Share Your Shipping Success Story, Get Featured by USPS |  |
- Share Your Shipping Success Story, Get Featured by USPS
- How To Make Your Business Blog Informative
- Are You Underusing The Cloud? Why Small Businesses Need To Get With The Times
- Copyright Law: What Intellectual Property is Protected?
- Want Great Marketing: Follow Apple’s Example
- Obama Hugger Suffers Business Backlash
| Share Your Shipping Success Story, Get Featured by USPS Posted: 13 Sep 2012 01:00 PM PDT The United States Postal Service added a new community feature on its Facebook page this year. Companies can share their shipping success stories and possibly gain some exposure for their business in the process.
Success Stories was launched in February and is expected to run indefinitely. The thought behind the program is to help spread the word about Priority Mail Flat Rate and Regional Rate products to small and medium sized businesses, according to Patricia Licata of the USPS. But businesses that share their shipping success stories could also gain some valuable exposure from the page if their story is featured. Upon visiting the Success Stories page, you can select one of three product offerings to view business success stories relating to each of those product offerings:
For example, ZIPS Dry Cleaners of Elkridge, MD used the USPS's Every Door Direct Mail product to target nearby customers and send them information and coupons to persuade them to come to the store. ZIPS offers a unique customer experience because customers can actually see the dry cleaning process in the store, but actually getting customers to come in was proving to be a challenge. The store said that they saw a great return on their investment by using Every Door Direct Mail, and they continue to use it to target customers in their surrounding neighborhoods. Another company, Sk8ology, which sells skateboard deck mounting fixtures so that skaters can display their decks at home, said that the USPS's Flat Rate shipping option really helped the home-based business simplify its shipping process and instead spend more time focusing on the business itself. Under each success story is a link to the business's website and Facebook page. So while USPS has designed this feature to showcase some of its small business products, it has also created a place where those companies can get some extra exposure for their products and services. The post Share Your Shipping Success Story, Get Featured by USPS appeared first on Small Business News, Tips, Advice - Small Business Trends. |
| How To Make Your Business Blog Informative Posted: 13 Sep 2012 11:00 AM PDT There's a fine line between having a fun and interesting blog and having an informative blog. Too much interesting content without information, and you'll never meet your goals with your blog. Too great a focus on information, and, well… you aren't going to have a readership.
But, I believe that it's possible to combine the two. Creating an informative business blog that is still interesting is definitely one of the more challenging aspects of content marketing, but here are 7 tips to help you do the job: Tip #1: Be Specific: General is BadThe more specific your business blog is, the better. That doesn't mean you should feel limited to just one topic, but you should have an ideal reader in mind that you consider in light of every piece you publish. It’s okay to focus on niche markets (like the food industry or the real estate industry, etc.), but for the most part, focus on delivering content marketing advice for all types of small businesses. My point? It's okay to be ultra-specific from time to time, but you should never be ultra-general. Tip #2: Personal And In-House ContentNo matter what kind of business you run, there's about a 99.99% chance that someone else is doing nearly the exact same thing. However, you're still unique because of the people behind your business. A great way to be informative and interesting is to share in-house content about your business. Celebrate your company's successes with your business blog by sharing case studies, milestones, and more. It's a great way to educate readers about what you do, while also offering something they can't get anywhere else. Tip #3: Solve Customer ProblemsYou know what people love? Having their problems solved. Businesses exist because they create solutions. Why not do that with your blog? This is one of the best ways to provide information. And, if someone's reading your blog, chances are it's because you have the answers they need. Take a customer's real problem, solve it, then share about it. Tip #4: Interview, Interview, Interview!What's better than sharing your own knowledge? Sharing knowledge from someone who is smarter or more experienced than you. Start asking to interview the experts in your industry. I bet you'll be surprised by how easy it actually is. Everyone wants exposure, right? Plus, once you interview a big name, it opens up many more doors of opportunity. If you ask someone for permission to interview them for your blog, more often than not, they'll say yes. It makes the interviewee look good; it makes you appear well connected; it provides valuable information to the reader; everyone wins. Tip #5: It's Not All About YouI