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Posts tagged small business marketing
6 Simple Tips for Online Marketing for Small Businesses
Dec 3rd
Online marketing efforts can be extraordinarily cost effective. Unlike traditional marketing channels, when you’re online, you have the chance to reach the entire world. Online activities are also very low-cost, in general, so the potential for return is huge. For these reasons, small business owners should dedicate a chunk of time each week to marketing their service online. Below are seven tips and methods to help you get started.
Create and share good content
If you aren’t blogging about issues that are relevant regarding mobile apps and small businesses, you should be. The rules aren’t very strict, but one thing is important – you need to create and share content that is somehow interesting, valuable, or otherwise worthy of your audience’s time. If your content is good, you will develop a readership and increase your chances of your content getting shared. This will maximize the impact of your content.
Upload press releases
Press release distribution outlets like PR Newswire and PRWeb are a great way to expand your reach online and potentially get picked up by blogs and news channels online. You’ll need to have something noteworthy to build your press release around, but a new app feature, method of use, success benchmark, or piece of data can all qualify.
The world of business is always changing – let the world know about it!
Be social
This is a no-brainer online. Make use of as many social media channels as you can, post regularly, and join the conversations. Don’t be spammy or irritating – just be a part of things. A little bit of participation can go a long way!
Publish how-tos
A how-to video uploaded to YouTube is a great way to find your audience online. Your videos can be anything about your busines, or can relate to how you potentially are better than your competitors. The important thing will be to demonstrate solid expertise in the your field, so that prospects will come to see that you know your stuff.
Get personal
Sometimes it’s interesting to get an inside look into a business. If you have something neat to share about your business, put it out there. This can be a short video, a picture, a story about how a customer is using an app, or something else informal and internal to your company. It can bring your audience closer and humanize your enterprise, and that’s often a good way to break the ice online.
Contests
This is a time-tested way to engage users online. Many people won’t take an action if there’s nothing tangible in it for them, and holding a contest is a way to give the people what they want. Don’t forget to get something in return for entry into your contest, such as email addresses, likes and shares on Facebook, and retweets or follows on Twitter. A simple prize can be a free month of mobile app and website use for the winner.
With these simple tips, you can go a long way online. Try them out – we’d love to know what you think!
Small Business is Big Business – Why the Next Successful SaaS Companies Will Be Those That Serve the Little Guy
Aug 23rd
There is a disturbing trend lately of SaaS companies going public before they show a profit. (I’m looking at you, Eloqua and Marketo). And what’s worse, the problem is systemic. In fact, in an article for Venture Beat, Jason Cohen clearly sets forth why a typical SaaS company that serves enterprise customers can take four years to produce even a 2.5% profit! If you want to dig into the numbers behind the trend, the gory details are all laid out here.
Mostly, this is due to the extraordinarily high up-front costs of chasing enterprise customers, and the relatively low monthly fee earned even if the chase is successful. That’s why, if Gartner’s predictions come true and the SaaS market grows by almost 20% over the next few years, we think the lion’s share of the gains will go to a special type of SaaS company:
The one that serves small businesses.
Why?
Due to three extremely powerful facts that I’ve become intimately familiar with as I grow a SaaS company serving small businesses:
Reason 1: Costs are much lower and hurdles are far fewer
When you sell to the enterprise, you need to invest heavily in a sales team. And you won’t ever reach a decision-maker right away. Instead, you’ll participate in a long series of meetings and conference calls (if you’re lucky enough to get to that point).
You’ll have to hire a lawyer to help handle extensive contracting and other matters. You’ll need to get a bunch of technical support people to train and service the customer extensively. And once you’ve done all of this, and invested hundreds of hours into the project, you’ll get dropped unceremoniously after someone you’ve never met decides there isn’t room in the budget for you.
Damn, that’s cold.
In contrast, when you sell to small businesses, you can reach a decision-maker right away. You don’t have to do the same level of marketing, sales, technical assistance, and training. You can afford to court a large number of clients at once, and the time and energy invested from first contact to closing is much, much shorter. With a rapid, low-cost sales cycle, the results are simple:
You get paid 1) quickly, 2) often, and 3) profitably.
It’s a lot easier to become profitable with a payment structure like that.
Reason 2: Product requirements are similar across customers
Each enterprise customer, even if they aren’t different from the others, can sometimes demand that everything be customized to their whims. And their whims will change multiple times before the project is complete. Much like the sales dance, you’ll spend a lot of time and effort trying to please your prospect, and it may not pay off in the end.
