Beakinoftruth: about internet marketing

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

In an informal class='blippr-nobr'>Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter poll, we asked our friends working at or running small and medium-sized businesses not what they could do for the class='blippr-nobr'>Internetclass="blippr-nobr">Internet, but what the Internet could do for them.

We heard responses that ranged widely, running the gamut from social media marketing tools to internal team communications. Here’s a list of great resources for SMBs that meet some of the most pressing needs you experience as a business owner or entrepreneur.

Best of all, every single one of these tools can be used free of charge (some have paid options for larger businesses or for those that need more features). And all of them are web-based; that means you won’t have to install software, worry about cross-platform compatibility, take up any of your own system’s resources or have to leave work when you leave your own PC.

If you have other tools you love using that you think other SMBs could benefit from, please let us know about them in the comments.

2 Internal Chat Tools

When you want to get your employees or clients together to brainstorm, make decisions or simply run your business, instant messaging can be a huge time-saver — especially if you’re working with a distributed team or out-of-town clients and vendors. While we love programs like class='blippr-nobr'>Skypeclass="blippr-nobr">Skype for business chat and conference calls, it may not be installed on every machine you have to use. These web-based group chat programs solve that problem.

Zoho’s web-based chat client allows you to create and chat with groups. You can easily share your desktop with co-workers, and you can integrate your calendar for quick appointment or meeting scheduling. Best of all, Zoho’s IM service also supports all kinds of IM clients, including Yahoo and class='blippr-nobr'>AIMclass="blippr-nobr">aim.

Another good online group chat service is Gixaw. With this service, you can create a unique URL for chatting with your group. You can share files, create multiple “rooms” for different projects or departments, and even search through chat history.

2 Task Management Tools

As your business and number of employees grow, you may need a central place for delegating tasks, monitoring progress and ensuring everything gets done correctly and on time.

HiTask is a free, web-based task management tool perfect for SMBs. It has a user-friendly, easy interface for your to-do lists and for team or project management. With HiTask, you can work on recurring events, make assignments, sort tasks based on priority and more, all within a simple drag-and-drop UI.

Another great task management tool is RememberTheMilk. Don’t be fooled by its homemaker-ish name. This web app has been widely acclaimed over the past several years, and it works for individuals as well as small teams. RTM integrates with class='blippr-nobr'>Gmailclass="blippr-nobr">gmail and Outlook, and the service has mobile apps for class='blippr-nobr'>Windowsclass="blippr-nobr">Windows, class='blippr-nobr'>Androidclass="blippr-nobr">Android, iPhone and BlackBerry.

8 Social Media Marketing and Monitoring Tools

One of the categories SMBs ask for the most help with is social media. You need to quickly and easily keep an eye on what people are saying about you; more importantly, you need to participate in the social media conversation yourself, without drowning hours upon endless hours bouncing around various websites.

There are three great tools we’d recommend for pushing out updates to a variety of sites at once. All three have free, web-based services, and they’re great for working with teams, too. Depending on your specific needs and tastes, you could try out Hootsuiteclass="blippr-nobr">HootSuite, Seesmicclass="blippr-nobr">Seesmic and TweetDeckclass="blippr-nobr">TweetDeck.

If you want to see what people are saying about your company, your product, your location or your vertical in real time, try searching for relevant terms on Collecta or SocialMention.

You also have options for network-specific monitoring tools. To see how your tweets are performing, try CrowdBooster. And remember, Twitter’s official analytics product is coming soon, too. For Facebook, use that social network’s Insights dashboard for your business’s Facebook Page.

3 Bookkeeping Tools

When it comes to keeping your finances straight, there are also several free, online tools just right for SMBs.

You can try Numia.biz, accounting software made just for recording and processing small business transactions, including accounts payable, accounts receivable, bank balances and more. It also gives you forms for invoicing, purchases and bank reconciliation and allows you to set up customers and vendors.

The desktop version of QuickBooks is a standard feature of many SMBs. This web-based version of QuickBooks is free and perfect for the new or smaller business. You can use QuickBooks Online to create invoices, pay bills, track expenses and more.

Finally, MoneyTrackin’ is a free web app for simply and quickly tracking your revenue and expenses. You can also share budgets and collaborate with many people together on the same account. MoneyTrackin’ lets you control as many accounts as you need to and tag your transactions; the service is also available as a handy mobile web app.

5 Cloud-Based File Hosting Tools

For sharing and storing large files, class='blippr-nobr'>Google Docsclass="blippr-nobr">Google Docs will allow you to share a wide range of files — including PDFs, spreadsheets, images and much more — free of charge for the first 1024 MB. And believe us, it can take quite a while to get to 1024 MB of content. Google Docs files are easy to keep private and easy to share with others, including clients and team members. Plus, you’ll have a relatively stable company on your side, which isn’t necessarily the case when the startup hosting your files gets bought by Facebook and shuts its doors, for example.

However, if you’d rather go the small-web-company route, there are lots of options for moving large files around the Internet.

If you just need to e-mail a large file to another person, try YouSendIt, which lets you e-mail a link for downloading files up to 2 GB. If you’d like to permanently or semi-permanently store rather than just e-mail your files, you could try Esploded, which lets you create a free account, upload your files and create groups for sharing files. There’s also Dropboxclass="blippr-nobr">Dropbox, FilesAnywhere and Box.netclass="blippr-nobr">Box.net, all of which offer free and paid memberships, just depending on your business’s size and needs.

