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As Black Friday looms in the very near future, it’s time to get ready for what looks to be a more promising shopping season than the last two years. Recent projections indicate that most shoppers plan to spend about 30-35% more than they did last year. Brick and mortars are also hiring more than they did last year, close to 600,000 jobs will be added for the holiday season. More than last year, but still less than 2007 and 2008.
While all this seems like good news, it’s not as good as it could be. If you own an e-commerce site and want a piece of the Cyber Monday, Black Friday, whatever you want to call it, pie, you are going to have to compete with the big retailers offering some pretty steep discounts.
Some of the things you might want to consider doing:
1. Offer Free Shipping (no brainer)
2. Offer free gift wrapping (Makes most guys happy because they won’t have to do it.)
3. Discounts (A 20% discount makes girls get all happy – I’ve seen it happen.)
4. Free promotional materials with each order (T-shirts are a big hit)
5. Promote your business on Facebook and Twitter – make sure people know where to find you!
6. Hold a contest or giveaway to draw in customers. (People love to win, use this to your advantage.)
7. Use your email lists to send out special discounts and offers to current and past customers. (Remind them why they purchased from you before!)
8. Remember to offer other items alongside your cart, to temp buyers. (The online version of the “impulse” isle.)
9. Almost last, consumers are smart, and getting smarter. Do your best to provide the best possible price, and you’ll get the sale. (Money talks, right?)
10. Lastly, remember those less fortunate. Offer a portion of your proceeds to a worthy (and popular) cause. (People like giving back this time of year, especially if they get a good deal while they’re at it.)

Ten tips to turn this into the best holiday season since…2007. Hey, better than last year, right? We’re gettin’ somewhere, folks!

Now that the election is over, we have to start looking at what we can predict is going to happen as far as taxes, Cap&Trade, the Health Care Reform Bill and other aspects of our economy that have plagued business owners, and potentially, how the Web can help you stave off some of those expenses.

Two things seem to have happened with the unemployment rate in this country. The first thing is the years long, some 99+ months of unemployment payouts that have created a culture of people unwilling to work as long as they can rely on the government to pay their bills. The second thing that has happened is a fear, a worry by business owners as the new taxes loom in the near future. The end of the Bush tax cuts, the Health Care Reform Bill, and the potential (hopefully this worry is now null and void) of the Cap & Trade Bill. These new taxes are creating a train of thought among business owners who have no real idea what it is going to cost to hire someone. How much will it cost to provide a full time employee with health insurance? How much more in taxes will I have to pay if I grow my business and get hit with the end of the Bush tax cuts?

This might lead you to think that the safest bet is to play it slow and easy for a while, until you see how it all shakes out. But, you still have a need for skills, labor, whatever. So where are you going to turn? Freelance? Part time help? Overtime for current employees? Outsourcing jobs you used to handle in house? All of these are viable options, though I hate to be the one to encourage people not to hire. I tend to be optimistic and think it will all work out in the end, TKG has been hiring for over a year now, and I do think that the economy is making a slow turn-around. I really can’t say that I believe that will continue if some of the political atmosphere doesn’t change, but we have to go with what we know for now.

So, what can the Web do to help you fill in the holes in your workforce?
1. Utilize sites that provide legal forms, business administration forms and schedules, and just about any other paperwork you need to do.
www.lectlaw.com/formb.htm
http://www.entrepreneur.com/formnet/index.html
2. Use Freelance sites to help you find the temporary or long term extra help you need.
www.freelancer.com/
www.freelanceswitch.com/
3. Use LinkedIn.com, job sites and Craigslist.com to find employees who might be willing to work part time until the economy becomes more secure and hiring becomes an options.
4. Outsource jobs that you might normally have handled in house, if there were someone around to do the work. You can have many jobs outsourced – I know that The Workshops in our area even takes small assembly jobs, packing and sorting, it’s worth checking into if you would prefer to wait to hire.
5. You had to know I was gonna get to this – the plug for TKG, but hey, it’s valid! Have a Web firm do some SEO, search marketing and social media marketing for you. We do copy, too. Not only will it save your marketing budget, but we might be able to help you squeeze through a time constraint or deadline when you really don’t have the resources available. Freeing up your in house marketing folks to concentrate on traditional marketing, or if you are a smaller biz, your assistant, to work on some of your more niche jobs might make your life a little easier and your business run a little smoother.

As for me, quite frankly, I am grateful for the way things turned out last Tuesday. I really hope this is the beginning of a turn away from so much government spending, enormous tax increases and a slippery slide into socialism. I hope that this resistance to hiring doesn’t last long, and that we all start to feel like we can relax, have faith in our economy and capitalism. To move forward we need to grow, hire, spend, and hopefully, not have all of our efforts go to China’s the government’s coffers.