In contrast, small businesses tend to have more basic needs and simpler demands. They don’t need a unique solution. They need something functional, easy-to-integrate, and cost-effective. For this reason, you can design a solid product and it will fit into a wide variety of small businesses. Instead of having to approach each customer as a redesign, you’ll be able to simply provide a solution that already performs the necessary functions, and customers will like it.
There’s less hard work, and your efforts are more likely to produce returns across a large number of customers, without extra tweaking. That is, small business customers let SaaS companies max out the profitability of each solution they develop.
Reason 3: There are literally millions of prospects
Small businesses are staggeringly numerous. In fact, there are over 5 million businesses with less than 100 employees in the U.S alone. In comparison, the number of companies that have over 1,000 employees in the U.S. is only around 10,000. Therefore, the opportunity presented by small businesses is orders of magnitude larger than that presented by the enterprise.
Taken together, the three facts above present a case for why the next group of successful SaaS companies won’t be riding tidal waves – they’ll just hang close to the shore and ride the small waves in over and over again until they make it.
Andrew Gazdecki is the founder and CEO of Bizness Apps, a do-it-yourself mobile app & mobile website platform for small businesses and Bizness CRM, a CRM designed to make selling to small businesses easy.
Small Business Marketing by the Numbers
Jul 11th
Almost every small business owner would like to increase sales, but it can be hard to decide where to focus marketing efforts. Armed with these facts, it becomes a lot easier to see where you should spend your money as a small business owner.
Let’s take each marketing channel in turn:
Mobile
Mobile web usage continues to increase daily, and is projected to surpass desktop web usage by 2014. Half of all local searches are now done on a mobile device, and these aren’t just idle searches. In fact, a whopping 90% of mobile searches lead to an action, and over half of these are purchases! This means that having a mobile website is an absolute must for businesses that want to maximize their opportunities.
But it isn’t just about taking advantage of a way to boost sales. Not having a mobile-optimized website can actually do serious damage to your business. This is because 40% of searchers head to a competitor’s website after a bad mobile website experience with a particular company. Your lack of a mobile website is actually an advantage for your competition, especially if they’re up to date with their mobile optimization.
Takeaway: A mobile-optimized website is a must for small businesses that want to remain competitive.
SEO
Search engine optimization remains crucial. What you may not know is that a surprising amount of foot traffic to your location can come from Google. 88% of searchers for a type of business actually go to one within 24 hours. This response is even more immediate on mobile, where 70% of searches are followed up with an action within an hour. In addition, SEO leads have a close rate of 15%, which is higher than referrals, paid search, social media, and outbound leads.
Takeaway: SEO is a solid source of web AND in-person traffic.
Social media
Social media includes platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but also online review sites like Yelp, and small businesses would be well served to address both. A few stats cover the core reasons why:
Seven out of ten consumers are more likely to use a local business if it has information available on a social media site. This stat isn’t just fluff, either. 20% of Facebook users have actually purchased something because of ads or comments they saw there. That is, social media can directly generate sales.
As for online review sites, 72% of consumers trust them as much as personal recommendations from people they know. While word-of-mouth will always be valuable, Internet recommendations have become equally as valuable.
Takeaways: Social media creates sales and online reviews are now fully trusted.
Email
We could go on at length about why email marketing is so much more than just “spam,” but one stat says it all: businesses return $40 for every $1 spent on email marketing! For many businesses, this is the most cost-effective multiple available in any marketing channel.
Takeaway: If you don’t do email marketing, you’re definitely leaving a significant amount of money on the table.
Websites
49% of sites are not compliant with basic usability principles. On mobile, 93.3% percent of small business websites are not mobile-compatible. This means that they will not render successfully on mobile devices or smartphones. Put another way, they’ll look bad and users will quickly hit the “Back” button.
The result? 50% of online sales are lost because visitors can’t find the content they want. This can be something as basic as a phone number, which 60% of local businesses omit from their website.
Takeaway: do a quick review to make sure your site is functional on all devices, and that basic info is easy to find.
Web ads
Web ads are low-cost but also fairly low effectiveness. Click-through rates are currently averaging .1%, half of those may be mistakes, and a significant portion may not even be actual human users.
Takeaway: web ads might be part of a successful strategy, but don’t rely on them to generate your sales.