3 Hiring and Applicant-Tracking Tools

Last of all, as you grow, finding and hiring great new staff members becomes increasingly important and requires more of your attention — and likely greater organization.

Zoho Recruit is free for one person to use. It lets you schedule interviews, add and manage candidates, store resumes and publish job openings from within a simple but robust dashboard.

SmartRecruiters is hiring software that helps users create job ads and post them all over the web, including major job boards and social networks. You can consolidate all your applicants in one place, prescreen them online, share the best candidates with your co-workers or executives, schedule interviews and even rate the candidates all from within the app.

iKrut is an interesting free recruitment system. You can build your own recruitment microsite quickly; from there, you can list all your current job openings on this new career portal. Candidates visit the microsite to upload their résumés and cover letters for you to review. This all also allows for interview scheduling and organizing references. Microsites can be branded to match your own website, and the system has built-in messaging.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- 10 Ways Business Leaders Can Turn Ideas Into Execution/> - 7 Tips for Building a Better Branded App/> - 9 Web Tools to Keep Your Business Running Smoothly During the Holidays/> - 5 iPhone Apps For Avoiding International Business Faux Pas/> - 7 Tips for Succeeding as a Social Media Strategist

Images courtesy of class='blippr-nobr'>Flickrclass="blippr-nobr">Flickr, in order of appearance, by danox, inlinguamanchester, esther17, tsevis, nhankamer, takashi, socialisbetter.

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Now that you’ve started your business and told all your friends and family, you may be wondering, “how do I get more customers?” or “how do I branch out to other people?” Marketing your company and increasing your business presence are ongoing tasks throughout the life of a business that every entrepreneur faces. You can never have too many customers and putting some time into finding those customers is well worth the effort. The following are some helpful ideas for increasing your business presence.

1. Make Your Business Look Official. The first step to a successful marketing campaign is to make your business look official to the outside consumer. With the threat of identity theft ever present in the mind of the American consumer, the more official your business looks, the more likely a customer is to use you and then recommend you to a friend. Making your business look official can consist of filing it with the state, listing with the Better Business Bureau, or even just getting letterhead and a website. In today’s online-based economy, finding a company with a website or that is reputable is just a click away. You don’t want to lose consumers because you looked too much like a fake company.

2. Obtain Relevant Trademarks. After making your business official, keeping up the high standards of operation is important. Unfortunately, a great reputation can be ruined easily by a company with the same or similar name. Getting a trademark for your business or the product you make is important to protect against potential confusion of consumers and gives you recourse against those individuals who do steal your name. U.S. trademarks also protect you from someone stealing your name or ideas nationwide, providing you the opportunity to expand your business beyond your city and state. Applying for a trademark may sound difficult but in reality, many online business filing services will prepare the trademark application materials for you, saving you the hassle of hiring an expensive lawyer.

3. Create a Marketing Plan. Advertising and marketing is the biggest way to make consumers aware of your business, and creating a marketing plan will give you some direction. Think about what you do and who your targeted consumers are. That will often dictate how you focus your marketing and advertisements. For example, a company that offers in-home services to elderly people (a hot industry FYI) probably isn’t using their resources wisely if they use mostly internet advertising. On the other hand, a company that sells college textbooks would do well with almost all online marketing. The audience you sell to and the products or services you offer will help define where your advertising and marketing resources and efforts should go.

4. Different Media Options. Now that you’ve made yourself look professional and reputable and you’ve got your target audience in mind, here are some places you can start your publicity.

Social media is a great place to go for companies that appeal to the younger generation. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are widely popular in the under-30 crowd and even professionals in the 30 to 60 bracket are starting to get in on the action. Having accounts with these sites allows you to create a page where people can find out more information about you and “follow” you. Facebook also allows companies to do advertising with its site, further increasing your presence in the social media scene.

In addition to social media, there are other online techniques to gain and keep customers. Taking the website you created and making it as user-friendly as possible will encourage consumers to use you instead of going to another site. Also, applying search engine optimization techniques (commonly known as “SEO”) to your website will bring it up higher on search engines for certain terms, helping consumers find you. Lastly, listing yourself with trade associations and writing articles relating to your industry or field will help get your name out there and that will go a long way towards bringing in new customers.

For more traditional fields or older generation consumers, print marketing will be much more beneficial. Many trade associations continue to publish print newsletters and journals so look into publishing with them. Mailbox flyers or mailings are also good ways to reach out to consumers and make them aware of your business. Posting these flyers in places that your consumers might frequent will further increase your company’s presence.

Remember, marketing and advertising are only the first few steps on the road to running a successful and profitable business. Keep customers and provoking customers to recommend you are just as important as the initial publicity. Customers will be most likely to recommend you when they have a good experience so keep your standards high!

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1 comment:

bellacollinsSeptember 30, 2019 at 3:11 AM
The internet marketing is very difficult thing and if you wish to use this method on a budget then it can be an issue. We also had low budget and had decided only on the free methods. Also, I am using the business texting service and truly getting incredible results.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

about internet marketing