know, crazy, right?! I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you are not creating the bulk of your industry's content. That being the case, it's time you start sharing the best of the best – even if it means sharing a competitor's content. When you share other people's informative content, not only does it strengthen your reputation, but readers will welcome it. After all, they're coming to your blog to get information, not to listen to you jabbering on from your soapbox. And you never know what sort of networking opportunities open up when you openly share the good of your competitors. Tip #6: Are You Interested?This should go without saying, but you'd be surprised how often it happens. If you aren't interested in the content you're sharing, no way are your readers going to be interested. Tip #7: Judge Yourself on InteractionHow is your blog doing with traffic? Comments? Re-tweets? If the answer is "so-so," then your business blog probably isn't informative – or you're just having some serious SEO issues. Generally though, interaction is a good indicator of whether or not your blog is informative. Start implementing these tips to make your content beam with knowledge and tell us, how do you make your business blog informative? The post How To Make Your Business Blog Informative appeared first on Small Business News, Tips, Advice - Small Business Trends. |
| Are You Underusing The Cloud? Why Small Businesses Need To Get With The Times Posted: 13 Sep 2012 09:30 AM PDT Arthur Piccio writes for The Art of Small Business, UPrinting.com's Small Business Resource. UPrinting business cards are the top choice for small businesses across the United States. A recent study suggested that around 51% of Americans believe storms affect cloud computing. While that might technically true if a storm disrupts lines and data centers- it seems to indicate a general trend where most don't really get what cloud computing is. To emphasize this point – in the same survey, around 9 out of 10 Americans who claim not to use cloud computing technology have actually used it through online purchases. The real kicker is, the reason most businesses cite for not adopting cloud computing tech is the cost – puzzling considering this technology has brought about a quantum leaps in cost efficiency and convenience. What is clear though is that a lot of smaller businesses are inadvertently passing up the chance to save money and improve efficiency – and it's most likely due to a misunderstanding of what cloud computing can do. As an online printer, we get a significant portion of our business from the "cloud." We'd be nowhere without it! While we don't expect every business to be as heavily invested in cloud computing as we are – it's safe to say it offers significant advantages for everyone with a secure internet connection. But a lot of the time, it just plain makes more sense to keep data and use in a location other than the computer you're immediately using. That's the reason why most of us use email hosted by a 3rd party, for instance. But you'd be surprised that a lot of small business owners and entrepreneurs don't know you can do the same with almost everything. Cloud computing, as much as I dislike the vagueness of the term, has dramatically lowered barriers that have prevented small businesses from operating as efficiently as much bigger ones. Using spreadsheet software as an example, smaller operations no longer need to be hobbled by the cost of obtaining licenses to legally use spreadsheet programs that offer the functionality that more expensive tools have. The fact that these tools are offered in the cloud for free also makes it possible to save on resources that would be otherwise spent standardizing processes in businesses with multiple physical locations. The cost of secure data storage and access is also now so miniscule for the average user, that you can get away with almost no data infrastructure at all, allowing you to put more money into your ideas and making them work. And this is really just the tip of the iceberg. We deal with printing issues and some of the most common cloud storage tools used by our customers include Apple's iCloud, Box, Mozy, Windows Sky Drive, SugarSync, GoogleDrive, YouSendIt, Dropbox, and CX. And this is just for storage. Other industries and applications may use these or other tools as well. Most of these tools can be had for free, or at a cost much lower than it would to have these systems conventionally. It's a stupid name, yes. But if you truly care about your business, there's no longer an excuse to be ignorant about The Cloud. The post Are You Underusing The Cloud? Why Small Businesses Need To Get With The Times appeared first on Small Business News, Tips, Advice - Small Business Trends. |
| Copyright Law: What Intellectual Property is Protected? Posted: 13 Sep 2012 08:00 AM PDT Every business has intellectual property that is entitled to protection and from which it can potentially derive profit. One such area is copyright law; although there is often confusion about 1) what exactly is protected by copyright law, 2) how the copyrights are secured, and 3) who exactly is the owner when a copyrightable work is created by an independent contractor or subcontractor.
