yourself to be swayed by glossy brochures of new equipment or products. By all means invite them to call again as you may need them when sales pick up, but for the moment forget about everything except the basics of running your business.

Another way of managing expenditure is to look at third party professional services, such as management accountants and auditors. They will provide much needed independent advice, and the cost of hiring them should be vastly outweighed by the savings which they suggest. If you are going to retrench staff, they also provide a good alibi for you, because of that independence.

You should also critically examine your debtor’s ledger, with particular scrutiny of any significant amounts which are overdue. You must ring them up yourself and ask for any explanation why your bill has not been paid, and press them to give a date for payment in the very near future. If you keep calling them every day, you will suddenly find that your bills will rise to the top of your customers’ piles of bills to pay. Remember you are not asking for anything which is not yours, and there is no reason for his business to be maintained ahead of yours.

The most important thing about running a small business is to know where you are going; to know on a daily basis your progress towards their destination; to be aware of what your competitors are doing and to practice good money management at all times.

In doing all this, you will be prepared to recognize any potential problems before they arise.

Peter Phillips

www.threepr.com

The main drivers:

What are the reasons for this optimistic view? Here are just six reasons why we think that apps will become as important as Websites to companies in the next years:

1. Ubiquity of smartphones: Smartphones will increasingly replace feature phones in stores. Nearly everyone will be able to use smartphone apps, not just – as of now – business people, social networkers and gamers. The main driver will be a reduction in handset prices, which will decrease to 100 Euro for most starter devices.

2. Many possibilities: Smartphones are small computers which are becoming more and more powerful. They will be suitable for an increasing number of tasks which have previously been restricted to laptops or desktops. Today smartphone apps are used by companies to promote their brand or product, or to provide access to their existing products. In the future we will see a lot more use-cases, e.g. new products enabled by apps, mobile health, mobile selling, or apps which help to improve working efficiency within a company.

3. Ubiquity of app stores: For the foreseeable future, Smartphones will always depend on the app stores. If you have a smartphone or advanced feature phone you will have easy and convenient access to the world of apps.

4. Unmatched user-experience: Apps offer a user-experience which mobile Websites or widgets are unable to provide.

5. Proximity to customers: Mobile devices, especially Smartphones, are much more personal and intimate devices than a laptop or desktop device. For most users their phones are never by their side 24/7. Imagine how attractive it is for companies to be able to place their products and services so close to consumers.

6. Better visibility: Although there is a lot of clamour about the discoverability of apps, especially in the Apple App Store, standing out among 140,000 apps is much easier than being found amongst millions of websites. In addition, these distribution platforms are stores, and unlike the web or its search engines, they are designed to sell and present products. Cross-selling and promotions are components of their core features. The new geneneration of app stores make it easier than ever before to be in the forefront of millions of potential customers’ minds.

Although there is still a long way to go before many companies learn how to benefit from and how to engage in this exciting new market, but it won’t take long before it becomes standard business practice to communicate with customers via an app.

By Ralf-Gordon Jahns

1.  Your “pipeline” is not full of potential customers, and STILL you do not prospect enough.   Ask yourself this:  If you saw a burning building, and had a hose in your hand that would be guaranteed to put out the fire, wouldn’t you point the hose at the fire and turn it on?  So, if you are not prospecting, that’s pretty good evidence that you are not a real believer that your offering is a real benefit to others.   If you really thought it was amazing, you would do whatever it takes to find more people who need it.

2.  You discount your prices.   Let’s say the test results come back, and you need to have your knee replaced.  You go to the hospital, and they ask you who you want to have operate on you:  Dr. Joe, for $3,000; or his fishing buddy Mike, an accountant who has seen “House” a few times, and will do it for $2000.   That’s $1,000 cheaper!   Do you think Dr. Joe is going to buy your argument that, because Mike is $1,000 cheaper, Dr. Joe should lower his rate?  I doubt it.  Because he knows it takes skill, experience, and knowledge to do what he does.  If you REALLY believed that you have strong skills, experience, and knowledge in your business; you would not discount either.

3.  You insist on “staying small.”     Again, back to the burning building.  You have the hose, the building is on fire; now would you just put out the fire on one part of it, or would you try to put out the WHOLE fire?  I’m hoping that most of you would put out the whole fire.   If you REALLY believed in your business and its ability to benefit others, you would try to build your business so that it could serve more people.  Or, is your talk about wanting to “help others” just a cliché’?

4.  You do not invest in a Coach/Consultant because it seems “expensive.”  This is a LOT of you, isn’t it?  So you are working 12 – 14 hour days; your sales are not as strong as you had hoped; but, you think you can “figure it out on your own,” ”it is not the right time to make the investment,” or you “want to wait until you can ‘afford’ it.”   Given that independent research has shown that, if you really implement what you are taught, you get $5 for every $1 you invest in someone like me;  if you REALLY believed in the long-term potential of your business, you would figure out any way possible to make that investment.   Even the BEST investors rarely return $5 for $1.   So, your delay in getting help is just your belief that your business is not really a long-term solution.  In fact, waiting to invest is telling your subconscious that you want to “see if this business works out.”

