What Is a Small Business?
June 3rd, 2009
I’m taking a break from tech talk for a day to try and handle a rather sticky problem – what, exactly, is a small business?
On its face, this seems a ridiculous question, but it seems there are multiple definitions floating around. Wikipedia defines it as “a business that is independently owned and operated, with a small number of employees and relatively low volume of sales.” All fine and well, but what happens when sales volume increases but employee numbers stay the same? The SEC widens the field financially by stating that any company with less than $50 million in annual revenue can be considered a “small entity”. And doing a “Define: small business” on Google returns all kinds of wide-ranging results.
Why does it matter? TechKnowMe targets small business owners as customers, and I know a number of you do as well. When you try to define exactly who your target customers are, however, “small business” turns out to be a rather nebulous market segment. I usually define it as a company with 1-50 employees, completely ignoring the revenue question as I’m convinced that a well-run company can just as easily make $100 million a year as a 500-person corporation.
Using Demos and Education to Boost Online Sales
June 2nd, 2009
I really want a BlendTec blender. They sell for about $400, which is far more than I’ve ever paid for any kitchen appliance (including my beloved Kitchenaid standup mixer). But, after seeing it blend an iPhone, I know this is a device I need.
Not that I make iPhone smoothies on a regular basis, but if it can do that to a popular electronics device, it should easily handle my frozen pineapple and mango chunks. And therein lies the brilliance of “Will It Blend” – now that I’ve seen what the BlendTec can handle, I’m confident it’s the blender for me.
The fact that I’m excited about a blender – one of the more boring items on the market – should clearly demonstrate the importance of a solid marketing strategy. You may have the most boring product in the world, but if you can find a way to make it exciting, you’ll increase sales. You don’t even need to do anything as impressive as blending an iPhone – you just need to show your customers what your product can do.
SEO is Dead: Ringing the Death Knell
May 28th, 2009
Search Engine Optimization is dead. The folks charging thousands of dollars a month to place your site in the top ten search results are vultures desperate to prey on your lack of knowledge and empty your pocketbook to fill their own.
If you run a website, you’re already getting the emails promising pie in the sky traffic by associating your site with certain keywords. The truth is, it works – it’s not that difficult to drive thousands of visitors to your website, even without using so-called “gray” tactics that threaten to blacklist your site with the major search engines. But what kind of traffic are you getting? And how many of those visitors are becoming customers?
The Most Important Piece Of Your Small Business Website
March 30th, 2009
If there’s a running theme in my blog posts here, it’s this: If your web site is not generating sales, you need to fix it immediately. The point of a web site for a small business is to make money – not build your brand, not prove your legitimacy, not make it look like you’re all “Web 2.0″ – MAKE MONEY.
You need to treat your web site as an active member of your sales staff. When anyone visits your site – whether you send someone to the site or whether they stumble upon it by accident – it needs to make the sale. It needs to get your visitors attention, pique their interest in your service or product, fuel their desire to buy from you and drive them to take action to close the sale.
It’s this last one that most often gets missed. It’s not enough to provide a phone number and hope someone remembers to contact you when it’s convenient for them – you need to provide a strong, clear call to action that the user can take immediately, otherwise you’ll lose them forever. This action is called a “conversion” – the moment your visitor converts into an actual customer. Nothing is more important to your small business website than conversions, and you need to know how well your web site is converting to know how good a sales person it is.
Dealing With Content Thieves
February 26th, 2009
At the most recent seminar I did at the Contra Costa Library, a number of members from a local writing guild showed up to learn as much as they could about promoting their work online. After the class, I had a fascinating conversation with them in regards to their concerns about putting their art online. Specifically – how do you prevent people from stealing it?
The short answer: you don’t. If someone wants to steal your content bad enough, they will find a way no matter how hard you lock it down. Thus, if you don’t want your content stolen, don’t put it online, not for sale and not for free. Of course, keeping your work offline is like burying your head in the sand – how else will unknown artists build their name if they can’t take advantage of digital distribution?
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