Vocus: Small Businesses Shouldn’t Have to Piecemeal Their Marketing |  |
| Vocus: Small Businesses Shouldn’t Have to Piecemeal Their Marketing Posted: 08 Jul 2012 11:00 AM PDT PRWeb. Help a Reporter Out (HARO). North Social. Engine 140. iContact. Small business owners, marketers and managers may recognize one or more of these products. But fewer people are familiar with the umbrella brand of Vocus. Vocus is a cloud-based marketing and PR software company. Like some other companies that we've covered here on Small Business Trends, the Vocus goal is to unify a highly fragmented landscape that today contains countless tools each intended for narrow siloed tasks. Few of us have time to investigate all the marketing tools out there for small businesses — let alone master them all and share data seamlessly between them. Vocus wants to make it so that you don't have to. Integrated Products Key to the Strategy The Beltsville, Maryland headquartered company is on a path to connect the dots and provide business users with an integrated experience to save time and be more effective. According to their most recent investor presentation, a key part of their strategy is to provide an all-in-one product suite. “We began to see that SMBs had a variety of point products, used separately, that left SMBs with little integration in product, and consequently, marketing strategy,” explained Frank Strong, Director of PR at Vocus. As a result, the Vocus product strategy has evolved toward integrated product suites to handle more of the small-business marketing process seamlessly, end to end.
Intelligence Interjected into Small Business Marketing Vocus's aim is not only to make marketing easier, but also more intelligent and effective. The social media module, for instance, helps you see and measure activity related to the company Facebook Page, Twitter account and website. It also attempts to provide analysis and intelligence, such as providing suggestions for which Twitter users to follow. For small business owners and managers responsible for a business Twitter account who don't know what to do with it, the Vocus platform is designed to "train" business users while they are using the product:
Click to open larger image in new tab For instance, the “handwritten” note next to Tweets on the Vocus dashboard (see image above) either analyzes the tweet or recommends taking action such as "Check out this important post on Facebook." These recommendations, said Strong, provide direction to busy business owners or marketers. Growth While Learning Along the Way Vocus has grown in part through acquisitions. Case in point: the company acquired email marketing software iContact for $169 million in February of 2012. Another acquisition was PRWeb. During that acquisition, Vocus found it wasn’t PR pros who used PRWeb. Rather, it was small businesses wanting to drive traffic to their websites. “In reality, these customers weren't necessarily seeking a press release distribution, although reporters find information through search as well," said Strong. “They really were after a content marketing system.” Vocus is a publicly-traded company on the NASDAQ, with reported 2011 revenues of $115 million, having grown from $28 million in 2005. Its software products are used by more than 120,000 organizations worldwide, and are available in seven languages. * * * * * Vocus is one of the key brands showing their support of small businesses by sponsoring the Small Business Influencer Awards. From Small Business Trends |
| Read The Pumpkin Plan to Grow Your Business Posted: 08 Jul 2012 05:00 AM PDT
But I'm still laughing out loud in my kitchen at 6am on a Saturday over a cup of steaming coffee (which is when I write these book reviews). I hope the rest of my family doesn't hear me. Let me tell you a little bit about the author, Mike Michalowicz. In the interest of full disclosure, Mike has become a sort of professional friend. That happened after I reviewed his last book, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. He's not the kind of guy everyone likes. Some people may think he isn't serious because there's a playful, unassuming, comedic teenage-sense of humor that you notice first. I mean who else would name their book "Toilet Paper Entrepreneur?" But he's the kind of guy I LOVE because beneath the carefree, frat-boy style is real down-to-earth wisdom that only a small business owner can appreciate. Knowing How to Grow a Great Pumpkin Translates to Growing a Great Business – Really There are lots of analogies about how to grow a great business; fast cars, toilet paper and now pumpkins. I'm dubious about this. Thank the LORD I didn't have to wait until page 85 to get the connection. Mike gets to it on page 15 (whew). Here is the inspiration for the book – an article in his local paper on how to grow GIGUNDA pumpkins in – are you ready – Seven Steps! STEP 1: Plant promising seeds STEP 2: Water, Water, Water STEP 3: As they grow, routinely remove all of the diseased or damaged pumpkins. STEP 4: Weed like a mad dog. Not a single green leaf or root permitted if it isn't a pumpkin plant. STEP 5: When they grow larger, identify the stronger, faster-growing pumpkins. Repeat until you have one pumpkin on each vine. STEP 6: Focus all your attention on the big pumpkin. Nurture it around the clock like a baby, and guard it like you would your first Mustang convertible. STEP 7: Watch it grow. In the last days of the season, this will happen so fast you can actually see it happen. There you have it – the secret to growing a million dollar business in the pumpkin patch. These steps are actually converted to business-speak a page later, but you'll have to read the book to get those. How To Use Pumpkin Plan In Your Business By the time you get through the first chapter – you will be sold. You'll find yourself saying "YES! This is me. I'm going to Pumpkin Plan my business!" But this book is NOT a workbook. You can't just stop reading and do something he talks about. I suppose you can but let's just say you won't want to. You'll want to keep reading, then put the book down, then really think about the wisdom that's between the lines that have you laughing and chuckling to yourself and at the same time SEEING yourself in the myriad stories he tells throughout the book. Let me give you a sort of tip before you even crack the pages – the book starts with a story about not being "That guy" – the guy who gives his whole life to his business and then is sitting on the porch worn and torn drooling (a rather bad paraphrase of Mike). This is the foundation of the book. The pumpkin patch process is what you'll see Mike repeating in a variety of industries and situations. And your job is to read, learn and then apply what you've read to YOUR business. No fancy worksheets, no short cuts, just a little "Work the Plan in 30 Minutes or Less" summary after each section. What strikes me about each of these to-do elements is how much of them are not about DOING – they are about who you are BEING in your business. And remember – you don't want to BE – That guy! Who Should Read Pumpkin Plan And Why While the book is written for the small business owner, I actually think it has HUGE implications for sales folks as well. After all, aren't we ALL sales people? I never thought I would say this, but this pumpkin patch process has wisdom and practicality written all over it. If your business is in those "Life Sucks" stages where you find yourself thinking that all you need is to close that one BIG deal? Yeah – you need this book. Get over it, the big deal isn't going to save you. And if you are doing great, but want more time to enjoy your business and your life, pick this puppy up and free up some time while you make more money. I'm not trying to sell this book to you. I can't promise that what's in the book will grow your business – only the choices you make and actions you take will do that. But, if you implement the Pumpkin Plan, you just might find yourself laughing all the way to the bank. From Small Business Trends |
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