Archive for the 'Business Tips' Category
By Kevin via Flickr
During sluggish economical times, it only makes sense to cut back on spending. We’re eating out less, clipping more coupons, and eliminating unnecessary expenses at home – but what about your business?
Chances are, your business has probably taken a hit as consumers tighten their purse strings and you’re left searching for ways to balance lower profits with the expenses required to keep your company operating. Unfortunately, most business owners are starting by cutting their advertising and promotions budget.
Your Business Needs Advertising, Especially Now!
Too often, we overlook the actual benefits our marketing efforts provide. If your current clients have disappeared or decreased their spending, effective promotional tools and affordable advertising campaigns will bring in new customers and can even bring back some of your old ones!
Instead of eliminating your advertising budget, reevaluate your promotional spending and take advantage of less costly methods. For example, a local newspaper ad costs around $90 while posting an ad on Craigslist is free. From my own experience, the free Craigslist ad will typically bring in about 10 times the number of leads generated through the newspaper. Cost effective advertising allows you to increase profits without elevating your expenses.
Affordable Marketing Ideas to Promote Any Business
- Press release. If you thought press releases were only for startups or restructures – think again! A well-written news release, distributed through the right outlets, can revive your business regardless of what you do or how long you’ve been doing it. Press releases give your company the visibility of a television commercial at a fraction of the price.
- Build a website. A website is a must for an online business; an internet presence is just as essential for offline companies as well. More than likely, a big percentage of your target audience turns to the internet for their news, weather, and even shopping needs before turning through the Yellow Pages or picking up the newspaper – make sure you and your business are there! There are several free or low-cost alternatives to website design. Even a professional setup can often cost less than a Yellow Pages ad and can be much more worthwhile.
- Sales letter. Whether you’re looking for new customers or hoping to revive some lost ones, a professional sales letter is your key to increased profits. Home improvement contractors, eBook authors, and local law firms can all benefit from a well-planned sales campaign. A compelling letter that reminds consumers of the advantages of your product or service can do wonders for your business without breaking the bank, whether it’s delivered via post, sent through email, or simply published on the web!
- Online directories. Before you renew your telephone directory ad, look into more valuable internet directories that typically work much harder for a lot less cash. Free directories are a great place to start! Check with your local chamber of commerce or small business association for possible listings in your area. There are also an assortment of subscription based business directories that can give your company a boost – Angie’s List, Service Magic, and a number of industry-relative websites are some to consider. Ask about limited trials or basic memberships to get a good impression of how the service may benefit you before paying too much.
- Start a blog. Even if you hire a writer, a business blog is the most cost-effective marketing tool you can have. You can connect with new clients, build upon your relationship with existing ones, and ensure that your service or product stays fresh in your audiences’ minds through a simple blog.
Saving money is important, but building your brand with marketing and advertising is essential to success. There are plenty of affordable and effective tools available to increase profits and sales. Take the time to weigh your options before completely eliminating your promotional spendings.
Need a professional sales letter that demands action, web content that attracts attention, or just advice on starting your blog? Contact us – we’re your original content specialists!
In order to increase blog readership, you must keep readers interested!
We live in a world where the Internet alerts us to the latest news, the weather in Japan, fashion trends, and celebrity gossip. Online, we find most of the answers to all of the questions we ask. From comparing products to researching a new travel destination, the World Wide Web has become a far-reaching tool in today’s society. The Internet is an explosion of everything and right in the thick of things are blogs – pockets of valuable information, images, videos, music, and commentary – greeting you at every turn.
When it comes to a blog, you want to be heard. This means that you have to attract repeat readers who are interested in what you have to say. While regular posting to your blog and offering a clean layout is an effective way to start, you must provide useful information and keep visitors coming.
Ways to increase your blog readership and keep readers interested include the following suggestions:
1. Evolve
Take hold of today’s technology and enhance your blog with streaming video, audio clips, MP3 files, and other interactive features. Go beyond the typical text and image layout of a blog. For example, You Tube videos are pretty popular with bloggers, from music reviewers to do-it-yourself enthusiasts – keep the attention of your readers with amusing content.
