EventTilt: Crowdfunding for Events

EventTilt: Crowdfunding for Events
33 Tools And Resources To Increase Website Trust And Sales
Little Known Brand Monitoring Search Tricks
What Are Sole Proprietors Spending On Payroll?
Gangnam Style Video Finds Viral Success

Posted: 01 Oct 2012 01:00 PM PDT

Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter have already become widely used to help startups and individuals fund new products and initiatives. But now online ticketing startup Picatic is offering a similar opportunity for event planners, promoters, and venues to fund their events through its new service EventTilt.

EventTilt

EventTilt aims to help event planners ensure they'll make a profit before actually going through the whole process of putting on an event. Organizers can even offer incentives like discounted tickets or free merchandise to those who help fund their events.

For businesses that host events, going through the whole planning and execution process can be a huge pain if the event doesn't end up making a profit. This type of site can help avoid the let-down that comes with a less than successful turnout by letting organizers decide on a minimum amount of money or number of attendees needed to make a profit or at least break even before putting on an event. There are fees for posting events on the site, unless the event is free to attend – then users can submit it to the site free of charge.

This concept is different than just giving guests the option to pre-order tickets, because it allows people to donate or purchase tickets to an event before its even booked. If the event receives enough funding or donors, it happens. If it doesn't receive enough funding or donors, then the organizer will know it's not worth the trouble and the event doesn't happen.

Upon visiting the Picatic site, users can browse different events to support. They can see how much tickets are, if there is a discount for supporting the event early, and how many more tickets need to be sold in order for the event to take place. Types of events range from concerts to charity fundraisers and even certain types of sporting events.

Picatic, which has been around since 2008, is not the only startup trying to launch this type of site. But so far none has stood out above the rest, making it the Kickstarter of event crowdfunding sites. And it still remains to be seen if this type of project will catch on with the general public, but the idea behind it could certainly be helpful for many different types of businesses.

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33 Tools And Resources To Increase Website Trust And Sales

Posted: 01 Oct 2012 11:00 AM PDT

After reading Lisa Barone's incredibly useful and popular post “25 Questions Your Site Must Answer,” I felt compelled to look at my site and my client's sites to see what tools I could find and use to start answering as many of the questions as I could.

I'm not done yet, but Lisa inspired me to find the tools to get the job done. Below, I don't answer all of Lisa's questions, as you'll see. Because there is no tool to answer how you are weird or what you believe in, that I can find.

But I love the questions:

1. Where is your search box? How usable is the navigation?

I've created many Custom Search Engine search boxes with Google's tools. Here is how to do it.

2. Are you a real company? Do you have a store? Where is it located? What are the hours? Phone number? I need a map.

Lisa is right on with this one: Show your visitor a map. But first, make sure your site is mobile-enabled.

Frankly, most mobile browsers on smartphones are figuring out how to display even older sites, but it doesn't hurt to take a peek at what yours looks like on different devices. Gomez is one of the best, free tools to test a mobile view. They email you the results. But you can also check out this list from WebDesignerDepot.

Next, go to Google Maps and grab the embed code to insert into your website so that your map is instantly available to a mobile phone user. Here's the Google Maps way to do it.

3. Are you on Twitter? Facebook? Instagram?

Add the social buttons easily with two of the most popular tools: AddThis or ShareThis. If you use WordPress, you'll want to search for plug-ins from within your dashboard, but here's a list to get you thinking.

4. Is there an About page? Are your employees visible? Do you give them a voice?

Easy enough to create an About page. Totally needed. Of course, Lisa is too humble to link to her other post that offers excellent advice “5 Must Haves For That About Us Page.” Here are 12 great examples from BlogTyrant.

In addition to creating a page that profiles employees or your team, make sure your team is connected on LinkedIn by having a Company Page. Head over to their Learning Center to see how to best leverage a company page.

5. What is the culture like? Are you a "good" company?

6. Are there company testimonials? What other people or companies have worked with you? Were they happy with the experience?

I'm going to combine questions 5 and 6 and state ditto on using LinkedIn for testimonials and partnerships. Forget about those testimonials that say, "Susie J. says…" Those are not likely to be believed. Ask your customers to connect and use LinkedIn or use a plugin like this if you use WordPress.

