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Google Launches AdWords SMB Partner Program

Nov 3rd

Posted by Home Wealth Project in Business Trends

Over the past few years, small business owners have made great strides in marketing their businesses online. They’ve learned to create websites, they’ve established their Web presence by claiming all their online listings, and they’ve even gotten involved in social media to better connect with their customers. But one area that SMBs, as a whole, have actively ignored is paid search. And Google would like to change that.

Announced on the Google Small Business Blog last week was a new program called the Google AdWords Premier SMB Partner program. The objective of the program is to make getting involved in paid search less intimidating for small business owners by creating a list of preferred vendors for them to work with to help them get the most out of their advertising budget.

According to Google:

Premier SMB Partners bring to the table years of industry knowledge and meet Google’s highest standards for qualification, training and customer service. Teaming up with a PSP gives you a marketing and search engine advisor who can take the guesswork out of online advertising, to save you time and resources so you can focus on running and growing your business.

Through the program, not only will SMBs be able to take advantage of the experience of their preferred vendors, they’ll also be provided with campaign management, detailed reporting, customer support and marketing guidance.

By looking at the different programs and options, it appears the Premier SMB Partner Program will also offer small businesses a greater list of benefits than other programs and will include sales, training and technical/operations support.

Small business owners can rest assured that if a vendor has passed through Google’s Premier SMB Partner Eligibility, their expertise is worth trusting. Partners must meet a strict list of criteria to participate, including:

Large existing customer base of small/medium-sized businesses
Tele/field sales force with the ability to sell Google’s advertising products
Commitment to provide phone and/or email customer support to their advertiser base
Existing operational infrastructure (billing, reporting, etc.) to service thousands of customers

While it’s always nice to hire someone with a lot of experience working with other SMBs, for me, it’s really that third point above that’s so vital. Many business owners are wary of making the jump into paid advertising. They’re not sure how to set up campaigns, how to tell if they’re working, or how to target their customers used paid ads. Ensuring that business owners will be able to get their vendor on the phone or through email does a lot to curb fears and let small business owners know that they won’t be left on their own to figure things out. And that’s important.

Have you experimented with paid search? Does the emergence of a program specifically targeted toward helping SMBs get their feet wet interest you?

For more information about the new Google Premier SMB Partner Program, check out the Google site, where you can find information for advertisers (SMBs), partners and helpful videos.

From Small Business Trends

Google Launches AdWords SMB Partner Program

View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends

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Squidoo launches magazines

Oct 3rd

Posted by Home Wealth Project in Marketing Tips

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Here’s a Squidoo update, along with a chance to share your work and your passion and perhaps find a new gig.

Six years after our founding, we’re now ranked #73 out of the millions of websites in the US measured by Quantcast. We now get more traffic than Digg, NBC or Hulu.

Millions of people have used Squidoo to build pages about content that they care about and want to share. What we’ve discovered is that in fact, self-expression is truly important to many people. That rush you get when you know an audience wants to hear what you have to say about something you care about–we’ve been supporting that for a while and it’s clearly resonating with people.

What we’ve been committed to for the last six years is the idea that self-expression is at the heart of the best content, and that the web makes it easy to create personal media. Squidoo gives people a chance to build a personal interest graph online, page by page, interest by interest.

Announcing magazines: Squidoo is adding on to our core by launching a series of online magazines, highlighting great content, publishing original articles and connecting passionate people via Facebook. With Halloween right around the corner and more people eating vegetarian we thought we’d start there, but with a lot more to come. The team has done a fabulous job launching these, I hope you can take a look, or even better, join in.

If you’d like to contribute to our upcoming roster of new magazines (either to promote your own work or to be considered as an editor) please fill out this quick form and we’ll send you regular updates.

View full post on Seth’s Blog

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Shopify contest launches today

Apr 26th

Posted by Home Wealth Project in Marketing Tips

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I jumped the gun last week. As promised, here’s the updated link to the Shopify contest. The first 5,000 entrants get a free hardcover copy of Poke the Box, a chance to win their part of over $250,000 in prizes, support a great cause and build a store at the same time. Check it out.