2. Educate
Support your business by offering concrete evidence and valuable information from reliable sources, such as a journal article, seminar transcript, speech, or excerpts from a research paper. Let’s say your niche is within the medical field. People want the latest facts. Give them statistics. Show the results of a clinical study. Educate your audience on the topics most important to them.
3. Entertain
Hit your audience with interesting trivia. Offer a downloadable game. Post a humorous cartoon. There’s nothing wrong with providing a little humor and wacky information to entertain your blog readers.
4. Enlighten
If you’re writing a business blog, it is in your best interest to inform and enlighten the public. Three popular approaches include:
How-to Articles: Provide detailed step-by-step instructions. Example: How to Play Backgammon
Top ‘X’ Lists: Offer a numbered list of suggestions. Example: Top 10 Ways to Save Money
Tips: Deliver small paragraphs of information that makes life easier. Example: Tips on Filing Your 2009 Taxes
How many websites have you come across that display that intimidating “wall of text” – blocks and blocks of never-ending paragraphs that often bore readers to death? A wall of text is literally painful to endure and can actually cause eyestrain and headaches. That doesn’t seem like a very effective way to keep readers on your personal or business website and/or blog.
Always remember that writing for online readers is much different than writing for print. In order to attract repeat visitors to your website or blog – you need to promote easy scanning of the text.
Let’s face it – people rarely read an entire blog post or web page. They rarely dissect every word or fully absorb all information. Instead, they scan the page. Certain words, phrases, and sentences will catch their eye. If you’re successful in keeping their attention, you may gain a reader that will digest most of what you have to say. Successful websites learn how to make things easy for readers. They may use:
Subheadings.
Alert your audience to distinct changes in your text. Make the information that is most important to readers easier to find. For instance, a business offering an article on various training tricks for animals could use ‘Dogs,’ ‘Cats,’ and ‘Birds’ as their subheadings. A dog-owner that comes to the site will save a lot of time by easily locating the training tips focused on dogs.
Bulleted lists.
Call attention to significant pieces of information by using bulleted lists instead of burying details in a wall of text.
Highlight keywords.
Lure your reader to certain blocks of text by highlighting certain words and phrases. When you highlight keywords in your text, you can choose to change the typeface or color, or use hypertext links.
A simplified writing style.
Remember to use vocabulary that is easy to follow. Let’s say you’re trying to sell a product. Deliver the most important information to potential consumers in a concise manner. In other words, don’t lose the interest of a reader by using ‘big words’ that typically don’t see the light of day outside of the dictionary.
One idea at a time.
Each paragraph should address one idea at a time. Some readers tend to skip the end of paragraphs. Position the most important information within the first few words.
Short paragraphs.
Long-winded paragraphs not only lose the attention of a reader, but also contribute to a wall of text that smothers key points.
The inverted pyramid.
Take a hint from newshounds and embrace the inverted pyramid approach when writing for the Internet. Deliver the conclusion first, followed by the most important details. Basically, the ‘who,’ ‘what,’ ‘when’, ‘where’, and ‘how’ are presented in the first paragraph. The end of your article, web page, or blog post is then used to give background information. When using an inverted-pyramid writing style, visitors can stop reading at any point and you’ve still impacted their lives.
With the downward spiral of the economy, an increasing number of people are looking to make a career change into a more stable field. If you’ve been employed at your current place of business for quite some time, you’ll probably have to freshen up your resume. As employers sift through the piles of resumes riddled with qualifications, skills, and educational prowess – will yours stand out for all the right reasons?
Sometimes, the difference between landing a job interview and not receiving the call you’ve been waiting for comes right down to the presentation of your resume. Don’t fall victim to the following mistakes:
A Generic Free-for-All
Are you applying to several different positions and decided to send the same generic resume out to every single company on your list? Since no two businesses are alike – you’re missing out on the power of tailoring your resume to fit the organization. Take the time to customize the skills, professional experience, and characteristics that you possess to accommodate the needs of a potential employer. Use their job description as a guide. Increase your chances of being noticed by incorporating relevant keywords found within the ad. Employers know when a resume lacks focus. If you send out generic results, you’ll receive a generic response: “Thank you for your application, but….”
