We recently came across an article from American Express OPEN that discusses 5 ways your small business website might be failing. The items are listed below:

1. You don’t fill out your about us page
2. You don’t actually say what your business does
3. You don’t strut your stuff
4. You don’t capitalize on social media
5. You aren’t blogging (or not blogging enough)

As small business owners we are all busy working on our businesses and working in our businesses. There are a couple items in the list above that I know we are guilty of; social media, not blogging on a regular basis and not strutting our stuff. This article explains why it’s important to stay ahead of the game and get on a schedule or at least be aware so that you make a conscious effort to engage with the tools at your fingertips.

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When your telephone rings do you know where the caller originated from? What campaign, what made them call and what is the probability they will purchase?

More than ever before, tracking advertising efforts has become incredibly important. In today’s economic times you do not have the ad budget to hope for the best. In general, advertising is very uncertain. You allocate funds where you *think* the best returns will be. However, you rarely know how many phone calls or website hits you receive from a single ad campaign.

New technology allows us to track our ad campaigns in a way that removes virtually ALL THE UNCERTAINTIES of advertising. If you know where your revenue is coming from you can better maximize the benefit from that ad campaign.

Imagine having a Google Pay-Per-Click campaign with 200 phrases. Your total budget is $1000 per month. You spend on average $4 per click and get about 250 clicks per month spread between 200 phrases. Currently you only know that the campaign gets clicks and brings traffic to your site – perhaps you track how many people submit email forms for more information. Ad Track allows you to accurately and effectively determine which of your 200 phrases are bringing the most phone calls that ultimately turn into sales.

After running the Ad Track system for a couple months you would have enough data to eliminate a portion of your 200 keyword list, freeing up more dollars for the phrases that produce sales. Imagine if your list went from 200 to 25 high producing phrases – you would now get almost 10 clicks per phrases (before you were getting 1.25 clicks per phrase). Where you were getting 1 phone call you could be getting 10.

What if you could track phone calls that originated from various Internet Marketing campaigns?

What if you could record the call to better anticipate and prepare for pre-sales questions, aid in sales training efforts and much more?

What if you knew 80% of calls from Google Organic lead to sales and 60% of calls from Google Pay-Per-Click lead to sales – or vice versa?

What if you knew phone book advertising only brings 10 calls per year and only 20% turn into sales?
We like to call it Advertising Accountability and Advertising Forensics.

The time is now to start strategically measuring the performance of virtually every advertising campaign you deploy.

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    Believe it or not it is possible to cut budgets without upsetting your entire organization. Unfortunately, budget cuts are part of business – especially in the economic times we have been experiencing lately.    What is the first thing you think of when someone says budget cut? Lay-offs, wage cuts, reduction in benefits? Doesn’t have to be.   David Mammano of Next Step Magazine explains how he cut his budget without his employees trying to overthrow the throne. Next Step employs an open book management philosophy so all employees know every item in the budget – or at least have access to the information. What Mammano decided to do first was to engage his employees. By getting them involved they were part of the decision and would be able to make suggestions that David may not have thought of.    The ideas varied greatly, some proposed waiting to purchase new computers while others suggested asking for volunteers to bake birthday cakes instead of purchasing them. These might seem like small potatoes but in the grand scheme of things they have been estimated to save the company nearly $50,000 per year.    I’ve always been told you get more bees with honey than you do vinegar. Rather than rule with an iron fist and cut costs wherever you can, involve your people, get their suggestions. Granted you won’t be able to follow through with all suggestions but there might be a few good ones that might contribute to the bottom line.

    Whether you’re an employer or employee you should know what makes a star employee burn brighter or burn out. On the surface employees want the stereotypical benefits; health insurance, paid vacation, a competitive wage and of course other fringe benefits like a company car or cell phone, possibly even discount tickets to sporting events or free travel.  

“Even without research, common sense dictates that if you’re keen, committed and involved — and these attitudes are supported, respected, encouraged and rewarded — you’re likely to do a better job.”