Interestingly enough, if you do #4, I’ll show you exactly HOW to avoid 1-3.

Learn more about Roger Boneno – http://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerboneno

The average time for a text message to be read is within 4 minutes of being received. People get too many email messages – they can be ignored, or not even make it past the spam folder

Who sez? Leave traditional advertising to the big, established businesses because they can already afford it. Small businesses must start small in order to minimize losses. If you’re remotely familiar with the internet, why not promote your company via social media networks like Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn? You must realize that this type of marketing enables the business owner to “talk” and interact directly with potential patrons.

In today’s world business prospects are found online, there smart phones, tablets and other gadgets that keep people online all the time…now this opportunity should be utilized and online marketing is the new efficient way to communicate with clients..m in a more personalized way in fact!

Michael Griffiths

http://mysmallbusinessmarketingguru.com.au/Blog/tabid/277/Default.aspx

1. The Internet is the top source for information about restaurants and other local businesses.

If you’re of the ilk that believes small business owners don’t need a website or a presence on social media, I’d really like you to read that again. Here, I’ll even write it again.

The Internet is the top source for information about restaurants and other local businesses.

Because of the Web’s ability to sort and collect data, more and more users are going online to seek out reviews and recommendations for where they should eat or which businesses they should check out. This represents a significant change in behavior, as it was once newspapers and news organizations that were sought out for this information. In case you’re thinking this just applies to the younger set, that’s not the case. This statistic is true among all age groups, not simply the under-40 demographic.

Interestingly, the survey mentioned that the Web has been a place where locally oriented content creators can share material with groups that have been largely ignored by mainstream media. You have to wonder if this is what’s driving them online – they’re hunting for information that hasn’t been available to them before. They’re seeking reviews and recommendations for products and restaurants of all types. If this isn’t a compelling reason to create a website, claim your social listings and begin building reviews, I’m not sure what is.

2. Adults under 40 list the Internet as their top source for 12 out of 16 information categories.

According to the survey, adults under 40 consult the Internet first when looking for information about:

1. Weather
2. Politics
3. Crime
4. Arts/Culture
5. Local Businesses
6. Schools
7. Community Events
8. Restaurants
9. Traffic
10. Taxes
11. Housing
12. Local Government
13. Jobs
14. Social Services
15. Zoning/Development

That’s quite a large segment of the local news space. If your business is related to any one of them, you had better make sure you’re putting out information that your consumers can find and that you’re engaging with them. And if you’re part of the traditional media that has lost audiences in these areas, that’s a pretty big wakeup call.

3. Among all adults online, the Internet is the top source of information for five local topics.

Because, yes, I know some of you were getting itchy to tell me below that it’s the only the younger users who go to the Web for local information, that’s not the case. According to the report, among all adults, the Internet is either the most popular source or tied with newspapers for five of the 16 topics:

• Restaurants
• Other Local Businesses
• Schools
• Housing
• Local Jobs

And as today’s younger users become the norm and the older users become more comfortable turning to the Web for local information, you can expect these numbers to only increase.

It’s also worth noting that when the study says consumers are going online to learn about housing or local jobs, they’re not going to the websites of local news publications. According to the report, rankings for these sites were way down.

4. Nearly half of adults get local news and information via mobile devices.

I found it interesting to hear that 47 percent of adults get at least some local news and information via their smartphones or tablet computers, whether it be to check weather, find local restaurants or businesses, check sport scores, get coupons or perform some other “out and about” activity. I wouldn’t have imagined the number to be quite so high, but it does show the power of the SoLoMo revolution and why it’s so important that businesses get involved in that space.

5. More than 40 percent of adults are considered “local news participators.”

Another reason SMBs give for why they’re not getting involved in social media is because they believe their audience isn’t there. And that could still be true – but you may want to give it another check to see if that’s really the case. According to the report, 41 percent of adults are considered “local news participators” because of their social media activity.

To be awarded that title, they must:

• Contribute their own information via social media and other sources
• Add to online conversations
• Directly contribute articles about the community.

That’s a large number of people now using the Web to share and contribute content. So before you assume your customers aren’t there, maybe give it just one quick shot.

Lisa Barone is Co-Founder and Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media, Inc., an Internet marketing company that specializes in providing clients with online reputation management, social media services, and other Internet services.

Registering your business with Google Places allows it to be found more easily on Google searches and it shows up on Google Maps. All you have to do is fill out the form and register, then get your business verified through their confirmation process, which can be done either with a phone call or snail mail.

