Hey small business owners! You have to check this out. It’s called www.squareup.com and FOR FREE they will set you up so you can swipe and track credit cards through your smart phone or ipad and the money will go directly into your bank account. Really, seriously, I’m not kidding. Check it out!
Eweek just posted an article: Facebook Deals Threatens Google Places, Foursquare, Gowalla
Turns out that Facebook has once again taken something that used to be complicated and made it pretty simple, although my jury is still out on whether the majority of people are going to like to let other people know where they are all the time. I guess it will depend on the deal they get to do it.
It was cool getting to know Eric Greenspan and Chris Foley at the Convergence 2010 Conference in California last week. I grabbed them at the very end and ask them to give small business owners some practical advice on how to make their marketing work. Eric and Chris run Make It Work and are launching their internet radio show in the fall by the same name. It’s worth the few of this one.
Jeffrey Eisenberg explains, in real, raw, talk, what he thinks makes a small business successful. Jeffrey Eisenbergy is a two-time New York Times best selling author and Internet Marketing pioneer.
Here’s a super simple way to compare the traffic counts for websites. Just go to www.compete.com or www.quantcast.com. Both are free. You can type in the names of websites and compare which one’s get the most traffic. Quantcast lets you find out quite a bit more at no charge.
How you can use this for your marketing purposes is to find out which sites get the most traffic and study what they’re doing to generate it. What I found with our regional clients is that the one’s that do the most amount of mass media along with internet marketing having the highest traffic counts. You might find something different in your research. The point really is to research before you take a step in any direction and these are great tools for doing that.
I was hiking yesterday to the Cascades which is located in the New River Valley in Virginia. I go there about 5-6 times per year with Allen and dragged my 17 year old daughter this weekend (kicking and screaming). It was Memorial Day weekend so the main path was crowded. When we arrived at the falls there wasn’t even a space for
Cascades, Pembrook, VA
us to sit down. Of course it kicked my marketing mind into gear to see all those people in one place.
Several of my friends own health related businesses and it occurred to me, from a guerilla marketing standpoint, that they could really take advantage of the hot spots for hikers in our region in two ways. First, why not take a few people with backpacks full of great protein bar samples and water to the falls and just sit there and hand them out to people when they arrive with coupons for their businesses. Talk about your target market and people that would appreciate them for making that effort!
Or even better to reach more people, why not use your blog, if you are in the health and wellness industry, to help coordinate hiking groups, or give the best hiking trails in our area, or tips for the best items to pack for each of the trails. Hiking burns more calories than just walking and it’s a whole lot more fun. If you don’t have time to create it, collaborate with someone that does. There is a great site on-line for some of these things, but they don’t have a company behind them with great products and services to keep you in shape after your hike.
People who are getting into shape or who are already there and are looking to stay that way, live active lifestyles and spend a lot of money on great health food and ways to stay fit. Go where your customers are. Serve them with information to stay that way. They’ll reward you with becoming loyal customers.
The next television evolution is about to arrive from Google. Check out the short video they produced to explained this new technology that is the next, logical step to bringing the internet to our television experience. There’s no doubt in my mind that this will lead to increased options for advertisers looking to stay ahead of the curve which is what all small business owners must do to stay competitive.
Here’s the link: http://www.google.com/tv/
The options for your advertising dollars are becoming endless. Synergy Sessions can help be the filter and gateway to up to date knowledge to run, market, and manage your small business. Go to www.synergysessions.org to find out more.
How to use WordPress.org. YES! There are three different types of WordPress’. I know… who knew? If you just want to fool around with a personal blog, just go to WordPress.com and set up a quick blog and get started, but if you have a domain name you want to use like I did, www.lyndamcnuttfoster.com, then I had to set that puppy up by going to www.wordpress.org. Actually, I bypassed that all together and went to www.hostgator.com and bought this super cheap website hosting accounting and had that site upload WordPress for me… much easier!
This stuff will drive you completely nuts if you have an entreprenuer mind like mine. It’s taken me months to learn enough to even know this much. I’ll keep passing along knowledge as I get it because small business owners really need to be learning about this WordPress hysteria that’s going on. Everyone is all distracted by Facebook and the truth is that the business applications for a blog in WordPress will grow businesses much faster.
A huge THANK YOU to one of our Synergy Session leaders, Brian Duvall, for all his help answering all of my questions.