  What it all boils down to is engagement and motivation. As an employer you must keep your employees engaged. As an employee you must keep yourself engaged. How does this happen? If you don’t know the answer re-read the quote above. As Robin Stuart-Kotze points out, you’re likely to do a better job if your actions are supported, respected, encouraged and rewarded. Again, if you look at the big picture all of these items are derived out of motivation. If an employer motivates, the employee becomes engaged, committed and involved. A domino effect really.   Attention employers, don’t be fooled by an employee’s length of time and loyalty with your organization. An employer’s complacency can cost them big time. Research suggests there is a direct negative correlation between an employees engagement and their length of time with the organization; they become less engaged as their time with the organization increases. It has been noted that disengaged employees can cost a firm $13,000 per year in lost productivity. Even if we give each employee the benefit of the doubt and err on the side of conservatism the cost for disengaged employees is still substantial.    What’s the fix you ask? It’s rather simple, be kind and care. Look what Herb Kelleher has done with Southwest Airlines. The average Southwest Airlines employee is engaged and it shows in their performance relative to other airlines. UPS has management attend a one-month long sensitivity camp to help maintain a high level of engagement amongst their employees.    We know what employees want; we just have to give it to them. Tell your employees they’ve done a good job, acknowledge their achievements (even if you think the accomplishment is immaterial or irrelevant), respect their opinion and give them the opportunity to speak (you never know they might enlighten you at times) and most of all reward them when they’ve done a good job. Rewards don’t always have to come in the form of monetary gain; movie tickets, one-time bonus (large or small), dinner, lunch – show them you care and you noticed.  

“People don’t behave like this for no reason — it’s a reaction to the way their jobs are structured and, more importantly, the way they are being managed.”

  When employees feel undervalued or insignificant the tendency is to retreat and do less. When this happens it has a detrimental effect on businesses. It lowers morale as a whole, the “disease” is contagious and will affect other employees and eventually will spiral to a complete loss of company-wide morale.    Here is a list compliments of Robin Stuart-Kotze that outlines a few ways to determine if you or your employees are suffering from the “disease”:

• Try to avoid being held solely responsible for things.
• Avoid firm time commitments for getting things done.
• Keep a low profile on issues.
• Distance themselves from others’ failures.
• Avoid sharing information with others.
• Cut themselves off from people at times.

  In closing, be more aware of your employee’s attitude or, if you are the employee be more aware of your own attitude. If you sense disengagement don’t be afraid to confront your manager or the employee. Be genuine and care. Ask questions like “what can I do to help you become motivated and more involved” or “I feel undervalued, am I disappointing you?”   More times than not, communication will solve the discrepancy.

Economic difficulties are prevalent and no one is being spared. Everyone is feeling the ill effects of current market conditions. The housing market and oil prices skyrocketed countless times over the past several months. Most feel that the situation could get worse by 2009. Whether you are an employee or a top-ranking business leader, bare in mind that you may be unable to prevent recession from taking over for a while, but you are always able to look for ways to get by and stay sane long enough to see a brighter time. Here are some tips that can help you keep your boat afloat as you sail past that economic storm.

1. Tap emergency fund and not the fixed expenses allotment. College economic courses have taught you well enough that economies go through cycles of expansion and contraction. Theories however, are a lot easier to learn. Living actual business circumstances especially the agonizing ones, is another matter altogether. Economic depressions are both real and painful; anyone involved in business has to live though it. Start with accepting and managing that expectation and you have solved half the dilemma. Business people who understand that difficult economic events do happen allow for padding that they can touch when hard times come. In other words, these people prepare and are not rattled easily by news of contractions. Cutting corners is always an option though one has to be extremely careful in deciding which is fat and which is muscle.

2. Maintain (if unable to increase) your marketing dollars. Marketing expenses should be a fixed expense. Just like what oxygen is to your body, marketing is your business’s way to grow and expand. No matter what happens, decide against cutting marketing budgets. Slow market times are the best times to buy shares in their lowest prices while preserving the shares’ potential payoffs in the future.
3. Continue to give and upgrade the best possible product or service you could give to your loyal consumers. Cutting back on spending which could mean either lesser transactions or smaller purchases (or both) are oftentimes a customer’s answer to difficult times as a way to save every possible penny. Give your regulars good reasons (superior quality, excellent customer service, etc.) why they should cut back on everything else but your business.
4. Lower prices instead of giving discounts. If you believe that giving discounts will keep your business going, think again. Discounting your products whether in good times or bad, gives consumers the impression of inferior quality. In the 1990’s, McDonalds and Burger King placed their Big Macs and Whoppers on sale, and without intent, they trained their customers to never pay for the full price. The margin problem took years to recuperate. The same thing could happen to your business. If you must, lower the price instead of giving and saying the” d” word.
5. Ward off nervous ticks by setting a clear direction and expectation among your employees. Whether or not you tell your people about the bad times, they are bound to know because the news is delivered to them in a very personal manner each day when they buy food from the grocery or when they pay for gas.  The best thing that can be done is to come clean and talk to your employees openly about the situation. Educate them in terms of where the company is and what the plan will be. This will help alleviate their fear of the unknown and as a result allow them to continue performing, as they should.

