Entrepreneurs are by definition doers so find it natural to think mainly in terms of making more sales. But of course money saved is every bit as good as money earned, as this infographic on controlling costs reminds us…

This infographic was produced by Sage Software

LinkedIn has carved out a niche as THE social networking website for business, and if you’re a business owner, a presence among LinkedIn’s 200 million other businesspeople is a complete no-brainer.

In Episode 12 of The Small Business Marketing Report Podcast, we discuss what you need to do to create a great profile, how to build your network on the site, and what to do to get the most out of LinkedIn’s powerful functionality as a new business/prospecting tool…

The Small Business Marketing Report Podcast is a free fortnightly audio presented by myself, Robert Tyson, and my co-host Sean Clark. In each episode we tackle the big questions facing small business owners and startups as they navigate the complex and rapidly changing landscape of online marketing and social media.

Listen or subscribe below to learn:

• What is LinkedIn and how can it help you?
• How LinkedIn can help your search engine presence
• Creating a great profile: Image, Headline, Experience, Summary, Skills and Expertise, Recommendations
• How to use LinkedIn Groups to get new business
• What is the value of the new Endorsements feature?
• How to grow your network on LinkedIn
• How to use the search and filtering tools to prospect for new business
• Adding Company pages
• Tips on status updates
• LinkedIn’s paid options: paid membership and advertising

Here’s how to listen to this podcast:

• You can listen to the show direct from this website below, or better yet subscribe via iTunes here
• If you have an Android device you can get the podcasts via the Stitcher app
• If you have a Blackberry device you can also find us on Blackberry podcasts too
• Finally, you can also follow this show on the Small Business Marketing Report Google+ Page

Enjoy – and don’t forget to connect with me on LinkedIn here!

Wondering if your small business could benefit from a presence on Facebook, with it’s 1 billion users? Or perhaps you’ve already got a foothold, but want a clear strategy to help you get better results?

Either way, Episode 11 of The Small Business Marketing Report Podcast is for you!

The Small Business Marketing Report Podcast is a free fortnightly audio presented by myself, Robert Tyson, and my co-host Sean Clark. In each episode we tackle the big questions facing small business owners and startups as they navigate the complex and rapidly changing landscape of online marketing and social media.

Listen or subscribe below to learn:

• How to judge whether or not Facebook is a good marketing channel for your business
• How to set suitable business goals for your Facebook presence – so you don’t waste time and effort
• Key Facebook concepts and terminology explained – including ‘Edgerank’
• Hints and tips for setting up a good Facebook business page
• How to optimise your business page
• How to create content and promote your page
• What content performs best
• How to measure the performance of your Facebook marketing

Here’s how to listen to this podcast:

• You can listen to the show direct from this website below, or better yet subscribe via iTunes here
• If you have an Android device you can get the podcasts via the Stitcher app
• If you have a Blackberry device you can also find us on Blackberry podcasts too
• Finally, you can also follow this show on the Small Business Marketing Report Google+ Page

Enjoy!

When I asked readers the other week to write to me with their frustrations, quite a number replied along the lines of:

“What we’re doing doesn’t seem to be working… can you have a look at our website and tell us what to do?”

Time constraints mean I can only offer that kind of personalised service to my paying customers…

My VIP Members, for example, are entitled to one personal website critique video like this, telling them where the problems and opportunities lie in their current websites.

But I will say this: MOST small business websites tend to suffer from the same general problems, which are: 

1. Lack of clarity.

If it’s not clear within a couple of seconds of arriving what your site is, who it’s for and what it does, then you’ve failed.

Forget ‘clever’ slogans – get to the point and ensure above all that it is clear WHAT you do and WHO you aim to do it for.

2. Information overload.

Most businesses try to pack every single thing they do onto their homepage.

It backfires horribly because it’s a recipe for confusion and paralysis on the part of your visitors.

You should know the 2 or 3 really important ‘conversions’ that your site needs to generate for you to succeed, and focus your site on them ruthlessly.

If you don’t know these, my VIP resources include a structured framework to help you identify them.

3. No compelling message.

Most small business owners spend far too long worrying about stuff like colours, logos and fonts when what they should really be worried about is the TEXT on their website.

