Stephanie Senner | BendBroadband
Internet Power Tools to Drive
BUSINESS
Contents
• Introduction:– Why do I need the Internet to drive my business?– What actually drives business according to Central Oregon
business owners?
• Tools for Growth & Finances• Tools for Customer Experience• Tools for Productivity & Organization
DRIVE BUSINESS?Why do I need the Internet to
The Changing Day (for your customers and you)
DRIVES BUSINESS?What actually
“What Is Your #1 Business Goal This Year?”
20%
44%
24%
11%
Customer ExperienceGrowthStaffing/ProductivityRelationships/ Networking
Let’s take a look at three priorities for Central Oregon businesses.
1Growth &Finances
2Customer
Experience
3Productivity &
Organization
“Only those who will risk
going too farcan possibly find out how far they can go.”
-T.S. Eliot
Growth & Finances
Find and Retain More Customers
1
How to Know When You’re Growing
• inDinero– Pulls and organizes transaction
history – No data entry – Sorts transactions by category and
tracks spending changes monthly– Accounting reports – Plans range from free to $49.95 per
month
• BodeTree – Only works w/Intuit’s QuickBooks– Automatic breakdowns of expenses– Shows how you stack up against
competitors – Offers financial projections – Calculates estimation of your
company's worth– “Business enlightenment score” of
overall health of your business according to their algorithms
– $250 a year or $24.99 a month
• Corelytics – Imports financial info from
QuickBooks, Sage Peachtree, MYOB, and others
– Monitor whatever metrics you want and set goals for each
– Revenue, expense, profits, receivables, gross margin,
– Dashboard colors each metric red, yellow, or green, depending on where you are against goals you set
– Compare your progress with competitors
– Plans range from free to $69 a month w/ $180 set-up fee
SEO, PPC, and Other Things to Outsource
• SEO– See last breakfast presentation
• PPC– Adwords and Facebook (Test | Offer | Get Help)
• Remarketing– Display ads for people who have visited your website
• Display Network– Display ads sites for people w/ defined interests
• Retargeting– Display ads for people who have not visited your website
(but have searched for certain keywords)• Beta
• Go home, Facebook. You’re drunk.– On top of freaking me out with the dress I just looked at,
they are telling me my best friend from college and my old bible study teacher like their website. Really?
Most Expensive Google Keywords
http://www.wordstream.com/articles/most-expensive-keywords
Content Marketing: Beyond YOUR Blog
• Write a guest blog article• From Shopify article on Resource
hand-out, here is help identifying relevant blogs:– www.invesp.com/blog-rank
Blog ranking directory w/ category search
– www.alltop.com news aggregator site
– www.Technorati.com Top 100 blogs within different niches
– www.Alexa.com Top sites by category; research a site’s traffic and audience profile by entering the web address
– www.MyBlogGuest.com Forum for finding guest bloggers • Use Alexa to ensure sites have traffic
• Create a relationship • Comment on and share their
content• Suggest a dynamite story
(maybe even write it first)• Take time to cultivate the
relationships• Opportunity to curate
content for your own blog, Twitter feed, Facebook posts, etc.
WiseStamp: Email Signatures with Dynamic Content
My New Favorite Content Site: Slideshare.net
• I’m biased as a B2B Marketer who wants to be buried with her Logitech Pointer Pro, but this site is a treasure trove of information, including training content for business owners.
• Hosts slide decks• Protects content• Embedded lead gen• Analytics dashboard• See also:– Scribd – ZohoShow– SlideRocket
Beyond Words: Growth Through YouTube
• The Obvious:– Product Presentations or
Demonstrations– Video Training– Video Customer
Testimonials – Live video streaming – Commercials
• Content Marketing:– How-to – Advice– Education – Person-on-the-street
interviews at events– Reviews of 3rd party
products or vendors
What Are Your Competitors Doing?