Most importantly, despite the increasing prices of almost everything, remember that humans have needs and will always have to spend on their basic necessities, good times or bad. The only difference between the good and bad times is that it is during an economic crunch that consumers become more critical in letting go of their dollars. Only those who offer the best quality in products and services at the right price can thrive in and survive the neck-to-neck competition.

 

 

Cloud computing using Google Apps was first patronized by only a handful of staff at Sanmina-SCI (SANM), a company with a $10.7 billion of revenue annually, using the applications to send emails, create documents, and schedule appointments and commitments. After six months, the handful went up to a thousand users of the electronics manufacturing company going online to use Google applications, shunting Microsoft tools to one side.

 

According to Manesh Patel, the chief information officer of Sanmina-SCI, the Google Apps make a difference between a poorly collaborated cluster and an organized, well-coordinated project teams. He even projected the Google Apps users to increase by 25% (totals 10,000) in the next three years.

 

Sanmina (which is based in San Jose, California) and Google spearhead a significant shift in the way organizations avail of software and computing capacity as well. Amazon, Salesforce.com, IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft aid corporate clients in exploring the Internet from extra server space down to software which manages customer relationships more effectively.

  So What Exactly Is “Cloud Computing”? The computing tasks (referred to as “cloud computing”) are assigned to a remote location rather than to the company’s own server. Cloud computing services are delivered all over the Internet depending on the demand from massive data centers. A million-dollar enterprise, Merrill Lynch’s estimate is that the annual international demand for cloud computing will be up to $95 billion. Based on May 2008 report, 12% of software market worldwide would choose cloud computing, in fact, IBM, DELL, and Hewlett Packard are looking to shift to cloud computing in the near future. Even IBM professes its willingness to spend $36-M to build cloud computing data center in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Michael Dell, DELL CEO, stresses that they’ve put together a new industry building custom products for customers with specific needs to address.   Question of Reliability Some companies have qualms regarding the system’s reliability, but Daryl Plummer, managing vice-president of consulting firm Gartner, reasoned that technologies take some time to achieve that perfection which everyone might be looking for. Google Apps as an example might not offer the same features as Microsoft Office Professional, but is effective in maintaining collaborations among employees globally.   Dave Girouard, of Google, stressed that things are not expected to turn out as smoothly or as perfectly as one hopes to be but Patel of Sanmina said that in the long term, it shouldn’t pan out so badly. Girouard noted that more than half of the 500,000 organization use the free version of Google Apps.   Cloud computing might give HR a run for their money because the idea of moving attendance monitoring and expense reporting into Google Apps is something that is explored by Patel. Taking baby steps, as per Patel’s remark coupled with trying lower-priority applications will help them get the results they are aiming for. Cloud computing might not be applicable to storing financial and health records due to rules for security and privacy but a private cloud may be a possibility.   Generally, most feel that the system has to iron out things first before anyone adopts it on larger scale. An upswing in revenue is expected as more companies become more comfortable with the system. Google Apps will be provided for free, too. As Girouard at Google puts it, they intend to “generate millions of users for life”.

