Come On Now! Learn and Grow at One of These Events |  |
- Come On Now! Learn and Grow at One of These Events
- News Highlights for The Week Ending August 10
- Industry Knowledge and Quality Help The Granola Factory Thrive Online
- How You Can Write Seductive Web Copy and Gain Customers Online
| Come On Now! Learn and Grow at One of These Events Posted: 10 Aug 2013 04:35 PM PDT We know you want to learn and grow — yourself personally and your team. What better way to do it, than attending an Event? Or expand your horizons and grow your business in one of our hand-picked list of Awards or Contests. It’s up to you. A partial list for the next 60 days is below. To see a full list or to submit your own event, contest or award listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar. Featured Events, Contests and Awards
The Big Awards started with a mission of recognizing real talent and performance. Real business people, those with experience and knowledge, judge the Big Awards. Request an entry kit today and submit your nomination by August 14, 2013.
INBOUND is a 4 day marketing experience that brings together thousands of marketers from around the globe for an annual event held in downtown Boston, Massachusetts.
This contest highlights small businesses and helps them to show off their amazing products, services and happy customers all with a chance to win $10K. The contest is open this year to small business owners and their consumers. At the end of the contest, one photo will be chosen as the $10K Grand Prize winner. Hashtag: #SmallBizLove Small Business Influencer Awards 2013 The 2013 Small Business Influencer Awards recognize the apps, organizations and people who have a strong impact on small businesses in North America. Now its 3rd year, the Awards are a coveted recognition for those who serve small businesses. Check to see who’s already been nominated, and nominate yourself, or someone or some organization or app you admire. No fee to enter. Twitter hashtag: #SMBinfluencer.
This conference brings together amazing women entrepreneurs, both on and off the stage. Hear real behind-the-scenes stories of success including JJ Ramberg, Sarah Endline, Janine Popick, and Pamela O’Hara. Expert keynotes and panel discussions include: Getting Funding for Growth with Kay Koplovitz & Peggy Wallace, Turning Ideas into Companies with Yao Huang, 5 Strategies for a Stronger Brand with Julie Cottineau, and a journalist panel on Pitching the Media. SEATING IS LIMITED. More Events
More Contests
This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology. The post Come On Now! Learn and Grow at One of These Events appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| News Highlights for The Week Ending August 10 Posted: 10 Aug 2013 12:30 PM PDT
If you haven’t had time to review all the news stories this week, we’ve got you covered. The Small Business Trends editorial team has collected the small business news highlights important to your business. Check them out below: RegulationsToo much regulation may kill the consignment business. One popular consignment organizer is under threat from the U.S. Department of Labor. It’s one more industry under attack by bureaucrats. Learn the scoop and whether this could affect your business. The latest on business licenses and permits. It’s not the most enjoyable thing for most small business owners to think about, but following the rules is important. Nellie Akalp gives us a basic overview. ServicesThe UPS Store introduces 3D printing. Planning to create prototypes or architectural models or other tangible small-scale items? 3D printing may be the answer. But that doesn’t mean you have to invest in a machine right now. UPS Stores plan to come to your rescue. YouTube again expands its services. This time it means streaming video for all accounts with 100 plus subscribers. It also means a tool to point customers at your merchandise. Read how. Sell your photos and videos on SmugMug. The content you create has value, whether its posts you write or photos and videos you produce. Here’s a way to sell these last two today. Mobile – Smartphones and TabletsThe new Kindle will change everything. Or so speculators suggest. The newest Kindle device will be more of a full-featured tablet than a book e-reader, and that’s not all. Motorola unveils Moto X smartphone. The new flagship phone from a new Motorola has emerged. Here are the features that might assist your mobile business. Microsoft cuts price on Surface Pro tablet. Some may say it was inevitable. After Microsoft cut the price of the Surface RT (the lower end version of Microsoft’s Surface tablet line), could this decision really have been far behind? It’s important for small businesses, since you are much more likely to be interested in the Surface Pro version because of its seamless ability to use Windows office applications, same as what your company uses on desktop computers and laptops. That’s a key attraction of a Windows tablet. Twitter has updated its app for Blackberry 10. The new BlackBerry platform lets you use Twitter in a convenient app form. Here’s a rundown of the features. BrandingSkyDrive hits branding difficulty. Microsoft will be renaming its cloud storage service. Apparently use of the word “sky” is too confusing to UK users. What is branding? And do small businesses need it? They are two questions often asked. Anita