7. What about product or service reviews? What's everyone else saying? Am I making a good decision if I commit to this?

Link to your Yelp profile, if you have one, so people can see what others are saying. If you don't have one, consider getting your business started on Yelp. Possibly even better would be to use GetSatisfaction, the online customer feedback service.

8. If I'm not ready to buy yet, how can I stay in touch? Is there a blog? A newsletter?

One of the main reasons to have a site is to keep advancing the conversation with a customer. Have a Web form to capture names and emails that allow you to stay in touch. I like MailChimp forms as well as Aweber.

9. How do I know if this is the "right" product for me? Is there a sizing guide? A product FAQ? Comparison charts?

You can do this in a spreadsheet, of course, and then embed it or take a screenshot and use that. Read these Microsoft Excel instructions on creating the comparison chart. Or try out Compare Ninja, a Web-based service. You can also take a look at Hongkiat's post on comparison charts which reveal some other tools. Finally, there's a simple HTML chart generator from IzzyWebsite.

10. What's your return policy like? Will I stuck with this if I don't like it?

11. Do you ship to where I live? Where are you shipping from? How long will it take me to get my goods?

If you find yourself overwhelmed with shipping, you might want to check out my review of Shipwire that offers fulfillment at an affordable price from multiple warehouses.

12. What are your payment options? Can I pay with Paypal?

Paypal lets you create custom buttons and while their tools are not always super user-friendly, they work. You can create custom invoices, too. They explain how in this FAQ on Paypal Buy Now Buttons. They let you insert the Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express logos, too.

13. Is your Web site secure? Are there icons that tell me that?

If you run an ecommerce store, you are probably already using an SSL connection or on a secure site, but you can make sure you put the certificates front and center as Lisa suggests. Visit Thawte, Network Solutions, Google Trusted Stores, SiteLock, or Verisign (which is owned by Symantec, makers of Norton Antivirus). Each of these lets you have icons to display, of course. You can also remind customers and visitors to look for the little padlock symbol in their browser address bar when shopping.

14. How will you protect my personal information? If I give you my email address, are you going to respect it or sell it?

Read Pam Moore's Social Trust post on Social Media Today for a few ideas. On top of that, use the security badges/icons to show your site is secure. Of course, you could make your own badge/statement of protection around how you are not a spammer and you won't sell my information. That goes a long way to starting the trust process. See answer to question 13.

15. Do your prices make sense? Are you high? Low?

Comparison chart is the way to go, even if you're only comparing your own services or products.

17. Have any of my friends purchased from this site before? Are they connected with you on Facebook? Do you show that off?

See above to add social sharing buttons. Or, check out TabJuice or Payvment which both look to have robust options for a Facebook storefront.

19. Should I trust you? Are you part of any organizations?

This goes along with the security question above, so you could put that Better Business Bureau logo, if you're a member.

20. Do other people seek you out? Do you speak anywhere? Teach a class? Been featured anywhere cool?

Put a "Press Page" on your About Us page. Again, LinkedIn (sign in to find these) offers ways to share this information with add-on tools like Amazon's Reading List app, LinkedIn Events, TripIt's My Travel app, and Slideshare's Presentation tool. If you are a web or software developer, you can highlight your GitHub Social Coding utility via LinkedIn, too, showcasing how you share your code and coding skills.

24. What does your process look like?

Create an easy-to-understand flowchart in a spreadsheet or use Mindmeister to create a mindmap that others can visually see how you think, how you do things.

25. How is this product different from that other one on your Web site? Which is better for me?

The comparison tools listed above can help you.

I'm grateful to Lisa, and I've said this many times before, for the kick in the pants. She cares about readers and wants to help you succeed in getting people to engage via online means.

What tools are you using to get the work done that Lisa put on your plate? (I may be able to use your expertise in a future post.) Or feel free to email me via my Small Business Trends bio page.

Online Questions Photo via Shutterstock

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Little Known Brand Monitoring Search Tricks

Posted: 01 Oct 2012 08:00 AM PDT

Long gone are the days when “Googling” yourself was enough to monitor your online reputation. Things have gotten more complex: there are much more Internet-savvy customers who blog and tweet about your business. Being in the right place at the right time to talk to your customers is the key to the successful social media marketing strategy.

You are most likely to be already tracking your business name mentions online. However there’s much more you want to listen to.

Here are a few little known search ideas you want to play with now:

Google

Google has made it easier to monitor your name mentions via its “Dashboard” that gives you a few search ideas and even lets you set up Google Alerts for all or any of them. Here are a few search ideas to add to the list (except for your first and second name).