    What makes for a good social networking website?   Is it the look and feel of the website, the ease of navigation, the tools and features?   For Facebook, it is the pleasant mixture of all three with a slightly more focus on technology-driven tools that has enabled it to overtake its close competitor, MySpace.   The Beginning Ever since its birth in February 2004, Facebook, the privately owned and operated social networking website has been enticing and accumulating followers, being a free-access website where people from all walks of life can join networks (organized by cities, workplaces, schools, or regions) to interact with others, and to some extent, rekindle old friendships and reconnect past relationships.   Beyond the Face Value Four years have passed and Facebook has managed to remain virtually on top while undergoing a lot of progress in terms of applications. Starting from an idea (the website’s name came from the “paper facebooks” illustrating members of a campus community that some American colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, or staff aiming to familiarize them with the other people inside the campus) of a then Harvard sophomore student, Mark Zuckerberg, the website turned out to be a major hit as a multi-million dollar enterprise.   Bridging Gaps and Cultural Differences The CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, describes the impact of Facebook through a story about a group of young militants from Lebanon who have reconciled their views of Western culture by way of Facebook friendships. The story spoke of the free expression of ideas which the World Wide Web allows, thus making people rise above their cultural disparities.   On Expansion and Language Translation Facebook has reached a great number of users, as it quickly expands to other regions, internationally. In fact, the website stands unruffled to the top as a global social network. The numbers released in August 12 by comScore says it all. There are about 132 million followers of Facebook, 63% of which are outside North America. It helped that the network has been translated to 20 languages such as French, Spanish, and Mandarin. Recently, it has added 69 more languages. The international manager of Facebook, Javier Olivan views this as more than just enabling everyone to understand one another. The translations, according to him, will jumpstart astronomical growth internationally.   Growing and Thriving To date, Facebook faces tough competition with MySpace and News Corp.’s to name a couple. They not only focus on their local markets, but are also meaning to saturate the global scene to amplify audience growth, thus making them very attractive to advertisers and prospective investors.   MySpace has spread out in 29 countries such as India and Korea. Based on a study from Pingdom, a Swedish website availability monitoring website; it is mostly frequented by users in US, Puerto Rico, Australia, Britain, and even in Asian countries such as Malaysia.   LinkedIn is another social network catering to professionals. According to Pingdom, it is popular in India, Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and US.   Despite all these, a staggering 153% increase in new members last June has thrown other social networks off-balance, in terms of the website’s success through a purely user adoption.   Tech-Savvy Socialization Facebook proved to have more ease conquering the international market through its technology-driven strategy. The social network boasts of translation tools, enabling users to take their existing sites and personalize them using their native tongue. The tools proved to offer very accurate translations, setting it apart from the other social network websites. The senior analyst of comScore, Andrew Lipsman, said that it is indeed, a very scalable process, with the audience’s number multiplying really fast.   MySpace on the other hand follows a different route. Facebook’s close rival opens offices in countries where ad dollars and friends are probable. This strategy definitely slows down their expansion internationally but this approach is deemed to be a surefire way to better reflect the cultures of new countries while racking up dollars from advertisers, too. Soon, according to Jeff Berman, MySpace’s president of sales and marketing, MySpace’s non-US users will cover half or 50 percent of the its total revenue.   Hi5 language translation tool applications strategy resembles that of Facebook’s, except that this social network from San Francisco initially hired a third-party service provider, Lionsbridge, to translate the social network to languages such as Japanese. This strategy increased its popularity, making the base users amount to a hefty 56 million. According to Pingdom, the site remains immensely popular in Latin America.   More Possibilities The Facebook executives, though focused at present on the website’s tools, have not closed their doors on the possibility of opening offices in other countries to make their website more culturally-relevant, similar to the strategy employed by MySpace. Right now however, Olivan stresses that as long as there are users, advertisers will continue to create campaigns and put ads on their sites, making Facebook remain universal.

 

 

Former executive David Katz may have already left his post as the head of sports, entertainment and studios in Yahoo.com in 2006, but he never really left what he has always cared about and loved to do: write about sports and offer something relevant to sports enthusiasts.

 

A Healthy Competition At age 36, Katz will wage war against the other Internet powerhouses such as ESPN, Yahoo, Fox Sports, Major League Baseball, and AOL with his website, sportsfanlive.com. Sportsfanlive.com is looking to be released within the week, boasting of Katz’s versions of customized contents, social networking, and even fantasy games. Katz felt that the other competitors have become a lot more complicated and difficult to navigate, so sportsfanlive.com is what he thought would enjoy quite a good number of followers.

 

Everything But Traditional What sets sportsfanlive.com apart from the rest is that it is built for the next generation and with their evolving needs in mind. Katz stressed that the other sports websites have what he calls the “traditional media DNA”, fooling around with the site here and there but keeping them basically the same and generic.

 

Six months of planning in his Hollywood Hills abode have made him very positive and confident that the website is up to the challenge. The site’s features are naturally-flowing, allowing a visitor to create a community which is projected to have a viral growth. SportsFanLive is aimed to become the sports enthusiast’s Facebook, rather than connect to existing social networking websites.

 

Similar to MyESPN  and MyYahoo, the users can customize their site, mixing in together the teams they love and hate. Additionally, the users will receive news from 4500 aggregated sources which are regularly updated.

 

The Secret Sauce Katz believed that aggregation will be SportsFanLive’s secret weapon. Because unlike Google, which is definitely useful in searching for general needs of visitors, it has no clear perception of the specific sports needs of sports fans.

 

Through the FanFeed feature, sports-minded pals can easily share articles with one another or they can opt to use FanFinder application to alert their sports buddies to sports bars where they come together to cheer on their favorite teams. FanFinder is a zip code and map -based function which is a visual update of forums on rivals.com (which happens to be a Yahoo subsidiary).

 

A Sports Facebook Katz also commented that SportsFanLive aimed to be everyone else’s Facebook, at least for the sports enthusiasts, that is. According to him, without a doubt, Facebook is commendable for doing a really good job at connecting people all over the globe, but like Google, Facebook is not specifically geared towards sports-related matters. The site aims to be apart from the other social networking websites by keeping sports their focal point.

