Posts Tagged ‘cost’

Public Relations For Small Business

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

If your business is small, that does not mean that you can afford to lose client. And – unfortunately – one bad blog comment or forum post that has managed to rank Google page 1 for the name of your brand (product, service, etc.) can seriously damage your sales.

But what if my market is just 100 clients? I cannot afford to pay for the expensive PR games!

Luckily you should not pay any big money, because new technologies will help you to go through the process of protecting the reputation of your brand/product/service at a fraction of a cost.

This is how it becomes possible…

Instead of using simple online PR, you can use PR + SEO. For those of you who do not know what SEO means, this is search engine optimization and the aim of SEO is to push a certain web page to higher ranks in search engines.

This can sound strange, but PR + SEO costs LESS that simply PR. But this is a fact.

Instead of creating tons of info, you can create just a few public opinion units (article or press release or video or forum post or blog publication or blog comment) and then – with the help of SEO instruments – you can push these public opinion units up in search engine ranks. And you control on what keywords you are pushing them.

No longer you need to disperse the efforts, create tons of info and then hope that sooner or later it will rank well. Instead you create just a few different publications, push them up for the keywords you need – and the reputation is protected.

So, do the comparison game yourself. On hand, budget for creation of dozens of articles, press releases, media buzz (most likely this will cost you a few thousand USD at least!) or just a few publications pushed up with SEO instruments to page 1 for the keywords that you need (most likely this will cost you a few hundreds of bucks).

Several thousand USD vs few hundreds USD.

For the owner of small business with small budget the frugality of the later option is obvious. And with a few-to-several sales the owner will compensate the expenses. In any case you will lose these sales if you don’t work proactively and do not “control” what people see in search engines for the name of your brand/product/service.

As you can see, PR can be frugal, provided it is done together with SEO. And looks like this combination of PR+SEO has great chances to become a new trend on the market of public relations.

For more information about frugal public relations techniques, please join the discussion held on this blog post.

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Start Your New Business On A Virtuous Cycle With Promotional Giveaways Under $1

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

There are a ton of small businesses across the country that are trying to get the word out about their brand. Either they are relatively new companies that are just starting to break into their industry, or existing business that are strapped for capital. In both these cases, promotional products could greatly benefit the growth of the business. Yet, these companies have a very low budget to spend on these items. If you own a business and fall into one of these two categories, then this article is for you.

The real solution here is to find promotional items that have a very low cost, yet still a strong enough advertising value to resonate within the demographic that you are trying to appeal to. Enter promotional giveaways under $1. There are a ton of items that any business owner can choose from in this category designed to give small businesses a chance to grow. You will be able to invest in some of these items, and impress your potential customers and clients at trade shows and promotional events without having to break the bank to do it.

Once you build up some business, then you can consider purchasing some higher quality promotional items in order to repeat a virtuous cycle that will allow you business to continue to develop. Let’s consider a few categories of under a dollar promotional products to see how they can help you achieve your goals.

To start, one of the most popular and successful categories of cheap items exists in promotional pens under $1. The small business owner will easily be able to find writing utensils that exists for as low as 11 or 12 cents, so you can maximize the quantity based on your limited budget. These cheap writing instruments are so fantastic because of their universal demand. You only need two functions in a promotional pen: the ability for it to write, and your imprinted logo to appear. Everything else is gravy when it comes to pens and pencils, and people will appreciate these all the same.

These pens will be carried along in the purse or pocket of the recipient, and will be taken out for use in the public where an exponential amount of new potential customers will be able to see it. The advertising potential is infinite while the amount of money your company has invested is next to nothing.

Another excellent group of promotional giveaways under $1 are stress relievers. The key to these custom stress balls under $1 is entertainment value. If you can offer your customers an item that will provide them with some fun, then the cost really does not matter. You will be able to find plenty of promotional stress relievers for less than a buck, so you can have the opportunity to distribute a whole bunch.

There are endless amount of themes to choose from, and many are sports related. You can appeal to any market that exists with this item, and especially those at outdoor events. Any sports game or company picnic is the perfect occasion to offer people these cheap stress balls as a way to get them excited about your brand.

Finally, consider promotional food products under $1 to create a positive buzz for your company. The reason why this category is so great is because it provides the recipient with an instant satisfaction that they will automatically associate with your brand. You can find certain candies and chocolates for as low as a nickel a piece, so this is truly a bargain that can’t be beat. Each candy will come individually wrapped in a packaging that contains your imprinted logo, so the promotional value of the item won’t be lost once the food is consumed. People appreciate items like this at trade shows and company events since they are sure to get hungry throughout the day. They won’t care how much it costs as long as it tastes good.

