Find Apps For Business With Appclick America Marketplace |  |
- Find Apps For Business With Appclick America Marketplace
- How Sick Children Affect Your Small Business
- Use Right Brain Storytelling To Market Your Business
- What’s the Strangest Place You’ve Taken a Business Call? [Sweepstakes]
- How to Feed Your Content Marketing Efforts
- Best Buy Struggles Against Online Merchants
| Find Apps For Business With Appclick America Marketplace Posted: 21 Nov 2012 01:00 PM PST This week, global app store provider SaaS Markets announced the launch of its latest marketplace, Appclick America, giving American small and medium sized businesses access to a searchable database of more than 1,300 web based applications designed to meet a variety of different business needs and purposes. The app store includes categories such as accounting and finance, data management, IT, sales, security, and website and content management.
In the photo above, you can see some of the categories that businesses can browse off to the left, and then some of the apps available in the Business Management and Analytics category, including one sponsored app. Users can also compare the apps and their features to others in the same category to see which one would make the best fit. "As an experienced entrepreneur and tech executive, I know of first-hand the frustrations of trying to identify the right tech tool necessary to manage things like cash flow, projects, outbound marketing and other critical issues that have an outsized effect on business success," said Ferdi Roberts, founder and CEO of SaaS Markets. The apps in the Appclick America marketplace go through a pre-qualification process to ensure that they are appropriate for business users and of high enough quality. Roberts said that 82% of apps are rejected from the site for those reasons, so the ones that make it through are qualified for small business use. With the sheer number of SaaS applications available, a resource like Appclick can help businesses make sense of the selection and choose the apps that best meet the business's needs. And in addition to the apps available for businesses to browse, the site also features some educational resources to help businesses get the most out of their applications and run their businesses more effectively, including demos of some of the available apps. SaaS Markets was founded in 2010 and is based in San Mateo, California and Dublin, Ireland. The company has an internal team that is expected to grow to around 30 by the end of this year. The post Find Apps For Business With Appclick America Marketplace appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| How Sick Children Affect Your Small Business Posted: 21 Nov 2012 11:00 AM PST While the East Coast has been suffering wild weather in the past few weeks, here in Southern California it's been an endless summer. But Fall (and a little rain) is finally here, and with it, comes the cold and flu season. When one of my business partners mentioned in passing that she had a sick child at home, it got me thinking about how much sick children used to affect my staff back when I was an employee myself. As someone who's worked with tons of parents of young children, I can attest that kids get sick—a lot. And because sick children can't go to school or day care, someone has to stay home with them.
What do you do when your employees' child gets sick? A recent study by C.S. Mott Children's Hospital asked parents whose children are in child care how they and their employers deal with sick kids. Nearly two-thirds said there was at least one time, and 38 percent said there were three or more times, when their child couldn't go to child care in the past year due to illness. In addition, almost one-fourth reported having a child sent home from child care mid-day due to illness. So what happens to the parents? Either they have to find other arrangements (maybe a family friend or parent) or they have to miss work themselves. Given that fully half of parents said finding backup care for a sick child is difficult, it's not surprising that 42 percent of parents with children in day care reported having missed some work in the past year because of a child's illness. Almost one-fourth had missed work three or more times in that time period. Some employers are making the sick-child challenge harder than it needs to be. One-third of parents in the Mott study report that it's hard to take time off work to care for a sick child because they're worried about losing pay—or losing their jobs. The same percentage say they don't get enough paid sick time off from work to cover the time needed for sick children. The report cites statistics from the National Partnership for Women and Families, showing that 40 percent of private-sector employees overall, and a whopping 80 percent of low-wage employees, have no paid sick leave. What are some of the risks to your business, your employees and society when parents don't have the ability to take time off and care for their children — or when they're too scared that doing so might cost them their jobs? First, even if they're at work, their minds aren't fully on the job. Some employees in desperate straits might leave kids alone who are too young to be on their own, posing health and safety hazards for the children. Parents who have to take their kids to emergency rooms at night or on weekends because they can't go to doctors' regular