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Archive for February 2012

How Do You Look On The Small Screen?

By Bill McKinney
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

How important is it for your business to look good on the mobile web?

Let’s check out a few facts:

• Over 85% of mobile phones can access the mobile web
• Mobile web usage doubled last year and will double again this year
• In the US, 25% of mobile web users are mobile-only
• The most popular mobile web destinations include social networking, search and maps
• Mobile searches have quadrupled in the last year
• 71% of smartphone users who see TV, press or online ads do a mobile search

Is there any doubt?

Mobile WebA few years ago, a small business mobile site was a novelty; today it’s a necessity. How many people get their first impression of your business from a screen that fits in the palm of their hand? And what happens when these visitors have to wait for your site to load, or struggle to navigate your site or read your content?

They leave…

You need your customers and prospects to have a positive experience on your site, whether they visit you from home, office, car or sidewalk. Fortunately, there are some simple guidelines you can follow to create a mobile-friendly experience for your visitors, starting today.
Read More→

Categories : Internet Marketing

Going Paperless (or nearly paperless)

By Linnea Blair
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

Huge filing cabinets and files stuck in one location no longer serve many of us as business owners. Space is at a premium and we would like to keep our offices as streamlined as possible. Maybe even more importantly in our mobile society we want (or need) to be able to access our files from remote locations.
There are a number of options for accessing our files online. Services like Log Me In, GoToMyPC or direct log in to our own company servers assist us in accessing our office computers from home or on the road.

Being able to access our files electronically means that we must have an easy way to convert our paper items to an electronic format. Granted, many of us, many of the files we create or receive via email, we can already save to our hard drive or server in an electronic format. But what about all the statements and correspondence we receive via snail mail or documents that we receive only in paper format?

I have discovered some solutions that work really well for me, so I want to pass them on to you. First of all is a really stellar scanner. I have been seeing advertisements for a long time about the Neat Receipts series of scanners and I was on the point of purchasing one when I decided to do a little more research. By the way, Amazon, Google and YouTube are your friends when you are deciding on a major purchase. My research led me to the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500. I absolutely love this scanner! Really easy to use and to scan documents both to your server, backup device and/or Evernote, a service I totally love. Evernote is in the cloud, but you can also create notebooks on your local server/external hard drive/or computer. You can tag files by categories for easy access. Even better, it’s completely searchable by text recognition (OCR) technology as well making it really easy to find your files.

Here’s to your success in simplifying your life!

 

Categories : Tips for Entrepreneurs

Do you know where your target market is?

By Linnea Blair
Monday, February 6th, 2012

Target MarketI suggest that every business owner spend some time getting clear about exactly what target market you serve or wish to serve witht the products or services your business offers. You may serve multiple target markets. It is important to gain clarity about what specific groups of people you want to sell to and how they differ from each other in terms of how they benefit from your product or service as well as how they differ in how you reach them with your marketing message.

For example, a home improvement contractor could have one target market that consists of homeowners in certain geographic area and with a specifc set of demographics. He could also have another target market that consists of real estate property managers.

For another example, a massage therapist could have one target market that consists of professional business people who enjoy regular massages for stress relief, and she could have another target market that consists of athletes who are recovering from an injury.

In both cases, you as the business owner want to be able to clearly define your different market segments: What are their characteristics (demographics, habits, etc) and where are they located geographically if that is a factor in your business model.

Next, you want to define how your product or service benefits each market segment. Then you will be ready to craft a marketing message for each group that they can relate to.

Finally you will need to decide on the best method to reach that market segment. Some groups of customers will be best reached through advertising, whether it is direct mail, internet advertising, etc. Other will be best connected with via referral or personal introductions. Still others might be reached by cold calling or canvassing, or at a trade show or other event. Often you will end up crafting a multi-pronged strategic approach to reaching each of your target markets.

The first step to to define who they are. Taking the time to document the characteristics and location for each of your customer segments is an activity that is extremely valuable and will greatly increase your opportunities for success in reaching your target customers.

If you want to find out more, attend one of our free business planning classes.

Categories : Business Planning
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