Campbell, founder of Small Business Trends, explains why branding is more important than ever in an age when buyers can go to the Web and find countless choices. She also offers four low-cost ways to get started on or improve your company’s branding. MarketingWhat B2B websites are missing. A study by Online Marketing Coach, and presented by Small Business Trends, shows 70 percent of B2B websites have no call to action. Here are the details you need to know, and a way to get a 30-point checklist of what your website should have. Back to school revenue could be big for your business. The key is knowing how to get your share. Rieva Lesonsky shares some ideas you may want to consider. E-commerceReview of Volusion eCommerce software. Finding the right e-commerce software is a challenge, balancing cost with effectiveness and ease of implementaton. Stephanie Robbins, owner at Robbins Interactive, has the pros and cons of one such program that she recently implemented for a client. Her firsthand experience is invaluable. Indian merchants find niches online. E-commerce in India is helping small merchants take their products to a whole new market. Sramana Mitra, founder of One Million by One Million, explains. The rise of the maker movement. Artists, crafters and makers have become entrepreneurs — and you may be one of them. TJ McCue shares more online tools and places to sell your items. OperationsRevenue of sole proprietorships is on the decline. Scott Shane, Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University, shares this disturbing trend. Your business could fund its own insurance. Many small businesses see healthcare premiums continue to rise. Michael W. Zuna, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Aflac U.S., explains another option for some small businesses. Book ReviewWhat can a monk teach you about business? You’re about to find out. Susan Payton shares her review of Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO's Quest for Meaning and Authenticity by August Turak.
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| Industry Knowledge and Quality Help The Granola Factory Thrive Online Posted: 10 Aug 2013 09:00 AM PDT
Calvin Virgilio grew up in the food industry. His parents, Robert and Suzanne, opened a bed and breakfast in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania back in 1988, The Bethlehem Inn (pictured below). As time passed, the family business grew to include a local bakery and a wholesale granola company, The Granola Factory, as well. The quality product is what made The Granola Factory and The Bethlehem Inn successful. But after Calvin graduated from college and came home to help the family business – an online presence and clear marketing strategy helped it even more.
"In any business you need to establish credibility," Virgilio said. "These days, when someone wants to learn something about your business, they go home and do an Internet search or look you up on Facebook. So you have to have an online presence to establish that credibility with the customer." The company's online presence has grown to include an official website, Twitter, Facebook, a blog called the Granola Factory Baking Bits, an email newsletter, Google Local Plus and Yelp pages. And in 2010, The Granola Factory experienced some national publicity when Rachael Ray, celebrity chef, featured honey pecan granola (pictured below) from The Granola Factory on her show, The Rachael Ray Show.
The Granola Factory doesn't have the largest online following on sites like Facebook and Twitter compared to some larger food companies, but according to Virgilio, quality is more important than quantity. "You can't go from a hundred followers to a few thousand overnight. And if you do, then they're probably not the kind of followers who will actually share your product with their friends or become returning customers," he said. In order to build a quality and loyal online following for The Granola Factory, which sells product online and wholesale to stores in six East Coast states, Virgilio said that he is constantly working to find the right balance between content, promotion, and interaction with customers. To Virgilio, this means creating quality content for the blog and email newsletter that customers will actually want to read. The content often includes recipes, some of which use the company's main granola product and some that are just seasonal items sold in the bakery (pictured below), giveaways, and other types of posts that he would like to read on the many food blogs he follows.
"You have to find a balance between being consistent but not hitting your customers with irrelevant things so that they'll automatically delete your emails or scroll right past your posts," he said. But while social media and blogging have been helpful tools, Virgilio said that the most valuable aspect of the company's online presence thus far has been its website, where users can learn more about the company, place orders, and find local stores that sell the product. Virgilio said that the most valuable website feature from a marketing standpoint has been the "Real Food Club," (pictured below) which lets customers sign up for email updates that include recipes, tips, giveaways and similar content. He said that it has allowed the business to gather a lot of information about its customers, and it keeps them coming back to the website.