Google Reputation management search tips:

Before “Googling” yourself, you’d better sign out of Google and switch to “Hide personal results” mode to get unbiased results;
Be sure to play with additional search tools (i.e. “Time” settings) to get most recent results (from one hour to one year).

Now try searching for the following:

1. Your business official email OR phone number: If someone mentions your (customer support) email address, they must be either helping followers to get in touch with you or sharing their experience with you. In either case, you should be there to help.

2. Your name misspelling. Does Google correct the typo to show your correct name spelling?

Tip! Use this typo generator to get some examples of how your name can be misspelled. If your company name contains a common noun (like “apartments,” “affiliate,” etc.), try looking into this list of most frequent misspellings.

3. Your name Google Search Suggest results. Google Search Suggest is automatic “as-you-type” recommendations of popular searches.

Unless users have “Google Instant” disabled (which few people can do), they are also getting instant results for each of those “suggest” recommendations. So when users are typing your name into the search field, they are getting all sorts of results that might have nothing to do with you (best scenario); they might also be getting some negative search ideas (like “your name reputation,” “your product name torrent,” etc.). No matter what it is, you want to know which brand-name-based search suggestions they are getting).

Tool! Ubersuggest will help you scrape all sorts of Google Search Suggest results by searching your name and adding a letter or a digit after it. So, you’ll get suggest results for [your name]; [your name a]; [your name b]; etc. If you are popular, you may need this tool as well – it will try to go one level deeper and extract phrases for each of your suggested phrase as well:

Twitter

Twitter has a wide variety of interesting advanced search operators I described earlier. Besides, you are probably already monitoring your company @name or your own @username via Twitter replies. However, there are still interesting search hacks to play with.

Twitter reputation management search tips: Twitter is real-time search, so it’s probably useless to simply search it once. So it can be a good idea to monitor search results using one of your preferred social media dashboards. You can also save Twitter search if you are using Web interface more often.

Now the tricks:

4. Search for questions: Is there anyone on Twitter looking to ask a question about your product? You want to be there to reply. To search for brand-related questions, simply add a question mark to your query (with the space included):

5. Track disappointed buyers. This trick is especially useful if you have just launched a new feature or a new product. Tracking negative sentiment is easy with Twitter.

6. Monitor proper “unlinked” reviews. You are probably already tracking your Web mentions via Google Alerts or other tools, so it’s not that useful to monitor them being retweeted again and again. How about pure “unlinked” Twitter conversations about your brand? Easy. Just filter out links (-filter:links) and exclude tweets referencing your Twitter username to unclutter your search (-@myusername):

More Reputation Management Search Tricks

Those will work on both Google and Twitter:

7. OR operator to combine several ways you can be referred to as. For example, [myblogguest OR my blog guest OR myblogguest.com]

8. Define yourself. See how people usually call you: Search ["Your Name is *"]. Don’t forget the parentheses to force the exact match:

There are quite a few great (paid) reputation management tools that make brand monitoring much easier. However, nothing works better than manual search: playing with various search tricks may give you lots of insight into what customers and followers say about your brand.

And here are a few actual tips for improving your brand-related search results:

Guest blog on high-profile blogs in your niche;
Claim your brand name across multiple social media sites (Try KnowEm for that);
Get your business profiled (there are tools like Business Profiles that let you get a separate local page for your business);
Get interviewed (HARO is a great tool for this. Here are some tips for getting podcast-interviewed and John Chow’s tips on getting interviewed by ABC News)
Verify the authorship of your articles (here are simple steps to do that)

Tip! To get organized, add a reputation monitoring task to your calendar as a recurring weekly task.

Are there any other little known reputation management tricks you are using?

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What Are Sole Proprietors Spending On Payroll?

Posted: 01 Oct 2012 05:00 AM PDT

As you no doubt know, employee compensation is a nontrivial part of small business costs. But what you might not realize is how much that cost varies across industries.

Payroll

I have taken Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data on sole proprietorships from 2009, the latest year available, to create a chart of payroll expenditures as a percent of sales for the average sole proprietorship in different industries. (I dropped the industries with fewer than 50 tax returns filed because the numbers are too imprecise.)

You can download the chart, it’s an Excel spreadsheet titled, “Payroll As Percent Sales.”