The words you use are what matters. Too often they’re an afterthought.

How much time have you REALLY spent devising, crafting, testing, honing them?

4. Lack of credibility indicators.

The average new person arriving at your website regards you with a default level of distrust that sits somewhere between murderer and estate agent.

You must recognise that fact and actively work to bring down those barriers with every means at your disposal: personal videos, testimonials, qualifications, years in business, clients served, easy contact details… the list is a long one but how many are you using?

For creative advice tailored to YOUR website along become a VIP Member and request your personal website critique video from me. 

>>> Become a VIP Member here – and get your detailed personal website critique video…

Reader question time again:

‘I get clients, but they are not repeat clients. I need to know what I need to do to get them to come back to me at least monthly.’

Repeat after me: repeat business is of vital importance, but most business owners are missing a couple of tricks…

1. Can you change your business model to build in a level of automatic repeat business each month?

Can you offer a package – instead of, or in addition to, your existing offerings – that sees you provide value to your customers on an ongoing basis, in exchange for regular, automatic billing?

After all, just as you like to know you have business coming in each month, many customers also prefer to ‘know where they stand’ and be guaranteed the service they need each month – IF you give them the choice.

Now, subscriptions are hardly a new idea – it’s just that the kneejerk reaction of too many business owners is ‘but no-one does that in MY industry… MY business is different’.

In reality, almost ANY business can build recurring revenue into its model with a little creative thinking.

With PayPal, you can set up a service sales page, whereby people buy online once and agree to automatic billings at regular intervals.

You then get paid automatically every month until the customer cancels.

If you want to learn exactly how to set this up, I go through it in detail in my VIP Membership. 

2. Are you capturing customer and prospect email addresses, and staying in touch with value-based emails regularly?

If you’re doing regular, permission-based email marketing, you can stay ‘top of mind’ with customers and be pro-active about getting regular business.

Let’s say you’re a cleaner. You’d send a weekly email newsletter providing one tip a week on subjects such as how to keep curtains or bathroom grouting clean.

Keep it useful, keep doing it, and keep encouraging new people to join your list and something amazing will happen.

A proportion of people on your ‘email list’ will decide they don’t want to clean their curtains this month and call you.

It’s that simple.

To learn how anyone can:

• Set email marketing up for their business FROM TOTAL SCRATCH
• Embed email capture forms on a website
• Create a smart-looking email newsletter template and send newsletters
• Get the maximum number of ideal prospects to opt-in
• Grow their email list using simple techniques…

… just follow the comprehensive email marketing videos I’ve created in my VIP Membership…

A guest post from VIP Member Paul Goggin of Innovo Consulting

1. Lose the office altogether!

Renting office space is one of the biggest regular expenses against your business.  As well as rent, telephones, utilities, and even management fees all make a dent in your business finances.

Think about what – if anything – you really need from being in an office.  Is there any reason why you, your colleagues and staff could not be just as productive working from home?

Would your employees appreciate not having to commute to the office every day?  Would they be more productive if they had the capability to work from home minus the commute or drive to and from the office?  Phone calls, email and video conferencing can be utilised for updates or general communication to keep up to date on how work is progressing.

Taking advantage of these opportunities introduce cost efficiencies while leading in your field with the use of cutting edge technology to empower your business and workforce.

You, your colleagues and employees will enjoy the benefits of a truly progressive and flexible work environment, created by you.

2. Move Your Email To “The Cloud”

Email is an important IT service, alongside your telephony services.  It is often your main method of generating and nurturing business.  You need assurances that your email service will always available.  Regular or prolonged outages can be disastrous and cost you potential business.

Cloud Computing could be the answer. Your business would not need to spend any more money on hardware or software for backup, server and resilience solutions…

Whether it be Google’s Gmail, Microsoft’s Outlook.com (formerly Hotmail), or any other web based email, your business benefits from almost 100% availability in the Cloud.  You will not lose any of the functionality you currently have with your current onsite solution.

Moving your email offsite is one of the simplest and most common areas of IT to begin your migration to the Cloud.  It allows you to dip your toes in the water, so to speak.  You will get to see the benefits of Cloud Computing, while evaluating its compatibility for your business.

