StartupNation - Source for Small Business Advice, Help Starting a Business, Entrepreneur Forum 6 Best Blogs For Helping You Find A Passionate Career Photo shapeshift When you’re struggling to find your passion, sometimes it helps to have encouragement along the way. With that in mind, Ian and I have been sifting through endless websites to bring you the top 6 blogs for helping you find your perfect career, or at least help you in the right direction. So here they are, drum roll please… (in no particular order) 1. Employee Evolution “Employee Evolution is dedicated to helping the millennial generation answer the hard-hitting questions that come with the biggest transition of our lives.” While visually, the website delivers a simple design, the content is worth it. 2. Part of the Brazen Careerist blog group, Penelope Trunk began her post-secondary life as a professional beach volleyball player and since then she’s been through an acquisition, an IPO and bankruptcy and come back to become a columnist for the Boston Globe. 3. 4. 5. 6. An easy to navigate website with larger than life wisdom on how to retreat from a life in a cubicle.
5 Steps to Creating Effective Customer Surveys In the wake of Google's Penguin update, the quality of your online content should be one of your top priorities. Not only can packing your pages full of high-value posts improve your presence in the natural search results, it also can go a long way toward improving customers' experience on your website. One way you can determine which types of content you should focus on is through customer surveys. Follow these five steps to conduct effective surveys that turn up the most insightful results: 1. Do preliminary research. To decide on your topics, first go to your Google Analytics account and look at your Top 10 content pages. Related: How to Create a Search-Friendly Website 2. As you're writing your survey questions, try to let participants expand on their thoughts. 3. If you do decide to offer an incentive, think through how you'll distribute it to readers. 4. Both of these tools enable you to set up simple customer feedback forms for free. 5.
5 Ways to Take Customer Loyalty to the Next Level New customers are the lifeblood of companies. Or are they? Lately, marketers have been spending more time on current customers -- revamping what customer service means, investing more in customer relationship management (CRM) systems and building teams to improve communication with customers. In this age of social connectivity, customer loyalty has become more valuable than ever. Consumers share stories of their interactions with businesses on social media, meaning that word-of-mouth marketing is especially valuable. Since customer loyalty can be critical to making a sale, ask yourself what you're doing to cultivate it. Here are five ways you can take customer loyalty up a notch: 1. Rather than merely using that page to confirm an action, why not add some useful resources, follow-up steps or company contact information? Related: Richard Branson on the Secret to Exceeding Customer Expectations 2. 3. Related: How to Get Customers Using Your Online Rewards (Video) 4. 5.
What You Need to Know About Pricing In Impact Pricing: Your Blueprint for Driving Profits from Entrepreneur Press, pricing expert Mark Stiving offers practical advice to business owners on how to price products and services. In this edited excerpt, he explains several important pricing concepts. Price may not be the basis of your corporate strategy, but you must have a pricing strategy to implement your corporate strategy. When you ask a marketer "What are some pricing strategies?" Neutral Pricing Neutral pricing, the most common pricing strategy, means that you price so that your customers are relatively indifferent between your product and your competitor's product after all features and benefits, including price, are taken into account. Penetration Pricing Penetration pricing means pricing more aggressively than neutral. Forward Pricing Forward pricing is another term similar to penetration pricing, but with a focus on future costs. Related: How to Formulate A Premium Pricing Strategy
Five Low-Cost Local Marketing Ideas Over the years I've found that most entrepreneurs spend too much time and money on promotions that don’t generate new business. Whether it is local sports sponsorships, newspaper-ad buys or social media, they waste money on marketing strategies that may boost their egos by making them local celebrities, but don’t actually translate into sales. Related: How to Stand Out by Keeping it Simple Entrepreneurs, especially those relying on customers in their local areas, should first focus on networking with other area businesses, major employers, schools, churches and other organizations. Here are some marketing ideas to consider before breaking out the big bucks: 1. 2. Related: How Partnerships Can Help Extend Your Small Marketing Budget 3. 4. 5. These strategies don’t take up much time. Even though there is some cost in products or services given away, the risk is small because people actually have to show up and buy something to achieve the savings.
3 Simple Tricks for Getting New Customers Smart marketers know that as much as 80% of their revenues come from repeat customers. Once you transform someone from prospect to customer and then give them a great experience, your next sale to that customer will be much easier. In fact, oftentimes the next sale will be initiated by the customer without any effort on your part. So the best way to get more sales from repeat customers is...make more sales to first-time customers! For instance, if your initial sale to a customer is $40, but the average customer will purchase four more times within the first year, then a new customer is actually worth $200 in the first year. To help you do this, below are three tips for attracting first-time customers. First-Time Customer Strategy #1: Give Them a Deal Some companies go as far as to lose money on their first sale (known as a loss-leader), knowing they'll make it back with an immediate upsell, monthly service, or future sales. So use these special offers carefully.