View full post on Seth’s Blog

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Facebook Launches Business Page Migration Tool

Apr 6th

Posted by Home Wealth Project in Business Trends

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As a small business owner did you mistakenly create a personal Facebook profile for your company when you meant to create a Brand page? Or maybe you created a personal profile before Brand pages even existed and now you’re missing out on the new functionality? Fear not, Facebook wants to help you switch over and they’ve released the Business Page Migration Tool to help you do it.

It’s worth pointing out that this isn’t a totally altruistic gesture on Facebook’s part. Using a personal profile as a brand is actually a violation of Facebook’s terms of service (TOS), and they’d like to remind you they can hijack your page for doing it and remove your whole identity.

OK then!

First, why should you care?

Well, other than the fact that Facebook can remove your page for violating its TOS, as a small business owner you want to get yourself set up with an official Brand page. Brand pages are better suited for local marketing because they allow anyone to “like” you (no approving friends), there’s no maximum on how popular you can get, and they offer SMBs more robust media and promotion offerings. The fact is, Brand pages are simply the better option. By not using them and sticking to a personal profile, you limit your brand’s ability to really reach out and engage customers.

So, how do you make the switch?

With Facebook’s new Profile Migration Tool. To start the process, click the link and follow the instructions that appear on screen to begin the process. Do be careful, though, because it doesn’t appear there’s any way to undo whatever you changes you make. So proceed with caution.

In the migration, all of your current friends will be switched over to fans, and your profile pics will be added to the new Brand page. Everything, else, however will not make the journey with you. That’s right, all of your other photos, wall content, profile information, applications and everything else you’ve created on Facebook with the account will not be moved over. To prevent the information from being lost, Facebook recommends users download their information before kicking off the process. Otherwise, once it’s gone, it’s gone.

So, should I do this right now?

Well, maybe not. There have been reports from Jeffrey Zeldman, Mashable, and others about some major migration hiccups occurring as part of the process. For example, users have complained about losing custom URLs (which they then can’t get back because they’re “taken” by the old account), disappearing apps, not being able to access Facebook help and other great annoyances.

My advice? Give it a week or two before you attempt the migration process, and do so only after you’ve made sure to back up all of your content.

Though a little wonky right now, this migration is really important for small business owners not yet moved over to Facebook Brand pages. Creating a Brand page will offer you much more functionality and will help you better promote your business to customers. Hopefully Facebook will quickly get the kinks worked out and small business owners can be on their way to engaging with customers better than ever.

From Small Business Trends

Facebook Launches Business Page Migration Tool

View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends

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Manta Launches Nationwide Brand Awareness Campaign for SMB Community

Mar 2nd

Posted by Home Wealth Project in Business Trends

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Columbus, Ohio (PRESS RELEASE – March 2, 2011) – Manta, the world’s largest online community for promoting and connecting small business, has launched a nationwide, multimillion-dollar branding campaign featuring its unique audience of small business owners. The campaign, “You do what? We do small business,” showcases Manta’s value to the small business eco-system, specifically to business owners who must promote their business online and to brand marketers looking to reach small business owners and decision makers.

“Manta’s mission is to fuel the SMB engine, make connections for our audience and make business happen”

“Manta’s mission is to fuel the SMB engine, make connections for our audience and make business happen,” says Pamela Springer, Manta president and CEO. “No one else inhabits the small business landscape like Manta; we provide innovative marketing, sales and networking resources to help our users achieve growth, profitability and greater overall success.”

The new campaign highlights the wide-ranging, unique–and often funny–attributes of the vast array of small business owners featured on Manta. The ads ask, “You do what?” of small business owners and showcase the unique aspects of their particular company. Kicking off the campaign is a series of ads featuring Dr. Nicole Eaton of the Animal Hospital of Polaris in Columbus, Ohio, and her exotic animal care practice. In one implementation, Dr. Eaton is shown listening to the heart rate of a stunted red-footed tortoise; in another, she is pictured with an albino Burmese python. The ads conclude with Manta’s new tagline, “We do small business” and a list of Manta’s most recent accolades, including recent traffic gains and a jump in Quantcast’s Top Site rankings.