You can run the Cloud email solutions alongside your existing email solution to trial it’s suitability for your business. If you decide it isn’t for you, you can simply stop the Cloud solution and continue with your existing solution.

Cloud based email solutions offer (but are not limited to) multiple email addresses for your business and plenty of storage for email attachments.  Working on documentation at the same time as colleagues (because any changes can be tracked) and calendar sharing is also possible, as well as being able to filter emails into folders (labels) in exactly the same way you do now.

Removing the need to spend money ensuring your email servers are running, upgrading the hardware and software, and not forgetting power, reduces your business expenditure.  As with internet telephony, the costs of Cloud email solutions are often minimal and flexible. Once these benefits become clear to your business, you may be ready to take the next step…

3. Move The Rest Of Your IT To The Cloud

Once you’re happy that your email service is secure, you may be ready to adopt further Cloud services. The two major players in hosted email are also major players in Cloud application services.

Microsoft Office 365, and Google Apps provide a natural progression from simple email for small businesses.  The ability to create, edit and share emails, collaborate on documents, presentations, websites and more, all from  any internet connected location is very powerful.

Microsoft’s offering isn’t fully a cloud service as you still need local installations of Microsoft Office on your PC (or any laptop or Microsoft tablet). This also limits your options when considering which devices to buy.  Microsoft Windows, Surface Pro tablets and Windows Mobile all run Office 365 when it is installed on them.

Apple Macs can run Office too (you have to procure the Mac compatible version), but Android and iPhone handsets need specific apps. Google Apps is fully Cloud based as they are solely accessible through an internet browser.  This means that not only can you use any device to gain access, you can start a document on your Macbook, edit it on an Android tablet and add it to a presentation on a Windows PC. Both charge very reasonable monthly fees per user, while guaranteeing 99% uptime.

It is a natural response to worry about the security of your data, if you’re considering moving it to the cloud.  If your data is hosted elsewhere you can no  longer ‘see’ it so it seems vulnerable.  In reality, the opposite is true.  Something like 80% of data theft, or malicious attacks originate from inside an organisation. 

The image of the sneaky hacker accessing your data is a myth in terms of the real effects. Also, the servers holding your data, in your office, are at risk of failure, power cuts, fire or even theft.  Does your onsite data have a reliable backup strategy?  What happens in the event of an accidental deletion of business critical data?

Google and Microsoft are specialists in the field of hosting data securely.  Not only is your data stored on multiple servers, it is replicated across geographical sites.  This means that if any of their servers experience a hardware failure, or the site has a power cut or fire, your data is still available from another site.  All of this means that any system failures or outages will be invisible to you, meaning no interruption or downtime to your productivity.

Also, as Cloud solution providers they are certified and compliant in various security protocols, data protection acts, and contracts guaranteeing the integrity and security of your data.  Can you say the same about the server in your office?  In short, it’s in their interests to ensure that your data is both safe and always available.

Also consider features already mentioned, including video chat, instant messaging, shared calendars, email and contacts, company websites, tracking changes in documents, plus the flexibility to do all of this while on the move.  It is clear to see the benefits that these solutions can bring to your business.

4. Scale your IT along with your business

As your business grows, changes and flexes, ensuring your IT keeps up can be complex and very expensive.  Gain more clients, take on more staff, or start more projects, and your IT grows too.  More email servers, disks for storing data and the power to run it all, cost money and will need upgrading every few years.  If your business shrinks, or you only need staff and resources for a short term project, you can’t then send all that new IT back.  With the Cloud, you can.

As Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365 charge per user / per month or year, they are scalable.  Taking on new staff for a short term project?  Just add extra users and pay only for the time you have them.  When the project is complete and your temporary staff leave, you remove the user accounts and stop paying for them.

Email and data storage are automatically created when adding users but aren’t deleted when they leave.  This means that you don’t lose emails or data created when they worked for you, and you can reallocate those emails and data to long term staff. These Cloud solutions really are as flexible as you need them to be.