Copyright Protects Tangible Expressions of Ideas Copyright law protects "original works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible form of expression." It is limited to these specific categories: literary works; musical works, including any accompanying words; dramatic works, including any accompanying music; pantomimes and choreographic works; pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; motion pictures and other audiovisual works; sound recordings; and architectural works. But, these categories should be interpreted broadly. Does Your Business Own Any Copyrightable Works? Copyright protection isn't just for authors and artists. Does your business produce, create or record any of the following in a tangible form, paper or digital? If so, then you most likely have copyrightable works:
Not Everything is Protected by Copyright It's important to note is what is NOT protected by copyright law. Only the actual expression of an author is protected, not the underlying idea itself. Copyright protection does NOT extend to:
What Rights Does Copyright Provide? Copyright means the owner has the exclusive right to do and authorize others to do the following to the original work:
However, these rights are subject to certain statutory exceptions, such as "fair use" and parody. The copyright owner may be entitled to recover certain statutory and civil damages and other remedies for infringement of these rights if the work is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. Who is the Owner of the Copyright? A work is protected from the time it is fixed in its tangible form. The owner is the person who created the work. When a person is an employee and the work is in the scope of their employment, the work is considered "work for hire" and the owner is the company. However, if a person is an independent contractor creating work for a company, the owner is the person UNLESS certain conditions are met: 1) there must be a written agreement indicating that the work is being created for the company by the contractor as a "work for hire" AND 2) the work must fall into one of the following categories:
Notice of Copyright It is to your benefit to put a copyright notice on a work, although it's no longer required under U.S. law. The notice precludes any infringer from claiming they didn't know the work was protected. An example of the proper form is: © 2012 Author's Name. How to Secure a Copyright Copyright in a work is secured automatically when the work is created in a fixed medium. No publication or registration or other action is required to secure copyright. However, there are definite advantages to registration, including the right to recover statutory damages for any infringement of the work. Filing fees range from $35 – $65 per work, although under certain circumstances group registrations may be possible. If you wish to secure a copyright registration, either visit Copyright.gov or find an intellectual property attorney to assist you. Copyright Photo via Shutterstock The post Copyright Law: What Intellectual Property is Protected? appeared first on Small Business News, Tips, Advice - Small Business Trends. |
| Want Great Marketing: Follow Apple’s Example Posted: 13 Sep 2012 05:00 AM PDT On August 20, 2012, Apple surpassed Microsoft to become the largest public company in history. It's a fact that makes it easy to forget that, not that long ago, Apple didn't even exist. What's contributed greatly to Apple's success is great marketing. As most people know, Steve Jobs was a big believer in great, smart, creative marketing. It's something he believed in from the very beginning of Apple.
Back in 1976 when Apple was just starting, Steve and his two partners had some big decisions to make. One, was about marketing. Unlike other startups and small businesses who see marketing as a questionable or unaffordable expense, Steve saw it as an important investment that was absolutely necessary to get the word out and grow the business – even with limited funds. So, just months after incorporating, Jobs hired ad agency Regis McKenna. The agency designed Apple's logo and handled all of Apple's early advertising, marketing, and branding. Apple took off. A few years later, after Regis was sold to Chiat/Day, Apple continued a close relationship with Chiat to produce some of the most brilliant advertising of all time. Steve Jobs will go down as one of the greatest marketers in history. Yet he'd be the first to tell you that most of the credit belongs to the great advertising and marketing people he hired. Because Steve was such a dynamic front man for Apple, it's easy to think he deserves all the marketing and advertising credit. He was involved with all of it, and he had the final say, but he didn't create it. Steve came up with the Apple name and that's about it. The iconic "1984" and "Think Different" campaigns were created by the agency. The name "iMac" was created by the agency. All the advertising and marketing for the Mac, iMac, iPod, iPhone, including the brilliant "Mac vs PC" campaign was created by the agency. And, what many people will find hard to believe is that some of the best marketing ideas for Apple were ones that Steve didn't even like…at least initially. Recently I had the opportunity to speak with adman Ken Segall who worked directly with Jobs for 12 years as his ad agency Creative Director. In Ken's book, "Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success,” he describes an episode with Steve in 1997 when Ken's team was given the assignment to name the innovative, new, candy-colored Mac that Apple was about to introduce. Steve informed them that the name that he had in mind was "MacMan" and they had two weeks to come up with something better. Confident that "MacMan" would not be hard to beat, Ken scheduled a meeting with Jobs the following week. At the meeting he presented a handful of names including "iMac." As Ken tells it, "Steve hated them all" and informed them that they now had one week to justify their jobs and come up with something better than "MacMan." Not the reaction that Ken was expecting. A week later, Ken and his team presented some new names, including "iMac" again, with stronger arguments as to why it was