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The EKU SBDC Blog

June 19

Email Marketing Success Is About Relevance

Though it may sit in the shadows of today’s shiner marketing techniques, email marketing continues to be an effective, low-cost way for SMB owners to reach out to, inform and retain current customers. In fact, according to new numbers from Forrester Research, email marketing will reach $2 billion by 2014. And that’s a very good thing.

Email marketing is effective for one simple reason: Customers like receiving targeted messages from companies they care about. They like when they’re emailed about things they’ve already shown in an interest in. And that’s where the email thrives.

Email marketing is all about customer retention. It’s about building stronger relationships with customers who already know you and decided that, yes, they want to keep hearing from you. They want to stay up to date on what you’re doing, they want to hear about new products, they want to hear about hot deals, etc. The messages that land in their inbox help keep your company name in their top of mind and force them to constantly be thinking about you. WebProNews took a look at the Forrester Research and quoted an Epilson brand study that said that 84 percent of recipients like receiving emails from companies with whom they’ve subscribed to their newsletter. Eighty four percent. That’s impressive. It’s hard to get 84 percent of people to agree on anything.

Take the eBay Sellers Challenge

Now’s your chance to tell us how you’d grow your business on eBay. All you have to do is submit a business plan describing your business, your challenges, your vision and your goals for success. Then submit a video explaining your business plan and your passion for selling on eBay. A panel of experts will identify the best submissions, and the eBay community will pick four winners.

Find out more…

9:56 AM GMT | Read comments(1)

June 10

Smartphone Rises Fast From Gadget to Necessity

In today’s recession-racked economy, penny-pinching is a national pastime. But people are still opening their wallets for smartphones.

Sales of BlackBerrys, iPhones and other smartphone models are rising smartly and are projected to increase 25 percent this year, according to Gartner, a research business. Widely anticipated new models like the Palm Pre, which went on sale nationwide on Saturday, will help fuel that growth. Meanwhile, total cellphone sales are expected to fall.

The smartphone surge, it seems, is a case of a trading-up trend in technology that is running strong enough to weather the downturn. And as is so often true when it comes to adoption of new technology, the smartphone story is as much about consumer sociology and psychology as it is about chips, bytes and bandwidth.

For a growing swath of the population, the social expectation is that one is nearly always connected and reachable almost instantly via e-mail. The smartphone, analysts say, is the instrument of that connectedness — and thus worth the cost, both as a communications tool and as a status symbol.

“The social norm is that you should respond within a couple of hours, if not immediately,” said David E. Meyer, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. “If you don’t, it is assumed you are out to lunch mentally, out of it socially, or don’t like the person who sent the e-mail.”

Read more here…

11:21 AM GMT | Read comments(0)

June 09

Using Old Computers Does Not Save You Money

Last week I was speaking with someone, as I was helping them get their computer working. They had a very old computer and I suggested they buy a new one. They said first come the bills, and if there is anything left they can buy a new computer. Since there's nothing left, they don't buy a new computer. I can appreciate this and do understand.

They were using Windows 98 on an old Dell computer.

Small businesses (that's you reading this I presume) struggle with the day to day necessities of where to spend their money. Do you pay employees? Do you invest in fixed assets, buildings or other capital expenditures? Do you pay for business expansion? Do you pay off debt? Do you buy more product? Do you hire more staff?

One thing small businesses don't invest enough on is new technology and in particular computers.

Click Here To Read More…

6:44 PM GMT | Read comments(0)

May 29

Why You Have To Engage In Social Media, Even If You Don’t Want To.

If you read blogs about marketing small companies, you're inundated with "social media" advice about why you need a blog and a Twitter account and everything else.

Still, most people and most businesses don't think they need a blog.

In the next five minutes, I'd like to convince you that you have to jump into the world of blogging and Twitter and Facebook.

Social media is already changing the rules of the marketplace, just like the web did a decade ago. It's still early of course and no one -- not even the experts -- knows where all this is going. But it's clear that times are changing again, and those that don't jump in will go the way of print media.