5. Change Your IT Solution(s)

Ensure that your business is getting the best value it can from your technology. Many small businesses can’t afford, or don’t need a full time onsite IT person.  Many, however, also “make do” with the traditional IT support method, which is also as follows:

• Your PC starts to run slowly, or doesn’t start up.
• You contact your local IT support, who attempt to trouble shoot and obtain more information about the problem.
• If they are unable to resolve the problem this way, they will redirect a ticket to the appropriate team (given the information they have) for resolution.
• Someone arrives and fixes the problem.
• An invoice follows, and includes a breakdown of costs plus VAT.
• Similar to needing an emergency plumber, you begrudgingly accept that the cost is a necessary evil.

As well as getting the most from your IT, you need to get the most from your service provider.  You need to be clued up enough to know what questions to ask, so that you are made aware of anything you need to know, should the information not be offered at the time. For example, when negotiating a break / fix (you call them when something stops working, they come along and fix it) contract with your service provider, ask for a comparisons with a proactive monitoring solution which may save you money and provide the peace of mind that goes with knowing your service provider is acting in the best interests of your business.

How valuable would it be to you, if your IT guy was monitoring your systems and fixing any problems when they arise?  How about if they did that without the need to visit your office? All this without you even knowing there were ever any problems until you were sent you a report that detailed exactly what they’d fixed that week/month/quarter/six months/year?

These reports can also used to spot trends, or show where improvements can be made.  Those improvements may not lie in buying expensive hardware, but may be in changing the way you use your Technology.  If they could do all of this for a monthly fee, it may turn out to be cheaper than the hourly rate you currently pay.

What if you didn’t have to sign up to lengthy contracts, but could go month to month, knowing that if you ever wanted to change or end the agreement you only had to give 30 days notice?  That service provider would become a trusted advisor, working with you to enable your business to grow and be more profitable.

A good service provider or IT consultant will do all of these and more, with no obligations on your part, whilst developing continual improvements to the services they offer you.

Cloud evangelist Paul Goggin started Innovo Consulting with a mission to turn the perception of technology in the workplace as an expensive but necessary evil on its head. Innovo does this by working with small businesses to unleash the power, flexibility, and cost efficiencies the right technologies can bring, helping them change the way they work and compete with bigger competitors. Paul can be contacted on 07789 263 636.

Welcome to episode 10 of The Small Business Marketing Report Podcasts – an in-depth look at SEO for your small business…

The Small Business Marketing Report is a bi-weekly audio podcast co-hosted by myself and Sean Clark. In each episode we look at the challenges and identify the opportunities greeting small business and startups as they tackle online marketing and social media – and in this podcast we go in-depth on a perenially popular topic: SEO.

Only a dummy would fail to see the potential of Google and the lesser search engines to send them business.

But what is SEO  or, to give it it’s full name, search engine optimisation? How do you actually DO it, and how important a marketing activity is it compared to anything else you might be doing?

Here’s what Sean and I discuss for you in this brand new podcast:

• How search engines work
• The difference between Google and other search engines
• The benefits of SEO
• SEO basics: keyword research, on page and off page techniques
• Link building strategies
• Tools for SEO
• Popular SEO myths and misconceptions busted
• What is the future of SEO?
• Is SEO actually worth YOUR time and effort?

Here’s how to listen to this podcast:

• You can listen to the show direct from this website below, or better yet subscribe via iTunes here.
• If you have an Android device you can get the podcasts via the Stitcher app.
• You can also find us on Blackberry podcasts too.
• Finally, you can also follow this show on the new Small Business Marketing Report Google+ Page.

Enjoy!

Last week I asked my newsletter subscribers to hit me with their questions and frustrations so I could provide some guidance on this website.

One reader replied:

‘I’ll mention a frustration… the seeming Catch 22 of email marketing. I have a few names on a list, but can’t seem to be able to grow that list.

Without growing the list, I can’t get new potential clients, but without potential new clients I have no one to add to the list…’

I’m not sure I recognise the Catch 22-ness of that situation exactly.

But let’s get back to basics.

Your list growth is a function of two things:

1. The amount of traffic you are sending to your signup page (you do have a specific, standalone signup page, right?).

2. How good a job that page does of converting traffic into signups.

If your list isn’t growing the way you want it to, then your answer is in at least one and usually both of these things.