It’s Not a Thesis Paper…
Plunging into the dictionary to locate the most “smart”-sounding words to describe your skills and experience isn’t the best approach to impressing a potential employer. Sometimes, hundreds of applications are beckoning the attention of interviewers. If he or she has to take a breather when scanning your qualifications– you’re probably not going to get a phone call. It’s best to replace long-winded sentences with concise bullet points. Leave “impressive” terminology to the English professors. Stick with getting straight to the point in as few words as possible.
Avoid Discrimination
Age discrimination is a sad but true reality. An employer either fears you’re too expensive to hire or doubts your ability to keep up with the latest trends and technology. Some job seekers at the senior level make it a habit to only list about 15 years worth of jobs. They may also delete the date of their college graduation to avoid age discrimination.
Watch your typos!
Careless Mistakes
It’s a shame when you’re credibility as a professional is damaged…and a potential employer hasn’t even met you yet. View a resume as your ‘voice’ until you are able to dazzle an interviewer with your charisma and sharp wit. Years of valuable experience and impressive skills are often overlooked when a resume is plagued with spelling mistakes, grammatical blunders, and poor punctuation. Keep in mind that a boss looking for someone with an attention to detail who also takes pride in his or her work will send your application to the ‘NO’ pile without a second thought if it is poorly presented.
Professional vs. Personal
Resume clutter is an instant turn-off for hiring managers, who are viewing application after application. Some people make the mistake of disclosing a little too much information regarding their personal and private life. A potential employer does not want to know your marital status, birth date, or what you like to do on the weekends. A well-organized resume should not include the link to your Facebook or MySpace page. Know when not to cross the lines of professionalism. Eliminate any personal details that have nothing to do with your ability to perform job duties.
“We’re in a recession.”
Photo by iboy daniel
No one wants to hear those words, especially small business owners. Now that the phrase has been uttered, what can you do to make sure your business survives?
First – take heart in the fact that, even during a recession, both society and the economy depend on small businesses. The import-dependent US relies heavily on local business owners to stabilize an unsteady economy. Even more inspiring, some of the most successful companies in the nation seen their beginnings during shaky economical times.
- The last large-scale recession in the 70’s and early 80’s seen the start of FedEx, Microsoft, and CNN.
- During the Eisenhower recession of 1957 and 1958, Hyatt Hotels, IHOP, and Burger King began.
- General Electric was born in the short, but fierce, recession of 1873.
And if we look back to the Great Depression of the 1930’s, the banking industry struggled miserably but companies like Proctor & Gamble, Radio Flyer, and even Camel (the cigarette manufacturers) came out on top.
How can your business survive the recession?
Photo by Amagill
Advertise and build your brand. While a slow economy may seem like the time to cut expenses, the companies that prospered during the Great Depression were those that continued to push their brand. In the ’30’s, radio was the medium of choice. Today, businesses are taking advantage of the world wide web to spread their name.
Buy local whenever you can. Buying your materials and supplies from domestic vendors will stimulate the economy by encouraging employment and profits that, in turn, can increase your own sales and revenues.
Make quality your priority. Even if your product or service isn’t one of life’s necessities, great customer care and attention to detail can give your business the edge it needs to stay afloat during tough times. Great products from a respectable provider will always have a place in society.
Surviving an economic crunch with your small business isn’t easy – but it is possible. Even startups can prosper during a recession with a bit of work and the proper goals. Keep your brand fresh on the minds of prospective clients through effective marketing, do your part to keep the economic cycle flowing, and deliver the absolute best product or service you possibly can and your business will continue to grow – even through a recession.
Photo by wtl photos
From cars and transport to homes and furniture, there seems to be a green alternative to just about everything these days – shouldn’t your business be one of those options? Many companies are taking steps to make their products and operations more eco friendly. Green businesses play a major role in the future of sustainability and also share a huge profit potential as more people adopt environmentally-friendlier lifestyles.