the best name. Listening to Ken's strong conviction Steve paused thoughtfully and said something like, "Well, I still hate it. But, I hate it a little less this week." The rest is history. It's a great story because while everyone knows the names iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, few people know how close we came to MacMan, PodMan, PhoneMan, and PadMan. It's also an important lesson in marketing and management. Because as smart as Steve Jobs was, he was also smart enough to know the areas where others knew more than him — like creative marketing. It takes a certain amount of guts for any business owner to trust the ideas and direction of outside marketing experts, especially when there's no guarantee those ideas will work. Steve obviously had the guts and trust in the people he hired. So did Ryan Blair — a small business owner who followed Apple's example by creating a great product and investing early in the best people to get the word out. Ryan's company, ViSalus, is now valued at over $600 million. In a recent interview, Ryan was asked about his most valuable business lesson: "Hire the best possible people that money can buy." Like Steve, Ryan had the guts and vision to choose that path even when he was a startup with little money – and even when he had to pay some people more than he paid himself. While I've never worked with Steve Jobs, I and my partners, have had the pleasure of helping other savvy business owners like him. One was an ambitious young shoe designer who left his dad's shoe business because his old school dad didn't believe that spending money on marketing was a good investment. That young man was Kenneth Cole. And what started as a few attention getting ads became the foundation for what is now one of the most successful fashion brands in the world. We're happy to continue helping other savvy small business owners who, like Steve and Kenneth, understand the value of investing in smart, creative marketing. So, I offer this piece to the business owners who still struggle with the idea of investing in high level, creative, marketing help. Apple makes the perfect case study. As a small business owner Steve Jobs understood that regardless of how great Apple's products were, his business would fail if the marketing didn't connect with, and emotionally resonate with, the regular people he was trying to reach. Apple's marketing success is the combination of great products, a relentless desire to tell the world about them, and Steve's ability to find the right, talented people to help do that. Apple Logo Photo via Shutterstock The post Want Great Marketing: Follow Apple’s Example appeared first on Small Business News, Tips, Advice - Small Business Trends. |
| Obama Hugger Suffers Business Backlash Posted: 13 Sep 2012 02:30 AM PDT We try to stay away from politics as much as possible, even during the U.S. Presidential election season, but one item this week just cried out to be looked at more closely for the benefit of small business owners. That was the case of Big Apple Pizza owner Scott Van Duzer of Ft. Pierce, Fla., who made headlines Sunday for bear-hugging President Barack Obama during the President’s visit to his establishment. The fallout from the incident has been blogged about by many in the business community because of what it has to say about the dangers of mixing business and politics and the power of social media to affect your brand. Here’s more analysis: Bear Hugs and BoycottsBiting the hand that feeds. First, Van Duzer is a registered Republican but supports the President, a Democrat, anyway. Some critics took to Yelp, the customer review site, after the incident, with one user questioning why Van Duzer would risk his business by potentially alienating half his customers who don’t support Obama. Los Angeles Times Branded a traitor. While one angry troll on Yelp vowed he would never eat at Van Duzer’s restaurant because of his support for Obama, others soon appeared to defend the small business owner and improve his Yelp rating in the process. But he says he also faces a boycott of his restaurant from those angry over his politics. Newser Critically AcclaimedYelp needs some help. The thing about both Yelp entries attacking Big Apple Pizza and those supporting the business is that many of the entries had little or nothing to do with the quality of the restaurant’s food. Blogger Greg Sterling points out the worst part of this is that technically many of the comments violate the review site’s terms of service, raising questions about the kinds of comments the site is allowing. Search Engine Land The other side of the coin. Despite the problems seen in the case of Big Apple Pizza, Yelp and other social media sites can be great, simple ways for small businesses to establish a Web presence even without resources to design a Website. Customer feedback is the best way to build your brand, so consider, absent the politics, how these tools can work for you. Small Biz Diamonds The Right to Remain SilentDon’t wear it on your sleeve. Sales consultant Paul Castain has some advice for business people when it comes to your politics during this contentious political season (and the rest of the time for that matter.) Keep it to yourself! Ask yourself whether venting your political views is worth loosing a sale or loosing business. Sales Playbook Enjoy the parade. The best thing to remember for small business owners watching the Presidential election cycle is that very little proposed by either of the two major parties will do anything to help most small businesses, says small business journalist Dawn R. Rivers. Rivers’s advice is to ignore the promises and work on running your business instead. Small Business Trends A Vote of ConfidenceIf you can’t beat ‘em. It’s not all bad news. In fact, from the importance of branding, to making yourself accessible, to the power of data, the Presidential race can teach small business owners and entrepreneurs plenty about how to create a powerful campaign for their own products or services. Bus!ness Signs The post Obama Hugger Suffers Business Backlash appeared first on Small Business News, Tips, Advice - Small Business Trends. |
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