Ever feel like you’re so consumed with running your business that you have no idea what’s going on in the world outside? It happens to everyone, but small business owners are especially vulnerable. After all, with so many balls in the air and just 24 hours in a day, how much can one person (you) keep track of?
Luckily for us, the folks at Leo Burnett Chicago, a major marketing communications agency, are keeping track of ...
Last week we talked some about the popularity of video content and the public’s growing demand for it. Up until recently, video was either consumer-oriented (as in piano-playing cats) or in the case of commercials, slickly and expensively produced by big advertisers. But now, Google and YouTube have announced that they are “helping every business ‘play big’ on YouTube” by making Google AdWords for video available to all. It parallels search advertising in many ways:
You ...
Tell the truth: How many hours have you spent watching video clips of clever cats, cute kids or the latest Funny or Die parody? We all do it, and we’re doing it more and more apparently. Would you believe that YouTube alone attracts a monthly global audience of 800 million (and growing) monthly visitors? Baljeet Singh, a group product manager at YouTube, likens putting video content on YouTube to “advertising in the SuperBowl,” and, he ...
Business owners are always looking for new ways to manage their business more efficiently. And given the many demands on their time, they usually don’t have the time to go out searching for the information they need. So, the information needs to come to them… or at the very least, needs to be in easy-to-access, familiar locations.
Business owners obviously focus on things like planning and strategizing: How do we best use our resources today ...
There was a time—in the prehistoric days before the ubiquity of social media—when having a website became de rigueur for businesses, large and small, across all kinds of industries. It wasn’t always so much that that’s the way customers were finding their way to you, even though a lot were; you just had to be out there. Besides the yellow pages and mass media, that’s pretty much all there was.
Fast forward to now. Small businesses, ...
As businesses large and small rush to incorporate social media into their marketing strategies, most are still
figuring it out as they go along. Lots of trial and error, lots of tweaking, lots of uncertainty as to what will really work.
While larger companies have the resources to hire experts and try various tactics, small businesses must become
social media “experts” themselves – developing strategy, implementing and monitoring. And along the way, they will ask and answer the ...
Ecommerce has been something of a blessing to the retail world, at least in terms of the barrier to entry. It’s true that the industry is dominated by giants such as Amazon, eBay and Groupon, but the space is wide open. Many entrepreneurs have turned to online shopping as a means of implementing an otherwise lofty startup idea.
The ease by which owners can receive orders, ship goods and accept payment makes for a particularly attractive ...
The holiday shopping season is well under way. If your business does not have a strong marketing and customer service strategy in place, do so immediately. This is the busiest time of the year for consumer activity, and this year in particular poses a series of unique challenges – and advantages.
For one, with the economy trudging along toward recovery, Americans are increasingly tired of being frugal and debt conscious – they want to spend like ...
In the age of social media, online shopping and mobile commerce, it’s no surprise some people feel that brick-and-mortar retailers may soon become obsolete. However, these new technologies have recently been utilized to encourage shoppers to head back into stores.
WSL/Strategic Retail explains that a number of new mobile technologies, social media campaigns and shopping apps are hoping to use consumers’ behaviors and communication preferences to get them to shop at physical store locations. Retailers have ...
In just a few years of operation, the social networking site Facebook has grown from college trend to emerging fad, global phenomenon and now a cultural mainstay.
With more than 800 million users who access the site on traditional computers as well as while on the go with smartphones and tablets, Facebook is a force that should not be ignored by businesses of all sizes and locales. But what benefits do Facebook “fans” bring to a ...