There are plenty of other promotional giveaways under $1 that you can choose from as a small or new business owner. Once you start the sequence of marketing your brand through promotional products, you will start to see a positive growth for your business that would not have been able to generate without the benefit of these items acting as a catalyst.

Daniel Namm is an e-marketing specialist for Motivators, Inc., a Long Island based promotional products distributor. The company’s website, Motivators.com boasts over 40,000 e-commerce enabled promotional products. Check out the latest selection of promotional giveaways under $1 to create the best marketing value for your new brand.

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Busting the Myths About Advertising a New Business

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

They are often told to you by advertising reps. But the reality is if you advertise for 12-weeks you’re NOT going to somehow get better results.

So unless you’re a large, big brand agency or something like that what I would be focusing on is measuring everything you do like a salesman because the bottom line is that very few people who sell you the advertising have tracked the ads that they actually run.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re cold calling, advertising, doing stuff on the internet or using direct mail you need to measure everything you do accurately. The problem is that you’ve never been taught how to do this.

The good news is it doesn’t cost a lot of money to get started. What you really need is the right information and lots and lots of action.

Look at yourself as a scientist who comes up with a hypothesis and says: “Hey, I’ll try a joint venture strategy and see if that will work.” Now that joint venture strategy either works or it doesn’t and then you go into the next hypothesis and the next hypothesis. And what you want to be doing as a business owner is having as many hypotheses as you possibly can and then implementing them.

Once you start to do that and once you get an advertisement that works for you or an internet campaign that works or whatever, then you can start to use that money to snowball other advertising campaigns and other marketing campaigns.

To get there you don’t need to spend a lot of money. It could be a matter of sending out 2,000 flyers which would cost you $500 – and then you can send out 50,000 flyers. But without the knowledge of how to actually craft your marketing you’re stuck in a business which is full of limitations. You can’t travel. You can’t give you family what they need. You’re always working hard rather than working smart and you can’t take time off and get the freedom that was the main reason you got into business in the first place.

But once you really grasp how to generate customers, that will truly change your life. You’ll have more time. You’ll be able to travel. You’ll be able to pay off your home sooner. And you will have the peace of mind of knowing you will generate a certain amount of business every single week. It’ll make you a happier, more relaxed person and your family and friends will love you for it.

Do you want to learn the easiest way to get more customers fast? I have just completed my brand new guide “7 Ways to Get More Customers” where I outline everything so it’s as easy as 1, 2… 3. Download it for free by visiting http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au

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Excerpt from: Busting the Myths About Advertising a New Business

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New Business Start-up – the Best Way to Go About it

Monday, August 9th, 2010

 

Once you have decided to start a new business, there are a number of do or die decisions staring at you in the face. Sometimes, finding the right starting point can itself feel a little overwhelming. This is particularly true in case of individuals who are interested in new business start-ups. Should you look for a location or a name for the company first? What are the cost estimates for forming your own company? How many employees should you recruit, if any? Is it necessary to pre-advertise your company? New business start up encounters troubling questions like these at every turn.

Given below are a number of steps that you can follow to make your new business start-up a smooth and easy process.

Step 1: Get organized:
Maintain files and folders with all information pertaining to your product, finance, organization and marketing. Maintain a separate folder that contains all bill receipts. Also, keep all governmental papers in a safe place so that you have your permits, licenses and papers related to tax in one place. If you believed that you will be hiring employees, maintain a folder for resumes and other information.

Step 2: Estimate intelligently:

Once you have collected all pertinent data, it becomes relatively easy for you to do your due diligence. The information you have gathered will help you estimate the realistic size of your business. This gives you a rough idea of your market and of the revenue that your business will generate. At this step, it is important to verify that your revenue covers your business costs and brings you sufficient profits. Once this is verified, you can continue to the next step.

Step 3: Prepare a business plan

Your business plan is the blueprint of your company and its services. In it, you must include a statement of purpose. Chalk out a detailed business description and organizational setup in your business plan. Estimate of capital requirements, cost analysis and rough projections for the first two to three years will have to be carried out at this stage. At this stage you should be able to set down in clear terms what your business is all about. You would also be able to get some idea about the structure of your business, whether it should be a sore proprietorship, a partnership or a corporation. The preparation of a business plan is a vital step in new business start-up.