“The best way to exemplify our unique SMB audience is to showcase the exceptional and far-ranging attributes of the small business owners who encompass Manta,” said Greg Garrick, Manta’s newly hired VP of marketing. “By giving a face and a voice to small business owners in our campaign, we celebrate their unique characteristics while illustrating Manta’s unique audience unavailable (at scale) elsewhere in today’s marketplace. Our campaign communicates to small business owners and SMB marketers alike that Manta delivers the unique audience they desire.”

Manta’s campaign and its brand marketer-focused message will be featured in traditional advertiser media such as Advertising Age and BtoB, both in print and online, and MediaPost. The campaign initially will focus on reaching small business owners in targeted placements on select sites such as Facebook, but will expand to include top national radio outlets in the coming months. Complementing the creative executions of each advertisement will be videos with interviews of the small business owners featured in the ads, which will be promoted through manta.com and social networks.

Manta’s growing list of onsite advertising partners has increased dramatically as more and more marketers recognize Manta’s ability to reach key business decision makers. According to Springer, this new branding campaign will further support that awareness among marketers as will Manta’s sponsorship of several national trade advertising and marketing events throughout 2011. “Manta provides advertisers with custom solutions that integrate their messaging. We utilize the most sophisticated technologies available today to give advertisers advanced targeting across a wide range of categories, including geographic, behavioral, contextual, day part and mobile. Our registration data and in-depth business information on our 64 million company profiles allows advertisers to further fine tune their audience and connect with their key prospects by title, vertical market, company size, revenue and more.”

Manta’s multi-tiered branding campaign will continue to evolve throughout 2011 with additional creative executions featuring small business owners. Manta’s campaign can be followed online www.manta.com/unique or on Manta’s Facebook page.

About Manta

Manta is the world’s largest online community for promoting and connecting small business. With nearly 64 million company profiles, Manta is used by business owners and professionals to promote and differentiate their offerings and “be found” online by customers and prospects. Manta is ranked the second largest business news/research website by comScore and has an audience of 31 million from the U.S. and around the globe. Manta is included in Business Insider’s SAI Digital 100: The World’s Most Valuable Startups. Launched in 2005, Manta is privately held and based in Columbus, Ohio.

From Small Business Trends

Manta Launches Nationwide Brand Awareness Campaign for SMB Community

View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends

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Apple App Store Launches Subscriptions

Feb 15th

Posted by Home Wealth Project in 2478

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In its latest media-giant move, Apple has launches subscriptions in its App Store. You can now subscribe to magazines, newspapers, video, etc. Subscriptions, whose duration (weekly, monthly, etc.) is set by publishers, will run on the same billing system as apps and in-app purchases. From the press release:

…with one-click, customers pick the length of subscription and are automatically charged based on their chosen length of commitment (weekly, monthly, etc.). Customers can review and manage all of their subscriptions from their personal account page, including canceling the automatic renewal of a subscription. Apple processes all payments, keeping the same 30 percent share that it does today for other In-App Purchases.

Publishers who use Apple’s subscription service in their app can also leverage other methods for acquiring digital subscribers outside of the app. For example, publishers can sell digital subscriptions on their web sites, or can choose to provide free access to existing subscribers. Since Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple. Publishers must provide their own authentication process inside the app for subscribers that have signed up outside of the app.

However, Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app. In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.

Publishers might not be happy about the restrictions in that last sentence, in part because they know that customers will just click the app button instead of making the effort to navigate outside of it. The 30% “Apple tax,” the usual amount, reflects Apple’s confidence that people will want to use the App Store to manage their subscriptions. It also makes me wonder what competitors are going to offer–and whether their “tax” is going to be lower.