Why Go Green with Your Business?
Scientists have finally agreed that global warming is primarily caused by human activities and that the future doesn’t look too bright – especially if we continue to live with our present habits. Reducing carbon emissions and finding more sustainable solutions for living are a priority if we want to continue existing on our planet.
The most important reason to green your business – as well as your personal lifestyle – is to protect our planet, our population, our animals, and our future.
Your clients and consumers will also benefit. Companies that contribute to pollution and do nothing to curb emissions will eventually be forced to change their habits, either due to environmental protection laws or because the planet simply won’t support their harmful behavior any longer. Whatever the reason, these businesses will invest a great deal of money into financing the necessary changes and will then pass those costs to the consumer. Adopting greener business policies now can save you and your clients money in the future.
Finally, greener practices can increase your bottom line. While going green may seem costly at first, most environmentally friendly choices will save your business money in the long run. This could come in the form of lower electric bills, tax incentives, reduced disposal fees, or even increased sales.
How to Green Your Business
Photo credit: Net Efekt
Going green is obviously a smart choice for both you and your business – but what can you do to be more environmentally friendly? For some companies, the answer is obvious. An oil company, for example, would be wise to search for and manufacture alternative fuel options. A manufacturing business may examine cleaner ways to produce their products or choose more sustainable materials for the process.
Many businesses, however, will need to look for more subtle ways to adopt greener practices. This could be something as simple as changing a light bulb or recycling. I’ve already mentioned 3 small things you can do to make your business greener in another post – here are a few more!
The Brick and Mortar Business World
Small offices, local stores, hair salons, and other small businesses that make our neighborhoods complete can find a variety of ways to make their company more environmentally friendly. Many of the same things we do to reduce, reuse, and recycle at home can be used in the office:
- Switch out standard light bulbs for Energy Star bulbs.
- Avoid chemical-laden cleaners and products, opting for eco-friendly versions.
- Substitute Styrofoam or plastic cups and food containers with biodegradable dishes.
- Recycle paper, plastic, and aluminum that passes through your office.
- If you can’t reuse boxes and shipping cartons that enter your doors, find a local arts and crafts program, moving company, or school that may have a use for them.
- Encourage shoppers to bring reusable shopping bags rather than contributing to the ever-growing plastic bag problem.
- Search for vendors and suppliers that do their part to improve the environment.
Home Based Businesses and Online Companies
Several of the ideas listed above can also make your internet or home based business more eco friendly. Some of these suggestions may work with a small office or shop as well:
- Purchase durable and sustainable computers and electronics.
- Use lamps with energy saving bulbs rather than overhead lights.
- Offer shipping with an eco-friendly carrier using biodiesel or alternative fuel.
- Save important information digitally rather than printing.
- Choose recycled and biodegradable packing materials.
Contractors, Builders, Landscapers, etc.
If your small business operates on the road or at the job site rather than out of an office, you can still make it greener.
- Provide estimates and invoices via email rather than wasting paper – use a recycled option if paperwork is a necessity.
- Power your equipment and tools with a diesel generator and consider biomass.
- Choose cleaner fuel alternatives for trucks and heavy machinery as well.
- Mulch, recycle, sell, or donate waste materials rather than burning or dumping.
- Buy materials and parts locally – from sustainable suppliers – whenever possible.
There are plenty of little things every business owner can do to make a greener, healthier planet. Your business can go green without buying a company hybrid or installing wind turbines – the little changes are just as important and equally beneficial!
What is your business doing to go green? Do you think more companies should adopt eco friendly policies? Share your thoughts on green businesses in the comments!
As a business owner, you’re hoping for huge success! Most entrepreneurs can identify with that desire. If you believe in your products or services, your goal will be to proudly introduce the masses to those products or services.
When you start to taste that sweet, exciting flavor of success, the feeling is indescribable. However, as you grow your business and become more successful – beware the bloated ego. Here are some of the dangers of letting your success go to your head!
