Survey Shows Where To Advertise Local Business

If you are a local business owner and are running a special on one of your products, should you advertise in the local paper or on the web?

According to the latest AdWeek Media/Harris Poll it depends on your target market. The specific question the survey asked was “When you are looking for a bargain, which of the following types of advertising, if any, do you believe is most likely to help you find one?”

Of the over 2,000 adults surveyed 23% say the best bargains are in newspapers and magazines, 18% say the Internet is best and 34% say it makes no difference.

But, when you break it down by age groups…

When looking for the best bargains, different age groups have different ideas of where to look. Those 18-34 are more likely to say online ads (22%) and television commercials (17%) are the best places to go while those 35-44 years old go online (26%). The older one is, the more likely they are to use newspaper and magazine advertisements, as 24% of those 44-54 and one-third of those 55 and older (33%) say those are media most likely to help them find the best bargain.

In other words, if your product is slanted at a younger age group, you’ll get a better response with online ads. If you are targeting an older group your newspaper ad may get a better response.

Females had a slightly higher bias toward newspapers/magazines/catalogs, men had a higher preference for online ads.

29% of college graduates chose online ads for bargains while only 12% of high-school grads did.

So it pays to know your target market. While the difference isn’t all that much, you should gear your print ads toward products for older women and online ads for younger, college-educated males..
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The Need To Outsource

Most small business owners start out doing everything themselves. If you continue doing everything, your business can’t grow. That leaves two options: outsource or hire local employees.

The do-gooder government has made hiring local employees a real hassle. pay requirements, Equal Opportunity, payroll taxes, and the possibility of getting sued if you try and fire someone, just to name a few.

Your other option is outsourcing. It’s just like hiring the services of an independent contractor and in the new digital age that contractor can be local, national or international. Contractors can by hired for a specific project or for continuing operations.

Here are the advantages of outsourcing: Read more.
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Starting An Online Business – Incorporation

We’re approaching the start of a new year and many of you are looking into starting an online business. One of the steps is deciding whether or not to incorporate your business.

As a small or home office business, you have four main choices for your business as a legal entity in the United States (for those of you in other countries you will have to check on your own business tax laws):

* Sole Proprietor
* General Partnership
* Limited Liability Company (LLC)
* Subchapter S Corporation

Of the other possible options, a “C” corporation is generally for large businesses and Limited Partnerships can be complicated, so I won’t get into them here.

Also, don’t forget your local business licenses. You may have to register your business in the city, county and/or state where you live. You should also set up a separate bank account for your business.

In general, your main considerations are going to be liability, taxes and how you intend to finance your business. Read more.
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Is Google Chrome OS Right For Small Business?

Google Chrome OS is not right for everyone, nor is it right for every computer. What Chrome OS does is put the “net” in netbooks.

These are small, lightweight computers (I wouldn’t even call them laptops) for use on the road or for quick access to the Internet. The operating system is really an advanced web browser.

The advantages are faster boot and load times and less computer power (read battery power) to operate.

The disadvantage is everything is done on the web. No programs or files are stored on the computer.

Now, a cynical person might think that Google is leading everyone into cloud computing, especially Google Apps. But the trend is probably headed in that direction anyway.

Google Chrome OS is set to release an early ‘bare-bones’ version of the OS. I don’t recommend getting in too early. They will be continually updating the OS until it has reasonable functionality over the next year.

But, for planning purposes, small businesses need to see whether they can integrated it into their IT structure.

If your business uses Microsoft Office or other computer based software to do most or your work (Outlook sharing, Word documents, etc.) then you may want to stay with something like Windows 7 Starter edition to integrate with the other office applications.

If your business is moving into the cloud for most of its applications then Google Chrome OS may be worth a look for your road warriors.

Further Reading:

Google’s Chrome OS: Will you give up desktop apps?

Chrome OS will give Microsoft a run for their money

Is imminent Chrome OS launch reckless?

Small Business and the Cloud

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5 Items For A Memo From Myself to Myself

With the end of the year coming up it’s time to review what has happened last year and what will happen next year.

Harvard Business School asks CEO’s to write a memo to their Board each year summarizing lessons learned and plans for the new year. For a home office or small business owner you may not have a Board of Directors, but the principle remains the same.

So, what I recommend is writing a memo to yourself.

