Green Bed and Breakfast Wins $5000 Award

Green Bed and Breakfast Wins $5000 Award
Technology Drives Marketing Predictions for 2014
How Should You Correct a Problem Employee?
The Era of Declining Self-Employment

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 01:30 PM PST

Milkweed Merchantile Eco InnEdit

There are several reasons to consider creating a greener business.

They can include things like saving money and, of course, just a basic concern for the environment.

But Kurt Kessner and Alline Anderson (pictured above), co-owners of the Milkweed Merchantile Eco Inn and Organic Cafe, have discovered there is something more. It can be a profitable way to distinguish your business too.

The inn is built with reclaimed wood and insulated with straw bales (a waste product from local farmers). The roof is made of metal from recycled cars and is designed to collect rainwater for drinking, cooking and bathing.

Food served at the bed and breakfast and at the environmentally friendly cafe is organic and most comes from local farmers. One specialty is the cafe’s signature pizza served every Wednesday. The pizza features dough and even feta and mozzarella cheese made locally.

And all vehicles in the inn’s compound are either 100 percent biodiesle or electric.

See more about the Milkweed Merchantile in the YouTube video created to showcase the business below.

The environmentally friendly bed and breakfast recently was named one of the nation’s top three green businesses for travel and transportation by Green America.

The national non-profit supports environmentally friendly businesses with an annual People & Planet Award recognizing the nation’s top 12 environmentally and socially responsible businesses.

Owners Kessner and Anderson received a $5000 prize in addition to the recognition.

Anderson says the money will be invested to continue the business’s growth which, she says, includes education of consumers and others.

Anderson told Green America on the organization’s official Website:

“The funds will go a long way in our efforts to demonstrate that a sustainable life is about joy, community, a real sense of connection, hope, and of course, great food!”

She said one goal was to further promote the business’s branded line of jams and pickles created with ingredients from local farmers and gardeners.

Bottom line: you may never have thought of creating a greener business as a form of marketing. But Kessner and Anderson’s experience proves this approach can be a simple solution when targeting the right customers.

Image: Milkweed Merchantile

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Technology Drives Marketing Predictions for 2014

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 11:00 AM PST

Customers go mobileEdit

As proven by this year's holiday shopping season, technology is reshaping the way customers find and purchase products. And research indicates those trends are likely to continue. So they should be reflected in your marketing plan for the coming year. Here are some related predictions about where marketing is headed in 2014.

Native Advertising Grows

Traditional forms of advertising rarely draw in customers in the Information Age. With new information inundating us daily, forms of advertising such as display ads only average a 0.1% click-through rate, with 85% of clicks delivered by 8% of the online population. However, native advertising, in which content is integrated into the user's online experience, is much more successful. IPG Media Lab and Sharethrough found that when compared to display ads, consumers looked at native ads 53% more frequently. Additionally, consumers were 18% more likely to purchase the advertised product with native ads.

So what are the different types of native ads you can invest in? One popular subset is content marketing, in which businesses produce relevant branded content that consumers actually want to read. These include blogs, articles, and white papers. 90% of customers consider this type of content useful, and among B2B businesses, 93% plan to use content marketing in 2014. Forbes predicts that content marketing in 2014 will be more strategic and professional, so be sure to invest the necessary time and money for a well-planned content marking initiative.

Another type of native advertising is promoted tweets, trends, and stories on social media. As advertising on these sites becomes more prevalent in 2014 and beyond, it will be harder and harder for businesses to promote themselves for free. This expense might be difficult for small businesses on a limited budget. However, this strategy does work. A recent study found that promoted Tweets increased brand conversation and drove offline sales.

Image Marketing Matures

While the big social media sites (Facebook, Twitter) have a mixture of text and image content, the new sites on the rise (Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, Buzzfeed) are almost entirely image-based. And businesses are increasingly marketing on these new sites. A study by Simply Measured found that "71 percent of the world's largest brands have adopted Instagram" – and that number is only predicted to grow in 2014.

Why the rise in images? Well, for one thing many people learn visually, so images are the best way for them to process new information. But the reason for the recent surge probably has more to do with the ease with which photos and videos can be optimized on mobile devices. In fact, video now accounts for 90% of all Internet traffic and 50% of mobile traffic. And search engines now reflect this shift, with Google highlighting image search results to the top of the page. So to attract consumer attention, you need to integrate visuals into next year's marketing strategy.

Still not convinced of the power of images? A mom and her teenage daughter started a local teen trend website, and they received 10,000 visitors in a month just by posting a single image to Pinterest. Now that number is up to 120,000 average visitors per month. Huffington Post has the details on this story and how you can better leverage Pinterest for your organization.

Mobile Traffic Becomes Critical

Mobile traffic is increasingly important in business marketing. According to the Walker Sands Quarterly Mobile Traffic Report, 28% of website traffic now originates from mobile devices, and that number is only predicted to grow in 2014. So it is more important than ever that your company's website be optimized for mobile viewing – whether that means creating a separate mobile version or investing in responsive web design. The Search Engine Journal has these great tips on how to make your website mobile-friendly if you want a good kick-start.