Getting Too Comfortable In Your Success –
While success is the thing every entrepreneur, business owner or company hopes for – gaining it also increases vulnerability. It’s very easy to become comfortable in your success and when this happens, you’re not far from forgetting that you can fail. One success after another and before long, a business individual can feel invincible.
When you become comfortable and feel invincible, this opens up a weak spot for the competition to feed on. At the beginning of a business or a new deal, most individuals work tirelessly to achieve success and are excited about what the future can bring. At this point, it’s easy to see how success can be drawn to those individuals. When you let that fire go and become too comfy cozy, a host of problems can threaten to overtake you.
Becoming Closed-Minded –
If you ask my grandmother why she mixes her bread from scratch and lets it rise for hours before baking it, she will say, “Because that’s the way I’ve always done it and it works.”
It does work (and is delicious, by the way) but for just a few dollars she could purchase the frozen bread that rises in an hour and tastes just as good. She would shave several hours off of her preparation and would be a lot more efficient with her time. Becoming closed-minded about the way you do things is another danger of letting your success go to your head.
If you refuse to see the advantage of trying new ways to complete a project or sell your products, your business will never stay on the forefront of your industry. There are other businesses that are doing things more efficiently and you must stay competitive if you want to stay successful. By staying a step ahead of the competition and keeping your processes and methods innovative, you can hang on to that success!
Forgetting about the ‘Little Guys’ –
I’m one of those people who will brag and brag about a company I love and if I’ve had a bad experience, I will tell everyone! For instance, recently my family went out to a nice restaurant for dinner. After our drinks came, we waited more than an hour for our waitress to come and take our dinner order. There were two other parties there besides ours – and we waited an hour! Assuming there was a crisis in the kitchen that demanded all available hands, we went ahead and ordered dinner.
After a mediocre meal with no drink refills, we left the restaurant. A few days later, I discovered that my credit card had been charged not once, not twice but THREE times for the same meal. When I called the owner, I received an attitude and a half-hearted offer for a free meal. It was a terrible experience and we never went back. My entire family and all of my friends had to live through this story of the restaurant from hell and not a single one of them visited. Knowing my family and friends – I’m sure the story was passed around.
Your customers should never be forgotten. As you’re experiencing your success, don’t forget about the people who have helped you get there. Without your customers – you are nothing, so take it to heart when they purchase from you or remain loyal to you. If you truly appreciate their business, let them know with great customer service and rewards! Losing one customer may not hurt your business, but word of mouth continues to be the most powerful form of advertising – so make sure that advertising is good and not bad!
In closing, success is wonderful but it’s a double-edged sword. Stay on your toes with your business and refuse to allow success to force you into complacency. Keep in mind, there is always another company with services similar to yours waiting to fill your shoes and do the things you neglect to do!
Don't let Microsoft Spell Checker create lazy habits in your writing!
The inspiration behind this post comes from the red-squiggly line that greets me every time I type ‘positivity’ into a sentence. Let’s face it – Microsoft Spell Checker is not our best friend, especially when we’ve become too dependent on using its services. Oftentimes, this popular feature provides a false sense of security, from stressed-out college students to the best of writers. Spell Checker makes it much easier to skimp on proofreading or glance over similarly spelled words.
Spell Checker also makes us lazy and less adept in our writing. We start to form habits impossible to kick – like ingrained spelling errors that we’ll use whether we’re typing a blog comment or drafting a handwritten thank-you letter. I’m guilty of it – when I email friends or engage in a bit of Instant Messaging, my spelling is sometimes comical. I find that I’m usually misspelling some of the same words over and over again, but instead of grabbing the dictionary and committing these common flaws to memory – I brush it off because I know Spell Checker will serve as my attentive companion.
However, we are often placed in everyday writing situations where the computer does not come to the rescue, like:
- Completing college exam essays
- Typing directly into online forms
- Sending a postcard to loved ones
- Writing a simple school sick-note for your kids
Where is Spell Checker then? Nowhere to be found and in the end, your spelling accuracy and grammar suffers. Then, there are the people who rely on Spell Checker to not only catch their spelling mistakes, but to also correct their grammar bloopers. What happens when they encounter a Web editor that doesn’t offer this feature?