 

Traditional fantasy games are out of the question at this point as he feels that fans may not have a lot of time to tend to season-long fantasy games.

 

Gaming Features SportsFanLive offers gaming features that will enable them to challenge one another by posting or accepting wagers (this is akin to an online casino sports book which is user-generated) allowing them to either earn or lose Buxbets (SportsFanLive’s version of funny money). The feature is interesting (“they can compete on any topic they want against anyone at any time”) because he designed it based on the assumption that fans like to test their wits about anything they felt they know best.

 

Mouse Voting Jeff Price, Sports Illustrated Group president for digital, commented that Katz may very well understand and know sports fans’ hearts, but he has misgivings on how SportsFanLive can sustain traffic and engagements. Voting depends on a sports fan’s mouse. Price also noted how interesting it is the way people can embrace the games made available to them.

 

An analyst for Jupiter Research, Bobby Tulsiani remarked that if Katz succeeded in his plan, he would be similar to other new web entrants who will defy the pioneers in existing categories. The recent research on Internet sports users showed that evidence is yet to be confirmed regarding sports fans who wanted to switch to other online sports space.

 

Full of Hope Katz’s belief on his success remained unfazed. SportsFanLive may be self-funded for the time being, but then, he is positive that individual investors will be interested though he put off dropping a name for now. Samsung though, has already signed on as an early sponsor of Katz’s project.

 

He is happy to note that sports fans may not see it at present, but soon, they’ll realize that SportsFanLive is something they just have to use and will be unable to live without.  

 

 

In an industry where it is a dog eats dog battle, it is crucial to come up with a marketing strategy that will make your wares sellable, if monopolizing a target market is not an option.

How does one set his products or services apart from the rest? Take a leaf out of Universal Pictures, Carl’s Jr., and Southwest Airlines’ book and try counterprogramming.

Counterprogramming operates under the assumption that a particular product or service has a target market. Rarely does one encounter a product that answers everyone’s needs. Therefore, there is always a need to fill and address, and with filling that void comes your target market.

Timing may also be a key. When a competitor launches a product or a service, a counter to that product or service may be presented, too. Consumers would always need an option and would welcome a refreshing one at that.

Starting for example with the case of Universal Pictures which chose to show Mamma Mia amidst the hype of Batman: The Dark Knight, Universal Pictures saw the possibility that the older, female demographic would not be as thrilled as the young, male audience to see Batman hurrying off to free Gotham. They would probably prefer Meryl Streep’s hilarity of having to solve the riddle of her daughter’s paternity (her daughter who is a would-be bride had three alleged fathers).

Counterprogramming is another avenue opened to competitors to offer an alternative when another competitor’s creation is less appealing.  For example, the proliferation of fast food fare coupled with Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 documentary “Super Size Me”  gave McDonald a run for their money. To repair the damage, McDonald and Taco Bell started offering slightly healthier fare (not that any fast food is really healthy). Crusades against trans fat and fast food restaurants sprouted up faster than one can say “fast food”, causing a ban against them. Despite the growing resistance to the fast food way of life, there were still those who craved “real [fast] food”.

This made Carl Jr. tout its own sandwiches, in terms of size and sloppiness, to tap the once big market for fast food. The result is a 730-calorie, 47-fat-grams Monster Breakfast Sandwich, tagged as “Breakfast as Big as Our Burgers”. Up to this day, Carl Jr. continues to serve and feed the hungry stomachs of young men.

Southwest Airlines follows a different lead but with a similar tactic. While most airlines would charge for every single thing a passenger would ask for during a flight, Southwest Airlines is very proud to say that “Fees Don’t Fly with Us”. Never charging for second suitcase, snacks, a choice to sit in a window seat, pillows or blankets, bottles of water, and fuel (though most airlines would disguise it under the term “surcharge”), the airline racked up more dollars than those who do.

The bottom line of counterprogramming is to make your ware different so it would stand out. Put more items for consumption than frills. Sell to an untapped market (a market where there is only a few selection or  a narrow array of choices), allow for something (this really depends on your own considerations) that others will not allow. One man’s loss is another man’s gain anyway.

Going against the flow may just give you the sales that you are aiming for. If you like more risks, do not only take the road less traveled; instead, blaze new trails. You will never know what treasures you might unearth.

 

  I think we can all learn a little something about teamwork from this group of young men and women. This is absolutely spectacular synchronization, timing, teamwork — amazing!