office hours during the day clog up the emergency health care system and expose their children and themselves to worse illnesses. And, of course, if the kids are sick, their parents are probably carrying germs—and bringing them into your business. There are many ways to handle employees with sick children. First, I hope you give all your employees some type of paid sick or personal leave. If for some reason you can't afford to do so, consider at least offering unpaid time off for this sort of situation. Depending on the employee's job, that might be your only option. But for a growing number of employees, the simple solution is letting them work at home. Working at home enables the best of both worlds, with employees able to feel confident their children are taken care of while they're also fulfilling their work duties. When I was an employee, working at home was just starting to take off, but once we were able to use this method, our problems posed by sick children got a lot less onerous. We were able to "go with the flow" and handle most situations by conference call or email. Of course, I'm not implying that only parents should get this type of treatment. Whatever sick-child policy you put in place, apply it to all your employees (or you could face not only resentment, but lawsuits). Give everyone the same amount of time off and let them use it for their own illnesses, their kids' illnesses or whatever they want. As long as their work gets done, that's what matters, right? How will you handle sick children this cold and flu season? Sick Child Photo via Shutterstock The post How Sick Children Affect Your Small Business appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Use Right Brain Storytelling To Market Your Business Posted: 21 Nov 2012 08:00 AM PST
Stories make the world go round. We build relationships because of the stories coming from the people around us. Then we create new stories together — like the ones that exist among business partners or team members. Life is a story and so is business. In fact, everything in your company adds to your story. Marketing is no different. Investors read the story that your profit and loss statements share. Employees read the story that your management team delivers. Your potential customers read the story that your marketing distributes. For the best storytelling experience – you need the right side of the brain.
The Right Brain On Top From a business perspective, the right brain, seen as home to the artistic parts of our mind, has come into vogue. According to Daniel Pink, author of a Whole New Mind:
Story and connection matters. But what exactly does that look like for the small business owner who is trying to market their goods and services? Dr. Gabrielle Lusser Rico, author of Writing The Natural Way, says the right brain:
It's the emotion that establishes a connection and helps you tell your story and sell your product. To Make The Most of StoryTelling Your people need to feel one thing. Your audience wants to know that you understand what they're going through. You have to start with the pain that they are in or the pleasure they're hoping to find. When you look at effective commercials for any well-marketed, resort hotel — it's less about the actual hotel. What gets our attention is the personal meaning. It's about the escape from a hectic work schedule and feeling catered to for a change. It's about adventure, disconnecting and being refreshed. That's what the hotel is selling, not a room (feature), but an experience (benefit). Every effective product or service carries a benefit. And it's your job to design and expose it to your audience. So What’s The Benefit of Your Product? What's the experience from using it? How does it change your client's life? That's the story your people want to hear. Instead of leading with logic and a long list of features (left brain), lead with the story (right brain) by listing the benefits — highlighting the experience. Consider the latest 13 in MacBook Air. Apple refers to it as:
That's the benefit. To be effective, benefits are delivered in the kind of language that lets you feel what you gain from your purchase. But that same computer is also:
That's the feature, the stuff you want to know after you get excited about the experience — not before. Talk To Your Clients Listen to their stories with your product or service. Don't worry about taking notes. Record it so that you can engage with them and have fun with the conversation. When you play back your recording, you'll hear their language and it will give you the phrases to use in your marketing. For more on this, consider Roadmap to Revenue: How to Sell The Way Your Customers Want To Buy by Kristin Zhivago. Paint A Picture In addition to that, your marketing message, you need an image that enhances your story. Dr. Rico says the right brain:
It takes the data and details and constructs a bigger picture. When it comes to selling a product or service most of your people want to understand that big picture. They want to hear it in words and see it in photographs or even videos. The image has to be relevant. So before you put together your beautiful, breathe-taking marketing pieces, get clear about the core message and benefits. Then gather pictures that fit your core message. They have to enhance the story you're telling or they don't need to be there. A Quick Reminder If you're unclear about what you really want to say and what your people really need to hear from you, then you'll end up with a bunch of meaningless photos, meaningless phrases and wasted effort. Take the time to listen to your people and craft a story that matters to them. Lead with the benefits. Yes, you need the lists, the details, the features, at some point, but let that left brain activity come after your story. Emotional Customer Photo via Shutterstock The post Use Right Brain Storytelling To Market Your Business appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| What’s the Strangest Place You’ve Taken a Business Call? [Sweepstakes] Posted: 21 Nov 2012 07:00 AM PST It was a really, really long line as I approached the 12,389 foot summit of Mount Fuji, in Japan. After hiking for a few hours, on top of a mountain, a long line was the last thing I expected. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people were in front of me. As I looked up at the majestic peak, I pondered the unspoiled beauty of the snow cap and the crisp cold air around me. That's when I heard the first cell phone ring — one of many it turned out. That reminded me. I had my mobile phone buried in my pack, too. So I dug it out to call my wife home in the U.S. My call to her didn't go through, but just after I hung up, a call from one of my best clients managed to get through for a few seconds. It went something like this:
Well, it was Mt. Fuji, so what can you expect. The reception was terrible. I never was able to get through to my wife from the summit, but text messaging worked, and my wife received the message about a week later! And for years afterward whenever I spoke with that client, we always started with a little replay of, “You are WHERE?” That’s the strangest place I’ve ever taken a business call — what about you? You may not be on Mt Fuji, but when an important call comes in you want to answer on a high quality phone or a hands-free headset. You definitely don’t want your clients asking, “what did you say?” or “where are you, anyway?” In the early days of Bluetooth headsets, people would often ask me if I was talking to them from a cave, or worse, the bathroom. Thankfully, the technology has advanced incredibly and you can talk in noisy environments, but it sounds like you are in an executive office. The best headsets today are voice-activated; no buttons to click to answer a call. Most high end models have two microphones to minimize the wind and other background noise. One of my favorite things is that you can use these headsets to listen to music you have stored on your smartphone and get directions from your navigation system/app. Enter the Sweepstakes
Plantronics is running a sweepstakes to support Small Business Saturday, and to support small businesses throughout this holiday season. To enter, you just share your story about the craziest spot you’ve ever taken a business call. Your name will be entered into a sweepstakes of the Marque 2™ Bluetooth® headset. The sweepstakes takes place from now through Dec. 12, 2012. To share your story for a chance to win, go here: http://soundingboard.plantronics.com/community/small-medium-business. The post What’s the Strangest Place You’ve Taken a Business Call? [Sweepstakes] appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| How to Feed Your Content Marketing Efforts Posted: 21 Nov 2012 06:00 AM PST Content marketing has become everyone's favorite buzzword, but how effective is it for B2B marketers? That's what Curata sought to find out.
Last month Curata surveyed more than 450 marketing professionals to understand the B2B marketing landscape, asking questions about best practices, current initiatives, and the tactics they're looking to for 2013 and beyond. The results of their survey painted a pretty interesting picture about how B2Bs are using content marketing and what they are (and are not) doing with their efforts. Given all the interest around content marketing, it's not surprising that 87 percent of US B2B marketers report using content marketing in 2012, up 5 percent since last year. What I did find interesting is that based on the survey, 43 percent of marketers said they do not measure the outcome of their content marketing programs and therefore don't know if it has increased inbound leads to their business. To me, that was somewhat troubling. It seems dangerous to invest in an area you're not tracking and will be unable to decipher whether or not it brought value to your business. Especially since tracking content spread, brand awareness, links, and tagging your conversion funnel are all tangible elements small business owners could easily identify. Another area of the survey I found noteworthy had to deal with challenges B2B marketers face when it comes to content marketing.
Sixty-nine percent of marketers say their biggest struggle is coming up with original content ideas. Another 65 percent said it's finding the time to create that content. This is something that, again, small business owners can fix. How do you do so? By taking the time to build out a content marketing plan before you get involved to help map out your efforts, keep you stocked with ideas, and allow you to fit content marketing into your existing schedule. This is something we not only do inhouse, but we help clients create content marketing plans, as well. What should you think about when building out your content plan? What types of content can you realistically work into our schedule?
