If you’re planning an online business or e-Commerce site that will sell products or services, or require membership fees to access content through the website, you must have a way to accept credit cards. You simply won’t be successful if you expect your customers to stop using your site, write and mail a check, and wait for it to clear before they can buy something from your website or access content in membership areas. Indeed, consumers have come to expect instant access and ordering through the use of their credit and debit cards. But how can a small online business or startup company accept credit cards affordably and securely? Two Credit Card Processing Options for Small Businesses With an Internet-based business, you have the option of getting a merchant account or working with a third-party processor. For most new businesses, particularly those selling exclusively online, a third-party processor is the ideal method for getting started. Once your business is more – Read the full article
According to Email Marketing Reports, there are 1.4 billion online users today, and “according to research conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, E-mail marketing was expected to generate an ROI of $42.08 for every dollar spent on it in 2010. As such, it outperforms all the other direct marketing channels examined, such as print catalogs.” If this is appealing to you, it’s time to begin this money-making process known as E-mail marketing. A large part of email marketing is finding the right software. If you know what different softwares have to offer in terms of features and installment, then you will be able to make the right decision for your company. There are three types of software you can choose from: Hosted software: The company you purchase the software from will host the software for you. In other words, all you have to do is login on their website and manage your email lists from there. Self-hosted software: You are – Read the full article
As you’ll notice, we’ve been focusing recently on the “marriage” of search engine optimization and social media – and talking about things like how you can use social media sites for your SEO campaign, or how you can leverage Twitter for link building. We believe that social can have a tremendous impact on search. And by “social” we don’t mean just Twitter and Facebook. We take into account other websites, too, like Reddit. Reddit – a social bookmarking site – is one of the darlings that we’re keeping an eye on this 2011. It has been around, having been launched 5 years ago, but Reddit enjoyed its best year last 2010 when it experienced a 300 percent surge in traffic (thanks largely to the expense of faltering Digg) and record 829 million page views last December alone. The site markets itself as “the voice of the Internet – (with) news before it happens”. Being a social bookmarking site, Reddit delivers – Read the full article
Cloud computing is one of the fastest-rising technologies on the Web today. There are a number of large businesses and corporations who have already adopted the “cloud” to replace their existing computing platforms – and small businesses aren’t far behind. What is cloud computing and what can it do for you? Simply put, cloud computing is a set of computing resources delivered online. It’s also an emerging model for delivering information technology services, one that offers scalable and virtual resources. (Geek speak alert! Don’t worry; we’ll break it down for you.) The term “cloud” is used as a metaphor for the Internet, which basically serves as a hosting environment for applications like E-mail, productivity, file backup and storage, and more. Previously, all the data and applications of a user were stored and hosted by a hard drive on a computer or a set of servers at the IT department; with cloud computing, there isn’t going to be any need for – Read the full article
Are you ready for 2011? As the Internet transforms, so should you. The rate at which technology evolves only means that, no matter how far along you’ve come with your Internet marketing program, there will always be something new to explore. There’ll always be something new to add to the mix. It is in this light that Lakeshore Branding takes a look at a number of online marketing trends expected to take off next year. We present this hoping that you’ll turn these expectations into opportunities – and the opportunities into tools to drive your business. HTML5: As the next major revision of the HTML standard, HTML5 is expected to emerge next year – and beyond – as that which will change the chemistry of the World Wide Web. Under development for much of the last few years, HTML5 will nonetheless continue to usher in the next generation of web development and programming. It will be supported by more browsers, – Read the full article
There’s a high-potential marketing platform that’s slowly and surely attracting corporations, small business owners, advertisers, and marketers alike. Observers say that this is a big one – an avenue through which one can reach a good portion of billions of consumers. It’s called SMS. You know: text messaging. No, you’re not reading an article from our 1998 archives. This is 2010 all right, but you know what? In the age of tablet computers, flashy apps, smartphones, and social media, SMS marketing has indeed become one of the most viable and important platforms for businesses today. Here are some numbers: An estimated 3.5 billion text messages are sent and received every day. 57 percent of all cell phone subscribers use SMS on a regular basis. According to the New York Times, 97 percent of text messages are opened, and 83 percent of these are opened in less than an hour. Despite the explosive growth of smartphones and mobile technologies like the – Read the full article
It used to be that businesses concentrated their marketing efforts exclusively on traditional (offline) media – like print ads, TV commercials, radio, PR campaigns, events, billboards, direct mail, glossy brochures. And then the Internet happened. And then social media changed the Internet. A recent report by GrowBiz Media, a small business market research firm, and online survey company Zoomerang led to key insights on how much money small businesses are allocating for their Internet marketing efforts. Entitled “SMB Marketing Practices: Small to Midsized Business Survey Results, 2010”, the report gathers information from 751 completed surveys across the U.S., by businesses with less than 1,000 employees. Among the key takeaways: More than half of the businesses with less than $1000 marketing budget are adopting social media practices, most notably in social networks Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (in that order). Around 39 percent of respondents are spending more than 20 percent of their marketing budgets on websites (design, development, content creation, marketing, – Read the full article
Finding the right funding at the critical time can be a crucial factor in a firm’s success, and many developing businesses go through several different rounds of investment as the business develops. On some occasions an initial owner’s capital investment of perhaps just a few dollars to give birth to an idea will eventually lead to a listing on a stock exchange. Along the way, however, the business may need to source several different types of funding, with each type requiring its own unique approach. Finding any source of funding will be reliant on the owner having an accurate understanding of the finances, and being able to project these to potential investors. Thanks to a plethora of modern affordable apps and solutions on the Internet – such as new accounting software for small business that makes bookkeeping easy – what was once a huge stumbling block is no longer such a concern. Many businesses struggle due to receiving inappropriate or inadequate – Read the full article