Building an online presence has been a learning experience for Virgilio, who has just officially been with the company for three years. But he said the most important factor for him has been a clear knowledge of the food industry. "To be in this business, even if you're only handling the marketing or business aspect, you have to know food or no one is going to take you seriously," he said. To Virgilio, that means following food blogs, knowing the biggest food writers, and knowing how to make food himself. "It's so much easier to make a pitch to a blog if you actually read it and are familiar with the content, rather than just contacting someone out of the blue," he said. This lesson can be applied to other industries as well. Virgilio said that following others can be just as valuable as sharing information when it comes to blogging, social media, and other aspects of marketing. "You can learn so much from just following others in your industry," he said. "Look at what they're doing and decide what you like about it, and then use your creativity to enhance it and make it your own." The post Industry Knowledge and Quality Help The Granola Factory Thrive Online appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| How You Can Write Seductive Web Copy and Gain Customers Online Posted: 10 Aug 2013 06:00 AM PDT
Thus, business owners can, and should, focus on getting the content right. But many get the content wrong. Poor Web copy falls into that wrong. To make yours better, read How to Write Seductive Web Copy: An Easy Guide To Pick Up Customers by Henneke Duistermaat. Duistermaat is an experienced copywriter and marketer based in Great Britain. She seeks to help companies "win customers with enchanting Web copy and engaging newsletters." She contacted me online and I was intrigued by a guide dedicated to Web copy, so I asked for a review copy. Always Be Closing in Your Web CopyThe book is brief – 6 chapters in 57 pages. But that can be a positive aspect given the hyper-evolving nature of the Internet and the small business owner's need to get information and move on. It's designed to correct copy within a few week's time (or six days, as suggested by Duistermaat.) An admitted bias: I liked that this book is sourced from Great Britain. Europe has steadily become a great source for Web design and development trends. The growing regulatory landscape has created new technological and aesthetic Web design challenges. Web magazines such as .Net Magazine have risen to the challenge, revealing how to "get down and boogie" when it comes to Web design innovation. But regardless of origin, a good guide should provide implementable reminders on its topic. Duistermaat works towards that end, reminding the reader that their copy should be accessible. She notes the importance of envisioning the ideal customer:
This quote's point intrigued me because of how the last sentence phrases the reader as a "for him" when the reader can easily be a woman. But that is the point of imagining and testing. Duistermaat chooses clear examples so that the reader knows what to do. Most are not cause for deep introspection on every written word, but they do illustrate how simple changes can make words more capable of attaining a scanning eye. Here's an example of avoiding weak superlatives in copy:
Duistermaat understands that while good copy draws people, a website's existence does not change the sales process overnight. Check out how this outlook is infused into the recommendation of site elements to establish customer trust:
Although site elements are discussed, tips are made mostly without a connection to HTML concerns. The last chapter touches on SEO (search engine optimization), but does not delve into ideas like adding copy in header elements or working copy into the page description tag. That perspective can be a minus for readers who want to understand technical choices – the basic premise of SEO is connecting the website content to address readers within a structure that a search engine sees. But the book's material can complement the most complex of website programming ideas. If a designer had a content carousel based in J-Query or Javascript, the suggestion to include logos could be used in the content for that carousel. The book structure is flexible enough for unique ideas while remaining true to its advocacy of Web copy that speaks to the customer. I think this book is worthwhile for freelance designers who already understand code and frequently work on page copy. Small business owners on the go who need to refine their marketing material will find some use as well. Get this book if you fall in either category. If you are new to the Web – yes, there are still business owners who are coming from under a proverbial rock to discover the Internet – you'll feel a bit more comfortable in starting the road to a digital presence. The post How You Can Write Seductive Web Copy and Gain Customers Online appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
If we were to create a pro/con about website guides, one poignant factor would certainly come up. Information in Web design books can get outdated very quickly. So much is being discovered today through programming language. It can seem like an author can only get the ubiquitous "Hello World!" trial code right.| You are subscribed to email updates from Small Business Trends To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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