Therefore, the two questions you need to be asking yourself are:

Question 1. How much traffic am I getting to my signup page now, and how can I increase it? 

If you install Google Analytics (more about this in my VIP Membership), it will tell you how much traffic you are getting to each of your pages.

If only 50 people are viewing your signup page a month, don’t be surprised if your list isn’t growing.

How do you increase your traffic?

There are myriad ways, but the first source you must try and master is Google Adwords.

Yes, there’s a cost. But your real concern has to be profits, not trying in vain to do everything for ‘free’.

Get Adwords right and you are guaranteed the stream of targeted traffic you need to reliably and quickly refine your signup process and deliver genuine prospects to your business.

You can get my ‘Adwords from scratch’ course in my VIP Membership here.

Question 2. What is the conversion rate of my signup page and how can I improve it?

If you use email software such as AWeber, you get built-in analytics which will tell you what percentage of visitors to your signup page actually sign up.

This is known as your ‘conversion rate’ and the formula for it is: signups divided by visits to your signup page over the period you’re measuring for, multiplied by 100 to get a percentage.

You’ll need at least 100 visits and preferably more before you can draw any sensible conclusions about how your signup page is performing…

Once you have a benchmark, the next step is to test changing something on that page – the headline, for instance – to see if doing so will improve your conversion rate.

To give you an idea of the radical improvements that changes can make, the very first general purpose signup page I set up for The Tyson Report converted 4.2% of visitors into signups.

Not so hot…

However my latest general purpose page is converting at 43.5% however, which is obviously much better…

You can ‘do the math’ yourself: compared to my first page, I can now generate ONE TENTH of the traffic and STILL get MORE signups.

Key point one: most people never get beyond their own personal ‘first page’!

Key point two: I know I can improve that even more over time…

I schedule time twice a week to make new changes to these processes.

If my changes improve my conversion rate, I keep them.

If they don’t, I ditch them and go back to the drawing board.

You need to do the same: test and refine, test and refine, test and refine.

But what exact components should you be testing and tweaking?  

This is a subject in its own right, but I promise you will make great strides if you pay attention to the following:

1. Your opt in incentive

Do you provide a strong incentive for people to sign up?

‘Join our mailing list’ just doesn’t cut it any more…

And it’s not just about offering any old incentive. The difference between a strong, well-crafted incentive and weak, poorly-conceived incentive is chalk and cheese.

I can’t cover the whole process here, but I have written a very comprehensive step by step guide, based on all my experience, on how you can create compelling opt in incentives in my VIP Membership…

>>> Get the opt in incentive workshop here…

2. Your headline

Your headline matters, big time.

Again, the opt in incentive workshop in my VIP Membership includes some great tactics for creating high-performing headlines, including a four part formula that is worth its weight in gold.

3. Credibility indicators

The general public is TERRIFIED of being ‘sold’ or ‘ripped off’, and online it’s even worse.

Are you using all the credibility indicators at your disposal to allay those fears?

‘Social proof’ like customer testimonials is just one area you MUST look at, but nothing beats shooting and embedding a good ‘in person’ video and embedding it on your signup page.

It demonstrates that you’re a real individual, who’s standing behindyour product or service.

The Creating Compelling Web Videos workshop in my VIP Membership can show you exactly how to shoot and embed your own video on your website.

Some interesting stats here…

Sample Emails

Episode 9 of The Small Business Marketing Report Podcast is all about boosting your social media reach!

In this episode Sean Clark interviews Saul Fleischman, creator of RiteTag.

RiteTag is a piece of web-based software that helps you discover the discover the most effective hashtags to use in your social media messaging.

Originally associated with Twitter, #hashtags have now become a part of the wider social media landscape and effective use of them can help get you exposure that would be impossible otherwise. Saul explains how.

Podcast subscribers can also get free access to the beta version of RiteTag, just listen to the podcast to find out how.

• You can listen to the show below, or better yet subscribe via iTunes here.
• If you have an Android device you can get the podcasts via the Stitcher app.
• You can also find us on Blackberry podcasts too.
• Finally, you can also follow this show on the new Small Business Marketing Report Google+ Page.

Enjoy!