Step 4: Business formation:

Collecting the above data would have given you a fair idea of how viable your business is. Once you truly decide to go ahead with your company formation then hand over the task of business start-up to someone with experience in business formation. This could be your attorney or accountant. However, if you are just starting out or if your personnel do not have the expertise to look after a new business start-up, then it is recommended that you make use of the services of business start-up companies. These companies are largely involved in the formation of offshore and onshore businesses. Thus they will be able to guide you through the legal procedures involved in forming your own business.

Following these steps will ensure that your new business start-up is a smooth, easy and hassle free process.

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These Are The Big 5 Internet Opportunities!

Friday, June 18th, 2010

By Mark Bellinger

All internet business ideas and concepts essentially fall into one of the categories below.

Therefore to help you come up with your novel online concept, examine the big 5 below for guidance with conceptualizing your business model.

There is nothing to stop you from using an idea that is already in existence if you think you can execute it in a better or different way.

1. Selling Products

a) One of the most popular methods of selling goods online, and earning commissions thereon, is to do so as an affiliate.

Many online companies have affiliate programs, the most famous being Amazon, which are usually free to join.

They normally supply promotional banners etc for their affiliates’ websites and track all sales that are generated via the affiliate’s unique tracking identity number.

b) To sell your own product you can set up your own website to promote and sell with an online payment gateway as well as promote and sell it via an affiliate program.

In other words you can harness the power of all the affiliates on the internet to promote and sell your product on a commission basis.

c) Another option would be to set up an online mall.

There are many shopping cart software programs available for this very purpose

2. Selling a Service

The internet provides a perfect medium for many service companies to promote and market their services.

As you probably know there are a variety of services that can be offered using the internet as a conduit.

You could set up your own web server and sell web hosting and associated products just as any other Internet Service Provider.

Other examples of service oriented offerings are online website maintenance, data backup, etc.

3. Online Training

Before the internet, employees going on courses would have to take a few days off work and be transported to a central point where the particular course was to be held.

This procedure not only came at a cost but also leant itself to counter productivity.

Nowadays, however, the internet delivers training courses directly to each employee’s desk top – the advantages of which are obvious for anyone to see.

4. Telecommunications

In some countries the telecommunications industry has blossomed with deregulation and the competitive marketplace has opened up.

The opportunities that exist in this field for the internet entrepreneur would range from simply selling telecom equipment and services to becoming a link in an internet telecommunications network.

Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) is a new internet telephone communications technology, that allows long distance calls to be placed over the internet at very low cost

This is therefore an area with lots of potential and opportunities for establishing the infrastructure required for Internet telephony and for re-selling international telephone call costs.

5. Publishing and Information

For writers and people who have content to distribute, the internet provides the perfect vehicle.

You, therefore, have the opportunity to create a publication without having to invest anything, for example in printing presses, ink or paper as you would have had to pre the advent of the internet.

Although the dot com rush and days of easy internet money are over, there are still many legitimate opportunities existing on the internet.

About the Author: The author, Mark Bellinger is a successful businessman and creator of the following websites: http://www.income.za.net
http://www.internetbusiness.co.za
http://www.onlinesynergy.za.net

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Technology & Business Expansion: Matching Your Data Systems To The Business Growth Needs Of Tomorrow

Friday, June 18th, 2010

By Dan Kaplan

Fueling the high growth rate for Retailers, Manufacturers and Distributors is a flurry of mergers and acquisitions. In today’s world of mergers and acquisitions, and heavy usage of the Web, companies are facing a new reality. Software that meets the company’s needs now will not be effective after a new acquisition takes place, or if sales substantially increase as a result of using the Web.

While meeting with a prospective client — a CEO of a large cleaning supply company — about purchasing new software, he told me that he was planning to grow his business by end of the year from 300 million to 500 million dollars by acquiring competitors he was negotiating with. When I asked him how he planned to integrate his company’s software with the new companies he was planning to acquire, his response was: “You hit the nail on its head. The software we are using cannot support our future acquisition plans. We will have to let the companies we plan to acquire keep using their current software until we find software that can meet our new needs. Not having the right software will result in a substantial increase of our operating cost. The unfortunate part is that we did not have the foresight to think ahead of the fact that our current software would not be able to support our acquisition plans. Nobody expected that we would grow at this rate and now we have to pay the price.”