Don’t Weaken Your Image
For the freelance writer, typos are not only embarrassing, but they often suggest unprofessional work when you’re guilty of the blunder more than once. Clients are not paying for mistakes and errors. While we are all imperfect humans and occasional slips of the proofreading process are to be expected, many clients in the business world are unforgiving. And please, please, please – whatever you do – don’t overlook a typo on your resume.
Recommendation: Always manually proofread your pages and when dealing with a large amount, print out your work and edit away from the computer. Sometimes, the strain of looking at a bright screen when going over your writing can contribute to overlooked misspelling and grammatical errors.
We’re All Victims…
Just the other day, I sent an article in for a second round of proofreading and was alerted to a rather embarrassing slip of the eye. Apparently, I had substituted “pubic” for “public.” I reread the article several times, yet did not pick up on the mistake. Sometimes, you just have to step away from a piece for a few moments to give your eyes a chance to refocus. There is a fine line between knowing what you want to say and actually accomplishing it without error. At times, we are truly blinded when it comes to proofreading our own work, especially if it’s regarding a piece we’ve spent a great deal of time on.
However, that’s why at Priceless Writers, clients not only have one sweep of the proofreading wand, but at least two once-overs by fellow partners. We keep each other on our toes, pointing out the glaring and not-so-obvious mistakes that appear hidden in text.
And, we don’t rely on our not so best friend, Mr. or Mrs. Spell Checker.
Search engine optimization is still one of the biggest challenges faced by any webmaster – even in the socially-saturated world of web 2.0, ranking well in the search engines continues to be the foundation to a successful website. Thousands of dollars are spent each month hiring specialists, buying links, and investing in ‘the latest’ optimization tricks…but is it worth it?
The Ever-Changing Face of Search Engines
I was talking with a web design and branding specialist a few days ago and we were discussing the SEO needs of a few of his clients. “There are so many different companies out there and things change so fast,” he said. “How can you know what’s going to work and what’s not?”
It is estimated that Google provides results for more than 90 million searches each day. What company would jeopardize that sort of success by placing irrelevant or nothing but ad websites in their top results? Photo by manfrys via Flickr
Well, the first thing to remember is that success doesn’t happen overnight – even in the search engines. Promises of “instant rankings” and “thousands of backlinks” are usually not as good as they may sound. Search engines like Google and Yahoo are continuously changing their ranking formulas to prevent successful results from methods like these.
So What Works?
While gaining your company first place ranking on Google does require the right combination of several different factors, search engine optimization is really not as complicated as you may believe. The first logical step in determining the best strategy is to consider what the search engines like to see – Google’s webmaster guidelines are probably the best resource for this.
Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.
Taken from the Quality Guidelines section, the above passage sums up the foundation to SEO that works. Before spending time, money, and resources on strategies and programs to improve your search rankings – invest in techniques that will benefit your readers and improved search rankings will naturally follow.
There Must Be More to It…
You’re right, simply putting up a website with a few informative articles and a how-to will not put you at the top of Google. Search rankings are primarily determined by keywords and their relativity to the site and the number of links pointing to the site, as well as the wording and context of those links and the authority of the linking site.
So What’s the Truth About SEO?
Like the driving force behind a successful brick-and-mortar business, the reputation of a worthwhile website will pave the way for longterm success. Easy navigation, a well-designed site, and interesting, entertaining, and informative content related to your niche will increase the possibility your visitors will return, it will generate backlinks from other related websites, and it will allow easy access to search spiders that determine rankings.
Photo by jeffrey Beall via Flickr
There are a number of details that can improve your chances of success:
- The quality and usefulness of information.
- The keywords and phrases selected.
- The placement of those keywords in the content and website.
- Techniques to boost the visibility of the website.
But the foundation of search engine success, as well as business success in general, is providing your audience with something they consider useful enough to share with their friends.
Subscribe to our blog to learn more useful tips on search engine optimization and making your content work for you and be sure to sign up for Priceless News to learn the frightening facts SEO firms hope you never learn, coming in the October issue.
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