Yahoo! also has a big database of businesses called Yahoo! Local. It’s free, and is certainly worth the few minutes it takes to set up. Microsoft’s Bing has a similar service that’s easy to sign up for.

Embrace social media

Social media isn’t just a tool to gain exposure—it has now become a necessary time investment for every business to make. You can tie in ads and offers on your Facebook page and have a direct channel with your customers on Twitter. Networking on LinkedIn—both at the personal and company level—can be another way to help your startup.

Start a blog

A blog not only helps your company get its name out through followers, but is a way to connect with your consumers more directly. But remember that one of the major keys of blogging is to keep your stream updated as frequently as you can. A dormant, abandoned blog is worth nothing.

Put up multimedia on YouTube and Flickr

YouTube provides a free way to distribute creative promotional videos, but in order to succeed you must put up content that people want to view and are relevant to your business—a simple ad will not work.

A Flickr profile can also help by giving you one place to compile all the photos for your business, and allows you to link back to your website.

SEO your company website

Search engine optimization cannot be underestimated in the world of constant Googling. Pick up a book or head over to an online how-to-guide on SEO and make sure your site is primed for performance on search engines.

Press releases

Every time your business does something newsworthy, don’t hesitate to shoot off a press release—maybe folks will pick up on it. They’re a powerful media tool to use to help generate publicity, and having free distribution of them is a bonus.

There are dozens of websites out there that you can use for your press releases, such as PRLog and 24/7 Press Release.

Join a relevant online community and contribute

Every niche has communities online that you can get involved in. But just signing up for a forum and posting every once in a while about your business isn’t beneficial for anyone, and will likely just annoy people.

Actively contribute and build a rapport with the community, while keeping your business out of it. Passively promote your business by putting a link in your signature or mentioning it only when the context is appropriate.

This post originally appeared at OpenForum

 

Analytics software is essential for any online business: it helps you understand ways to reach your audience and drive traffic to your site. Google Analytics is one of the easiest ways to do this, and is especially helpful for the eternally busy small business owner or the on-the-go blogger.

It allows you to access both general statistics and minutiae in detailed, comprehensive reports. And of course, it includes all the basic specs, like how many visitors you’re getting, and lets you refine your information based on date range.

Here are 7 things Google Analytics will tell you about your website:

1. The Browsers and Operating Systems Your Visitors Use

Whether they’re coming from Internet Explorer or Chrome, Analytics will tell you. Your website’s report will show a breakdown of which browsers are used and how frequently, This feature is useful because sometimes web features are incompatible with certain browsers and operating systems. If a significant chunk of your visitors are using a system that doesn’t suit your website, it might be time for you to troubleshoot. Second, browser choice says a lot about your visitor base. If most of them are using a boilerplate program, like Internet Explorer or Safari, your site should be extra user-friendly and easy to navigate. Newer browsers with more bells and whistles, like Chrome, signal net-savviness.

2. What, Specifically, Isn’t Keeping People Interested

It’s good to know where your visitors are flocking, but it’s perhaps more important to know which page of your website they’re viewing when they click away to another site. Funneling resources to features that aren’t captivating users is clearly not a smart business move, and Google Analytics can help you avoid making that mistake. By showing you the Top Exit Pages of your website, the program shows you the frequency at which web visitors jump ship navigate elsewhere, all broken down by the individual pages of your site. Based on that report, you can decide whether those ill-trafficked parts of your website should be scrapped or just retooled.

3. What Exactly Draws People To Your Site

Very likely, your Google Analytics Keywords report will list a collection of words and phrases familiar to your organization as the main drivers to your site. But the rate for each of those terms, especially when cross-referenced with the feature that shows how many new visitors are logging on versus returning ones, can be substantially useful in developing a marketing strategy. If you know what’s pointing people to your site, you can work backward — explore advertising opportunities with sites that focus on related topics or, if it makes sense, gear your homepage toward the subject matter that’s drawing people in. If the point is to captivate visitors and keep them clicking around your site, this tool is a most valuable one.

4. How Many People Just Aren’t Interested At All

Your site can have all the hits in the world, but if people aren’t finding their way to your site and staying there to explore, it’s tough to foster growth online. To help you better understand how many people are coming to your site to stay, Google Analytics offers you a Bounce Rate breakdown. So what’s Bounce Rate? It’s the proportion of your website’s visitors that navigate away without clicking through to a second (or third, or fourth) page. True, you can tally that person’s visit as a hit to your site. But there’s no lasting power there, and a high Bounce Rate indicates your site isn’t making a very strong impression. Check out the ultra-useful Bounce Rate among first-time visitors, perhaps the purest form of the metric because it deals with visitors who are ostensibly entirely unfamiliar with your website.