Here are 4 unforeseen business disruptions that are likely to happen when your business environment changes:

1. Quite often companies engaged in e-commerce, experience an unexpectedly high volume of sales’ transactions that the current software cannot handle efficiently, resulting in the need for additional labor and excessive operating costs.

2. Frequently, the current software cannot provide the desired analytical information needed, resulting in the downloading of large amounts of data to spread sheets and more complex data manipulation to get the needed reports.

3. When mergers and acquisitions take place, the number of users along with the transaction volume will substantially increase, resulting in the possibility that the current computer system will not be able to handle this sudden change.

4. The acquired company might not have the same business practices as the company doing the takeover, resulting in the possibility that the current software may not be able to handle the new business demands. This can result in multiple software platforms being used creating higher operating costs and additional complexities in the computer infrastructure.

When planning future expansion, steps should be taken to ensure smooth business growth.

Software effectiveness evaluations should be performed the same way as evaluating old equipment in a factory. When evaluating the current software functions, the focus should not be on how well the software meets the business needs today, but whether it can meet the business growth of tomorrow when the company moves to the “next level.” In today’s business reality, which is changing at lighting speed, lack of planning can be a very costly proposition.

Nobody likes change, but not facing the fact that a company’s current software is outdated can result in substantial business disruptions and expenses down the road. The question that should always be asked is: “if the business reality changes drastically resulting in an unexpectedly large amount of new users or volume of data transactions, could the current software be able handle it?”

About the Author: Since 1980, Dan Kaplan has worked with corporate executives to improve purchasing, increase warehouse and distribution efficiencies, and implement software solutions that result in substantial savings and productivity improvements. To lower your operating costs, reduce your warehousing and distribution business’s quote generation process from 3 weeks to 3 hours and invoice cycle from months to one day, go to http://www.smcdata.com

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Have a Business? Need a New Business Line? Why Business VoIP Might be the Answer

Friday, June 18th, 2010

By Costas Kariolis

Running a business is all about juggling costs against profit. The lower your costs, the greater your profit margins. One of the biggest drains on a business’s financial resources can be their telecommunications bill. Conventional landline technology may be tried and tested, but it’s expensive and frankly, starting to look a little bit outdated in an age of computers, the Internet and fibre optic broadband capacity. Which is why if you’re running a business and are in the fortunate position of expanding your enterprise, considering switching your telephony to business VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) could be one of the best business decisions you make this year.

How can VoIP help my business?

If your company is growing, eventually having just one phone line is going to prove detrimental to the smooth running of your daily business. Rather than installing a second phone line that uses ordinary landline technology, a business phone line that operates on a business VoIP system can cut your costs substantially – and you don’t even have to change your hand sets to use it.

Modern business VoIP uses your Internet connection and broadband to connect calls all over the world. The real beauty of VoIP is that it can cut your call costs to the bare minimum with no loss of quality or voice clarity. Business VoIP providers offer companies looking to install a new phone line flexible packages that could mean your international calls cost no more than the price of a local call, and, in some cases, can be free. For businesses with satellite offices in other countries or who do business with international clientele, this option makes sense. If you make a lot of international calls, having a dedicated VoIP business phone line that can provide you for both local and international calls at the same rate makes sound financial sense.

No need to buy new handsets

Because of the advances in VoIP technology, you don’t even have to buy a specially adapted handset to be able to take advantage of a VoIP business phone line. A small adapter can be fitted to an existing hand set, instantly turning it into a VoIP phone. And particularly for small businesses in the process of growing their operation, every penny counts.

Call plans designed for business users give you a complete package of national and international calls at cheap rates, all for a single monthly fee, making your accounting records for your telecommunications costs easier to keep and saving you time. Switching to VoIP can also make your business look more professional. By showing that you are actively embracing the latest technology, international clients will see that you are ready for the world stage and have future-proofed your business for growth on a global scale.

VoIP is the new business tool for telephony. A natural product of the fusion between old ideas and new technology, business VoIP offers any company looking to expand their range but keep costs to a minimum the perfect solution.

About the Author: Costas Kariolis – Online Marketing Manager of Vonage UK. Vonage are leading VoIP (Voice over IP) providers for home & small business users. Offering business VoIP to landlines and mobiles via an internet phone service for a set monthly fee. For interviews, quotes, images or comments contact: Costas Kariolis Senior Director Online, UK & Canada E-mail: theteam@vonage.com

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