But its not enough to have a functioning site, you should be investing in mobile-centered marketing initiatives. For example, mobile geo-targeting, which allows companies to send relevant messages based on their location, is predicted to account for one half of mobile advertising dollars by 2017. And it's well worth the investment. Geo-targeting can help you target your advertising within a specific area, and perhaps more importantly, help you determine the interests, shopping habits, and demographics of your potential customers.

As these trends demonstrate, customers have numerous platforms and devices by which to interact with your brand, so you have to be cross-pollinating and compatible with all of them. Business Insider reports that perhaps the biggest challenge for businesses in 2014 will be to find a way to track customers across all of these channels. But once you figure out the best strategy for your company, you’ll get a fuller picture of customer shopping habits and see more effective marketing results in the long run.

Customers go mobile photo via Shutterbug

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How Should You Correct a Problem Employee?

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 08:00 AM PST

Sponsored Post

problem employee

It's the part of our jobs every small business owner hates – dealing with a problem employee.

Whatever the reason, whether you dislike confrontation or worry about getting sued, you can't ignore employee problems, or they will just get bigger and potentially threaten your entire business. Fortunately, there are some simple steps you can take to protect your business legally, while also correcting a problem employee's poor behavior.

The moment you hire your first employee, you need to create a written employee policy that documents your rules and expectations for the workplace. It should also state what actions (such as theft) would be grounds for dismissal. Have all employees read and sign a copy.

Successfully Correcting a Problem Employee

When a problem does arise, start by getting the facts. Talk to other employees to see what's going on and document the issues as objectively as possible.

Then it's time to talk to the person. To stay on the right side of the law when it comes to discipline, you should have a progressive discipline policy that gives employees opportunities to correct their behaviors. Start with a discussion of the issue and a verbal warning, and set a date by which the behavior needs to be corrected.

The goal is to work out problems and hopefully keep the employee on board. Work with him or her to create a plan for how to improve. Getting the employee's input makes him or her more invested in the outcome.

If the behavior still doesn't improve, escalate your discipline to a written warning, which documents the problem and its duration, specifies how long the employee has to correct the problem and details what will happen if it's still not fixed. You and the employee should both sign this.

Depending on your employee policies, how severe the issue is and whether the employee is really trying to improve or not, you may do multiple written warnings before (in the worst case) terminating an employee. However, by implementing progressive discipline early and correctly, hopefully you never come to that point.

If you have any doubts or questions about discipline and termination, be sure to consult with an attorney who is familiar with your state's employment laws.

This article, provided by Nextiva, is republished through a content distribution agreement. The original can be found here.

Disciplining Photo via Shutterstock

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The Era of Declining Self-Employment

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 05:00 AM PST

Self-EmployedEdit

The number of employed Americans rose from 144,144,000 in October 2013 to 144,775,000 in November 2013, an increase of 631,000, according to Federal government data.

That's good news. More people going back to work is something that everyone – left, right and center – agrees is good for the country.

But a closer look at the data shows that the employment situation isn't as good for those Americans in business for themselves as for those who work for others. Hidden in the rise in the number of employed Americans is another trend. It’s a divergence between what has happened to people working for themselves (what economists call the self-employed) as compared to those working for others (what economists call the wage-employed).

Last month, the number of wage-employed Americans increased by 673,000, while the number of self-employed Americans declined by 42,000. (Wage employment is total employment minus the sum of incorporated and unincorporated self-employment.)

This divergence isn't just a one-month aberration. Consider what has happened over the last year. From November 2012 to November 2013, the number of Americans working for others rose by 1,451,000. But, over the same period, the number of self-employed Americans fell by 225,000.

Both wage and self-employment took a similar-sized hit during the Great Recession, with self-employment dropping 5.5 percent between November 2007 and November 2009. During the same period, wage employment declined by a comparable 5.4 percent. But since then the recovery has been uneven. Wage employment has nearly returned to levels seen before the economic downturn. In November 2013, it was only 0.8 percent lower than it was in November 2007. By contrast, self-employment has declined further, and is now 8.1 percent below its November 2007 level.

The divergence in wage and self-employment means that fewer Americans are in business for themselves now than before the Great Recession. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data reveal that 6 percent of the American population is now self-employed, versus 6.9 percent six years ago. While a difference of 0.9 percentage points might not sound like a lot, it is. If the same fraction of the population was self-employed today as six years ago, 2,223,000 more Americans would currently be self-employed.

The history of self-employment over the past six years stands in sharp contrast to what happened over the previous seven. From November 2000 to November 2007, the number of self-employed Americans increased by 10.9 percent, while the number of U.S. wage-employed rose by only 6.6 percent.

If policy makers are as interested in self-employment as they seem to be at election time, they might take a look at what's been different over the past six years versus the previous seven. The earlier period was far more favorable to self-employment than the latter one. Perhaps a change in policies is responsible.

Self-Employed Photo Via Shutterstock

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