While the IRS's tendency to release data slowly makes using its numbers to look at trends over time a bit problematic, its figures are still good for making cross industry comparisons. Moreover, since the IRS data are based on tax filings rather than voluntary surveys, they are more comprehensive and more accurate than non-administrative types of data.

The chart may be useful to people for a variety of reasons I can't anticipate. So it's there for people to use, however they see fit.

But permit me to make three observations about it:

First, the fraction of revenues that the average non-farm sole proprietorship spends on payroll is pretty low, coming in at 8.7 percent. That may reflect the fact that relatively few sole proprietors have any employees.

Second, there's a lot of difference across industries in what sole proprietors are spending on payroll, ranging from 0.6 percent of sales for investment bankers and securities dealers to 28 percent for surveying and mapping services.

Third, even in similar types of businesses, there is a surprising difference in payroll expenditures. For instance, the average sole proprietor in architectural services spends 17.6 percent of revenues on payroll versus 8.5 percent for the average sole proprietor in engineering services. Similarly, the average doctor's office set up as a sole proprietorship spends 13.3 percent of receipts on payroll, while the average dentist's office using the same legal form of organization spends 22.6 percent.

Payroll Photo via Shutterstock

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Gangnam Style Video Finds Viral Success

Posted: 01 Oct 2012 02:30 AM PDT

Small business owners and entrepreneurs interested in getting their messages out to the masses had two great examples recently of how that can be done. The first was the incredible viral marketing success of South Korean rapper Park Jae-sang a.k.a. Psy, whose viral video “Gangnam Style” has launched his song by the same name into the top 100. The implications of Psy’s success and that of an…er…aquatic star whose photos also recently blew up on the Web, continue to be debated. But clearly, regardless of what your business might be, the stage is set for a whole new style of global marketing.

The Biggest Picture

Next stop is the top. To everyone’s surprise (perhaps even his own) South Korean singer-songwriter, rapper, dancer, and record producer Jae-sang went from a singer virtually unknown outside his own country to an international brand. The success happened within the space of only a few months in a way that might have seemed almost impossible a few years ago. One of the most important tools Psy used to promote his song, YouTube, is available to any brand today. Billboard

We all scream for…stingrays? Following Psy’s recipe for success, a non-human celebrity achieved viral fame in even shorter time this week, when it photobombed three vacationing women by seemingly spreading its wings around them causing them (apparently) to scream in horror. Granted this may not be the way you want to establish your brand, but it may end up working for Stingray City, a popular tourist destination in the Cayman Islands where the photo may have been taken. Franchise Herald

Phenomenon or flash in the pan. Still, the question raised with Psy and all other such rapid success stories is whether they will have staying power. Clearly all entrepreneurs, whether in the entertainment industry or another market, must consider how to follow up and build upon initial marketing success, gaining momentum and building a sustainable, long-term business. Ad Age

Master Classes

Learning from the Gangnam Style. Besides his amusing dancing style, which has now been copied on numerous parody videos, entrepreneurs and small business owners or marketers interested in replicating Psy’s success can learn a couple of things from his viral approach. Blogger Ivan Widjaya has been following the rise of the rapper’s star via YouTube for some time now and has these thoughts on creating similar success while marketing your brand. Noobpreneur

The art of being everywhere. A big part of marketing success, whether branding or otherwise, is the art of being everywhere. As blogger Francisco Perez noted recently, this is exactly what Jae-sang has achieved with his brand so far, whether it lasts long-term or not. The question is how to best use viral and other marketing methods at your disposal to bring your business to the next level. iBlogZone

Takeaway Truths

More creative than ever. The key to achieving success with your marketing efforts has less to do with following existing formats and more about being creative and finding new approaches that work for your business. Here Internet marketer Ti Roberts explains one approach for gaining exposure for your content and business that you may never have considered. Use Ti’s idea to get outside the box and think creatively about your marketing efforts. The Bus Ridin’ Internet Marketer

Headline hegemony. When marketing your business or brand on the Web, blogger and online marketing expert Jonny Ross suggests using the analogy of catching a reader’s attention with an unforgettable headline. Think about how a particular headline grabs your interest while you’re walking past a newsstand. Now think about how you can generate the same excitement over your brand or message. Apply this approach to the titles of your blog posts too. You’ll attract the attention you need and maybe grab enough people to spread your message even further. Jonny Ross Consultancy

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