Content marketing
Companies with active blogs receive 97% more leads, and content marketing has recently been ranked the single most effective SEO technique, according to Marketing Sherpa. A blog costs less than traditional marketing, and each post can serve as a perpetual “ad” that will bring a stream of traffic as long as it is up. Thus, blogs are well worth the effort.
Takeaway: invest in regular blogging to enjoy a highly cost effective boost in leads.
App Maker Tips and Tricks: How to Successfully Promote a Mobile Application
Mar 22nd
The App Store, Google Apps Marketplace and other mobile application markets are flooded with heaps and heaps of mobile apps of various functions and purposes. This condition undoubtedly poses a huge challenge to any newbie app maker or apps reseller. Fret not because there are many ways you can successfully promote your new mobile application. Here are a few iPhone app marketing tips to help you get started:
Build a website – A dedicated website or blog is definitely a must-have if you’re serious about promoting your application. It’s even recommendable to create one even before launching the app, as you can use it as a teaser and hype builder. Use this space to post your demo video, screenshots and other vital information about your mobile app. Other details you may want to include are FAQs page, How-to section and a user rating/feedback system. Consider also optimizing this site for search engines to further improve exposure.
Join social media – Likes, fans, followers—you need these! And the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to achieve them is by using various social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. Aside from promoting on social media, you can also use these platforms to better communicate and engage with your app users and prospects. Be sure to promptly answer their inquiries and other concerns. And while you can freely promote your app anytime, don’t overdo it to avoid putting off consumers.
Reach out to app reviewers/bloggers – As you know, people love to read reviews first before purchasing anything. The same goes when they’re looking for a potential app to download. You want to make sure you’re getting enough positive feedbacks about your iPhone app from top tech bloggers and app reviewers. Be proactive and contact these influencers to pitch your app. Don’t forget to give them promo codes so they can instantly test and review your app.
Promote on YouTube – Come up with a high-quality demo video of your app and upload it on the world’s leading video streaming site, YouTube. Keep it short, informative and of course, entertaining. Tag it with appropriate keywords to make it easily discoverable. Don’t forget to include your website link and iTunes download page link. Plus, YouTube enables viewers to embed and share your video on their own websites/blogs, including social network sites.
Bonus: Write a press release about your application and have it published on various online PR sites and even media companies. Last but not least, offer a free or lite version to encourage more users to experience your app, and hopefully, upgrade to the paid version. These are just some of the many different ways an app maker and or apps reseller can tell the world his/her mobile app and ultimately, get more downloads.
Bizness Apps partners with Campaign Monitor
Jul 21st
Bizness Apps is proud to announce our partnership with Campaign Monitor.
This partnership will allow you to gather contacts inside your mobile apps created with Bizness Apps and easily import these contacts into your Campaign Monitor email campaigns. You can even set the import to happen automatically with each new contact so the emails go directly from your into your email campaign with Campaign Monitor!
What is Campaign Monitor?
“Campaign Monitor offers everything a designer needs to run successful email marketing campaigns for themselves and their clients. You can even rebrand the interface, create sub-accounts for your clients and let them send their own campaigns.”
Why should you be excited about this partnership?
If you’re a marketer, then you know how effective a simple email campaign can be. By utilizing Campaign Monitor’s email marketing software you can take your businesses marketing to the next level. Send your customers special offers, keep them informed, and stay in touch with them. Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to improve customer communication and education about your business. With our mobile apps you can gather more contacts that ever. As soon as your customer opens your mobile app you have the opportunity to ask them to join your email list. “Would you like to join our mailing list to receive exclusive updates?”
Bizness Apps and Campaign Monitor are providing powerful marketing tools for small businesses for less than the price of a news paper ad.
How do I take my mailing list mobile?
1. Sign up for a Bizness Apps account
2. Build in a “Mailing List Tab” into your mobile apps
3. Connect your Campaign Monitor account
4. Viola!
Does Campaign Monitor have a white label solution?
You bet! If you’re a reseller for Bizness Apps you definitely want to check out Campaign Monitor’s white label solution. “Campaign Monitor is built from the ground up for designers to resell as their own product. Create sub-accounts for your clients, rebrand the interface and set your own marked-up pricing. You’ll make a tidy profit every time your clients send.”
You could easily integrate this software into your company’s current product offerings to include mobile apps backed by powerful email marketing software. Sounds like a match made in heaven for small businesses!
Want to learn more about Campaign Monitor?
Check out their website here: http://www.campaignmonitor.com