What you know the type of content you may want to provide, do some keyword research to understand what your users are searching for, use Google Suggest to let the search engine populate ideas for you, check your analytics to see what your customers want, and then survey them to get an understanding of the resources they need or what information is important to them. Once you have this information, create a list of titles or subject ideas that you can work off from and build an editorial calendar to help you pace out your efforts. The hardest part of coming up with unique ideas for content marketing is understanding what your content needs and what will help them achieve their goals. Once you do that, you're putting your company on the road to success. Overall, I think the data offered by Curata shows an interesting glimpse in how B2B marketers are using content. While they seem to grasp its importance, they're not measuring it or finding ways to make it part of their workflow. Of course, that presents a great opportunity for the marketers who are. [hat tip eMarketer] The post How to Feed Your Content Marketing Efforts appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Best Buy Struggles Against Online Merchants Posted: 21 Nov 2012 02:30 AM PST It might be the most visible battle between the old and new retail business model. Best Buy has complained that its big box stores have literally become showrooms for Amazon and other online retailers. Customers come in to check out new electronics and other merchandise at their local Best Buy only to comparison shop and eventually buy the same item at a lower price online. All businesses face shifting markets and changing business models. Here are some looks at how companies of all sizes keep adapting. The Way We WereShowrooming. Analysts say the key to Best Buy’s future, if it has one, is to accept a reality in which smaller numbers of customers will buy products in their stores. Instead, those customers are more likely to use retail locations as a place to test drive and gain hands-on experience with products they will later buy online. The first step, the experts say, is to find a way to compete effectively online against rivals like Amazon, not to cling to a fading business model. Yahoo! Finance Online evolution. Even businesses founded and operated online for their entire existence face ongoing challenges to their survival. As Small Business Trends founder and CEO Anita Campbell explains in this interview, online businesses, too, must constantly evolve to meet changing revenue models, for example, shifts from banner ads to sponsored posts, etc. No matter where you operate your business, always be prepared to make changes. Better Marketing Full Speed AheadBrick and mortar. The evolution is occurring in the opposite direction too. Some brick and mortar businesses are not suffering, but are being enhanced by the low cost marketing possibilities provided by the Internet. Tamara Hudson, founder and owner of Encore Unique Boutique, a Kansas-based business specializing in women’s clothing and home decor, has expanded while businesses around her struggle, thanks largely to her innovative use of inexpensive online social media marketing. Social: IRL Just do it. One key to success in the ever-changing marketplace may be to let go of the business conventions of the past completely. The best business models may not be based on following well-established paths. Instead, they may be on the road less taken, exploring unknown territory and doing things that we, as entrepreneurs, find terrifying. When creating his first book about online freelancing, Tom Ewer admits he had little idea where he was headed. In the end, the only thing he borrowed from a more successful business was a motto: “Just do it.” MyWifeQuitHerJob.com Make sure they pay attention. Whether you do business online or in a storefront down town, the first step is to make sure you aren’t overlooked or ignored. In fact, competition for attention online is more intense than ever, but there are some easy ways to make sure your Website isn’t passed over, says Sean Jackson, CFO of Copyblogger. Here are some of Jackson’s tips on how to avoid being ignored in the online world. Buzz Small Business Magazine Out on a LimbStand out. But in the end you must be sure your company does more than simply grab attention. If your business is just the latest shiny object for customers, they will forget you when the next new thing comes along. Instead, make sure your business stands out from the competition below the surface too. Again, it doesn’t matter whether your business is operated online or off. These tips will help you set your company apart in a way customers find the most meaningful. The Big Red Tomato Company Remember the obvious. We’ve talked a lot about making sure that you aren’t ignored and that your business stands out to customers. But, as motivational speaker Carol Ritter reminds us in this post, it’s very important that customers never feel ignored either. The key to business success is to pay attention to your customers. It’s the best way to make sure they keep coming back and that you continue evolving your business to meet their needs. The Voice of Business The post Best Buy Struggles Against Online Merchants appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
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