5. How Much People Are Poking Around

The Depth of Visit function sounds a little Big Brother-esque, but it’s important for you to know how many pages people are viewing each time they head to your site. This feature shows the proportion of visitors that view one page, two pages, three pages, and so on. If typically people aren’t looking at more than one or two pages per visit, it might be time for a redesign or at least a reorganization of content.

6. Whether People are Viewing On The Go

The ubiquitousness of smartphones and tablets means you need to keep up with that technology. If a significant portion of your website’s visitors are finding you on their mobile devices, as Google Analytics can show you, you need to be sure your website is mobile-friendly and accessible. In cases where this feature shows you a sizable enough crop of visitors are seeking you out on such devices, it could be worth it for you to explore building a site specifically designed for use on them.

7. When You’ve Hit A Million Clicks

…or any other myriad benchmarks you’ve decided are important. From number of clicks and visitors to increases and decreases in traffic, the Alerts feature of Google Analytics provides you instant updates (which can be sent to your phone) to let you know when you’ve achieved them. This function could help you mark milestones, like when you finally reach that million-visitor mark, or realize you’re in the danger zone, like when the number of unique visitors drops by half.

Very few businesses will launch without any sort of marketing or sales plan. Yet, the vast majority of Australian SMEs have no kind of strategy when it comes to the fastest growing business channel there is – online.

A report by Sensis this week shows that just 13% of rural small businesses have an online strategy. Despite the steady increase of companies with websites, it seems that not much thinking is going into what impact they should have.

With this in mind, we’ve put together the 10 steps you need to take to put together a web strategy from scratch.

1. Set goals

Before you embark upon your foray into the digital world, you need to work out what your goals are for having a website.

Do you want customers to buy directly from your site? Do you just want to provide highly-visible branding? Or is it primarily a tool to interact with customers, get their feedback and deal with their complaints?

These insights should be driven by core marketing values – who are your customers? How do you want to reach them? What would your customers expect from your site – opening times, prices, photography and contact details? Or more than those basics?

2. Think about your brand

Your web strategy shouldn’t be a standalone process you follow independently of the rest of your business.

It should work harmoniously with your overall marketing strategy (if you don’t have one of those, you need to stop reading this and craft one as soon as possible).

Therefore, you need to ensure that your branding is consistent in the online and offline parts of your business, as well as a similar “look and feel” to the services or products you provide.

Choose a URL that is short, memorable and analogous with your business name. Make sure you secure it early – it can often be worth paying over the odds for a good URL, as leading tech start-up Posse found.

A website for a day care centre is going to be a little different in style than a high-end restaurant. You only have a short time to grab a customer’s attention – if they are familiar with your brand from elsewhere and feel your website fits your business’ proposition, you will stand a better chance.

3. Keep your competitors in mind

The advance of online retail (11% growth last year and rising) has opened up great new opportunities for Australian start-ups. You can now start a business with little more than an ABN, website and a decent idea.

However, your competitors are no longer confined to your immediate area. The internet puts you in competition with businesses from around the world. Therefore, you can’t be complacent that customers will immediately flock to your website.

Study the competition and work out what you will offer that sets you apart from them. Around half of all Australian SMEs don’t have a website and the ones that do often do a fairly average job.

So you have a great opportunity to stand out from the crowd, in Australia at least. Think about your design, your service levels and product bundling. Reward customer loyalty and capitalise upon your start-up status by offering a warm, personal touch to your site.

4. Work out your social media presence

While many start-ups lack a web strategy, social media is also an area that small businesses regularly fall down on.

Just 15% of rural SMEs use social media to market themselves, according to Sensis, despite it being a crucial way to extend your reach and connect with consumers in an engaging way.

Work out where your customers spend their time – are they avid Twitter users, for example? – and work out how much time you can spend on social media. Secure your domains early on.

“LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter allow you to secure your own URL without needing a minimum amount of followers, whereas Facebook requires you to have 25 fans before it will let you secure what they call a vanity URL,” explains web strategy expert Adam Franklin.

“Even if you don’t anticipate using them yet, please reserve your company name because for all we know there could be an organisation overseas with your exact name who gets in first, meaning you’ll have to settle for a less than ideal URL!”

5. Get blogging

A blog is one the easiest and cheapest way to give your business a fresh, approachable face. As a start-up, you need to get as close to your customers as possible and a blog will help them get a sense of what your business is about.

Start blogging as soon as you can – why not chart your own start-up journey? Include content that you think is of interest to your customers rather than just spout off, however.

“Getting a blog set up, is something you can do yourself (if you host with WordPress for example) but I recommend hosting your own blog and attaching it to your website,” says Franklin.

“The reason for this is that all the backlinks you will acquire over time will point to your domain and not WordPress’ – and this is much better for your Google search rankings (a major component of your web strategy).”

“It’s well worth the effort of doing this, but you may need to pay a web designer a small sum to provide some technical know-how here as it can be a little tricky.”