75 Startup Tools And Apps new business ideas and startups So you have a new business or startup idea and based on your analysis and research you have conducted, your confident that there is a market for it. Ok, now what? You need to possibly find a cofounder and team to start planning, seek funding and successfully execute the plan for a pilot or full launch. There are so many resources and tools out there that can assist you in managing and excuting your startup or new business idea more eficiently and effectively. As a result, I have produced a list of my favourite tools and applications covering the various disciplines you will need to undertake in order to successfully execute and launch your startup or new business. Here are just a few tools and applications that I have used over the years in managing and delivering small to large projects. Brainstorming Ideas | Bubbl.us Simple online application that helps you create colorful mind maps that you can print and share with others and it's FREE. MindManager Creately Springpad Evernote Branding | Notebox
5 Lessons Learned From the Ugliest Website in the World | The HostBaby Blog At HostBaby we love awesome web design. We’re constantly scouring the web for beautifully designed sites to use as inspiration for our custom website templates. Lings Cars (www.lingscars.com) is not one of these sites. It may very well be one of the most obnoxious, confusing, and aesthetically challenged websites that exists online. That being said, I’m not sure I’d want to spend the time figuring out how to buy a car on lingscars.com; it would probably give me a headache. 1. Lingscars.com is full of things that blink, flash, strobe, and pop. 1. 2. Color A color scheme is important to creating a well designed website. Fonts Choose a font and stick with it. 3. You don’t need hundreds of links per page. Figure out what your 3-10 most important pages or content categories are and make those your main navigation. 4.Don’t Put it All on Your Homepage Ling’sCars homepage will go down in history of as one of the most horrifically stuffed homepages ever conceived. 5. P.S.
Free Angel Investor Database! Download Now: FREE Angel Investor Database! Save time and effort – we’ve already done the research for you!Top 140 active angel investors in the U.S., sorted by locationDownload instantly to your computer (Microsoft Excel format) Click Here to Access the Database Dear Entrepreneur, I’ve been helping entrepreneurs raise money for more than 10 years. To Your Success, Dave Free Presentation Reveals... Proven 6-Step Formula for Raising $50K to $1M From Angel Investors Making Your Website Mobile Friendly Did you ever wonder how your website looks on a mobile device? Some webmasters believe their mobile website “appearance” does not affect their business. What they don’t realize is that the unfortunate result of an un-optimized mobile site is reduced conversions and potential profits down the drain. According to a report by eMarketer (Source: Hubspot), by the end of 2012, mobile internet users will reach 113.9 million, up 17.1% from 2011, and smartphone users will reach 106.7 million. How many of these users access your website from a mobile device? If you don’t know, find this information in your Google Analytics. Audience > Mobile > Devices You may be surprised at what you find. Mobile Optimization Best Practices Usability is a top priority for mobile websites. When users view your website on a mobile screen, the experience is entirely different than that of the desktop version. Here are some best practices for transforming your site into one your mobile visitors will enjoy: Simple is Key
How To Get More Twitter Followers Is your website business on Twitter? Twitter has become one of the fastest-growing social media sites with top celebrities and high-profile entrepreneurs joining the ranks. Because of its mass popularity, people and brands have run to its doors hoping to capitalize on the millions of users. You would think that because Twitter is so popular with hundreds of millions of users worldwide that virtually anyone could acquire followers. Acquiring Twitter followers is not difficult. Focus on Quality Before we dive into specific techniques, I want to stress to you the importance of acquiring quality followers rather than gaining a large quantity of followers who won’t add any value to your profile. Twitter is NOT a numbers game. Your goal is to build a reputation for your brand and a community of people who support it and engage with you. Here are the best strategies to execute this: Profile Your profile is the first impression you give to your potential followers. Here are some tips: Image Credit 1.
How To Setup a Facebook Fan Page It’s no mystery that Facebook has single-handedly dominated the social media space for years. What once was a stomping ground for college students has now become a billion dollar entity used by webmasters and business owners to reach thousands of people and attract them to their brands. Do you have a Facebook Page for your brand? If so, you may have noticed that Facebook switched from its original design to a new Timeline format back in March. The change, though not welcomed by all, allowed Page owners to take advantage of some interesting new features. Whether you already run a Page or you are starting from scratch, this tutorial will give you some great tips on maximizing it to achieve optimal results. Page Name If you are just getting started, take some time before deciding on a page name. When selecting a page name, think long term. Facebook lists some Page name guidelines here. Cover Photo The cover photo is the largest image on your Facebook Page measuring 851 pixels by 315 pixels.