I’ve taken the liberty of modifying the list from Harvard, so here are the five things I recommend you actually write down in a memo…

1. Lessons learned in the past year
It’s okay if strategies or tactics didn’t work out as long as you realize why they didn’t work and correct it in the future. By the same token, write down what did work.

2. Top priorities for the next year
You should have 3 – 5 goals for the next year. Don’t add a new goal during the year unless it is replacing one has been completed.

3. Set parameters for those goals
Actually create a timeline for your objectives with earliest and latest completion dates and the top and bottom limits you want to spend to achieve them.

4. Lay out strategies
Sure, your goal is to make more money, but how? Create a new product, expand your mail list, improve customer service?

5. Review your memo regularly
Don’t just write it and forget it. Drag it out every month and see where you are. Are you on schedule? If one is near completion, what’s next?

There’s all sorts of gurus and coaches out there that will tell you to write your goals down. Why? Because it works! It only takes a few minutes and is well worth your time..
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From Small Business To Big Business – One Man’s Story

A lot of clients ask us “how do I get started with an online business?” Thomas Heath, a columnist for the Washington post, just wrote a column about one man’s rise from small sales on eBay to a 5 million dollar a year company.

Find your niche. The man in question is a U.S. Marine named Jeffrey Morin. He started in the niche of “challenge coins”, memorabilia coins that commemorate service in a military unit or exercise. He saw them on eBay selling for around $10 – $15 and knew he could buy them for around $5. A small business was born.

Grow your sales. After about six months he got an email asking if he could he find a coin dedicated to mothers with sons in the Marine Corps. No, but he could sure make one! Read more.
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Press Releases Now Adding Multimedia

Your small business can now take advantage of a new trend in press releases by using a Multimedia News Release (MNR). Instead of releasing a text version you release a whole package – it can include 3-5 minutes of video and/or audio, photos, brochures, PDF’s and text.

If you don’t have video you can use photos to create an animated slide show. The idea is to cover all of the bases in one package for prospective customers.

Previously, you would use text news releases through someone like PRWeb.com

For multimedia press releases there are distribution companies out there, the most prominent one being MultiVu at PRNewswire.com, which I believe originated the idea.

They can broadcast your MNR nationally on the PR Newswire, submit your video to online video portals, allow embedding of your video on other sites or blogs, submit links to Social Media sites, add your photos to photo galleries, add it to their email marketing list and provide links to other files like PDF’s or longer videos hosted on your site or elsewhere.

Another company, AtomicPR, has offices in the U.S. and London. A similar company in Canada is CNW Group.

The whole idea of a home office or small business having a web site is owning your own broadcast medium – audio, video, pictures and text – that you control. This has the added advantage of taking your content, in whatever form, and distributing it on the web.

The advantage is disseminating your brand and/or products, drawing in potential customers and adding external links to your web site.

Caution: in the same way that the old text style news releases were supposed to be about news, not sales, your release isn’t a sales come-on. It should pique everyone’s interest and lead them to your site for more information. Your site is where you make your sales pitch..
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Make Money Or Create Wealth?

As a small business owner or entrepreneur is your objective to make money or to create wealth? There’s a difference.

Bernie Madoff made money. The investment bankers on Wall Street made money. A construction worker who built a road paid for with government stimulus money made money. The Federal Reserve printing 2 trillion dollars out of thin air literally made money. They didn’t create wealth.

Capitalism is starting to get a bad name. But, if you are a small business owner you are a capitalist. Whether it’s a bread slicer, an ebook or a wedding cake, you are creating a product. You are adding value.

Steve Forbes wrote a recent editorial called Capitalism: A True Love Story. He decries the theory that

capitalism is fundamentally based on greed and is immoral; that it enables the rich to get richer at the expense of the poor; that free markets are Darwinian places where the most ruthless operators unfairly crush smaller competitors and where the cost of vital products and services, such as health care and energy, are almost beyond the reach of those who need them; and that capitalism unchecked breeds corruption à la Bernie Madoff and Enron and encourages obscene bonuses, excessive pay packages and unwarranted golden parachutes. Capitalism is also being blamed with renewed vigor for a range of social ills, from air pollution to obesity.

He goes on to say that if it weren’t for capitalism there would be no personal computers, no cell phones, no Internet. People of all income levels have benefited from capitalism. Read more.
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