• eNewsletters provide insight into what’s working in your industry
• Look for what your customers would read, too
And Now For Something Totally Different
• Sign up to be an Amazon.com Pick Up Zone
• People who can’t have their packages delivered go pick them up at your business
• And maybe then you sell them something
• May work well in a vacation/resort community like ours
• Sacrifice = space for packages
• Amazon.com to learn more about requirements
“There is only one boss: the customer. And he can
fire everybodyin the company from the chairman on down,
simply by spending his money somewhere else.” -Sam Walton
2 Customer Experience
Improve Your Customers’ Satisfaction
Rock Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day
• http://www.pardot.com/infographic/rock-social-media-30-minutes-day-infographic/
• http://visual.ly/how-much-time-money-do-smbs-spend-social-media
• Reputation.com• Angie’s List• Yelp, Google+, Local Search, Yahoo, etc.• LinkedIn
Another Option: Save Time with HootSuite
• Be careful with this one– People don’t want to see
the same content on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter so use universal publishing sparingly
• See also:– TweetDeck– Seesmic
• Free version includes:– HootSuite Conversations– 5 Social Profiles– Basic Analytics Reports– Message Scheduling– Unlimited Apps– 2 RSS/Atom Feeds
• Pro is $8.99/month
Email Marketing & eNewsletters to Customers
• If you’re using Constant Contact, Emma, etc., consider moving up the ladder to a Marketing automation option:– Act On– Marketo– Pardot– HubSpot– Eloqua
• Drip campaigns based on customer interactions
• Successful newsletter? Sell ad space – Small coupon at the bottom
w/ a different vendor each month
• No successful newsletter? Find someone who has a similar list/business and see if they’ll write an editorial about how great you are.
Loyalty Card Alternative: Perka
• Smartphone versions of punch cards and points cards with promo capability built in
• Seems reasonable– $35/mo for punches– $50/mo for points
• More flexible than Incentify and Punchtab
• More local and proactive than RetailMeNot
More Options for Perka
• Join together w/ others – 10 Dates in 10 Days – Specific neighborhoods
• Speaking of neighborhoods, can we start something today? – SoGAve
• Rhymes with agave, the tequila ingredient• South of Greenwood Ave, ie, west of 27th, South of HWY 20, but east of 97
(since that neighborhood already has a name)– SoCOH
• South of Central Oregon Highway, ie, east of 27th and South of HWY 20
“Time is at once the most valuable and
most perishableof all our possessions.”
-John Randolph
3 Productivity & Organization
Plan and Execute Your Business Priorities
Game Changers
• Asana– Free– Amazing– Integrates w/ Google– Is one Facebook
founder’s attempt to pay back to Productivity what he stole
– Simple, fast help content– Can be used as CRM
• Bitrix24– Free for up to 12 users– Easy but extensible – Integrates w/Outlook– Social intranet
functionality• Distributed workers• Staffing/shift changes
– Project Management– Can be used as CRM
Time Savers
• InstaPaper & Pocket– Pull web content down
to reader or desktop– Great for travel and
archiving
• TripIt & Expensfy– TripIt Pro allows you to
manage others’ travel– “Expense reports that
don’t suck.”
• Learning and Training– Lynda.com– Khan Academy– iTunesU– Bend Chamber of
Commerce website’s Helpful Links page
• Inbox Zero:– Turn it into what it is
• Task, Appointment, Contact, or Trash
– Get Things Done (GTD) <2 minutes = do it now
Communication
• WebEx• GoToMeeting• FuzeMeeting• GoogleChat• Skype• The Phone
– Yes, that counts as an Internet tool.
– Yes, even if it’s CenturyLink.
• File Exchange/Sync– Google Drive– SkyDrive– DropBox– SugarSync– GoToMyPC
• Photo Streams– Flickr– Picassa– Instagram– Google “Digital Asset
Management”
Less Obvious Tools for Collaboration
• VoiceThread– $20/mo/user or $79/mo
for up to 15-ish users– Intuitive interface makes
it easy to get going– Information retention
demonstrably improved
• FlipBoard– Mostly for iPad lovers
• Jing– Free– Screencaps, video,
demos, sharing
• LiveBinders – Content from multiple
sources all in one place– Prevent data stagnation
iPhone Apps
• LiveTimer– Perfect for billable industries or tracking time for
multiple clients– Lets you set up different billing rates
• BalanceDo– Create invoices– Track receivables– Manages customer payments through PayPal