A few years back the coolest thing about the Web was that anyone, anywhere could purchase products from anyplace in the world, and have that product in a few short days. SEO was all about making sure that those customers found what you had to offer, no matter where in the world they were. It was very cool (still is very cool), very fresh. Ebay was king! Now, the coolest thing about the Web is that you can Google for the closest ice cream shop open past midnight on a Tuesday and get directions to take you right to the doorstep. Now the shop around the corner, where you can have “it” now! is king. Local Search is here folks, and it’s not going anyway anytime soon – awesome!

If you read this blog, or any other on search engine marketing, you know that local search is big. Local search has been talked about for a long time, and even implemented to a certain extent, but recent improvements in mobile technology have really made it relevant. So many different aspects of mobile web and regular usage of the web are driving this trend. Google Maps and Places, Facebook Places, mobile networks, just to take off the tip of the ice burg. Because of this, the already very important aspects of local search have come to light in a way that has most people in the search industry standing up and paying attention. Google and Bing have both included location into their rankings algorithms.

I know that I usually shoot down whatever people are saying is the next big thing in search, but not when it is just common sense. (Which is really all SEO and SEM really are.) It just makes sense that search would turn local. Anytime you search for anything you need locally, a doctor, dentist, garbage company, tree trimmer or Chinese take-out, the locality is of utmost importance. Therefore, anything YOU sell, make or do for your area must be represented on your site as a local product or service. These things need to be optimized with your locality. You need to be using all the tools in your arsenal to make sure your business is easily located and your customers know what you have available. Social media, mobile networks, downloadable discounts, all these things play into how your customers find you, buy what you have or do, and how you will be ranked or reviewed, and believe me, you will be, especially if the customer is not satisfied. Never before in history has the slogan “the customer is always right” been so relevant. If they are not happy, they will take to Twitter, Facebook, and the like and tell all their friends and followers about their experience. Unfortunately, you probably have to go above and beyond to get a whole lot out of people on the positive end without pursuing a “like” or review yourself.

In the end of all of this, this new and exciting world is getting smaller by the day. Localized search is making it possible for someone to find you, Google you for directions and arrive at your place of business in a matter of minutes. If you want to be the business they find, you had better make sure you have all of your marketing ducks in a row. Shoot us an email if you need a hand with that, we’d be happy to help you out.

For those of you who just have to know more:
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/10/21/using-social-and-local-search-for-your-business
http://searchenginewatch.com/3641506

Okay Folks, I’m getting ready to utter some words I am sure you don’t wanna hear. Are you ready? I know we are not quite at mid-October, but it is time to get ready for…the holidays. I’m sorry to say it out loud, but it’s time to start preparing for the next couple of crazy months, whether you have an e-commerce site, or have a web presence dedicated to your brick and mortar, it’s time to start planning for the end of the year. Yeah, already.

December and January can be challenging months for any business, but especially for small businesses that rely on other small businesses for monthly cash flow. (Here’s where I avoid a rant about the Bush tax cuts ending 1/1/11 – you’re welcome.) Many people go on vacation, throw parties, give bonuses and other cash consuming activities that may make it difficult for them to get all their bills paid. Fox News Business had a brief article last year that had some pretty good advice for surviving the holiday season that is still really relevant, even needs to be said, what with the coming tax changes (I’m done, I promise – for now.) I paraphrase:

No. 1. Make sure you are paying attention to any uncollected or outstanding bills. They can be a real drain on your cash flow.

No. 2. Assess and Reassess expenditures.
Holiday survival requires keeping close track of performance and expenses, such as materials, labor and sales.

No. 3. Keep your people in the loop.
Keep them informed on what is happening with your business, it’s in their best interest to know what’s going on, and they may have good suggestions for dealing with whatever end of year issues you may be experiencing.

No. 4. Show your customers a little love, spread the holiday cheer.
Offer discounts, free shipping, go a little crazy with excellent customer service. Impress upon your employees how important this is, and you’ll end 2010 with a bang!

No. 5. Hold an inventory blow-out sale BEFORE Christmas.
Old inventory has to go, so beat others to the January sales, and hold it now, before Christmas. You’ll catch folks with their wallets out, so give them the open box buys, year end clearances and scratch and dents they are looking for, and increase your cash flow now! Start now optimizing your product pages for your top selling items. Make sure your sale prices are clearly visible to your users.

Remember to make use of your social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter to promote sales and clearances.

No. 6. Maximize your Web site to drive Internet sales.
Get your piece of the Web sales pie! Be sure to offer Web only specials, again using your social media to promote your sales.

No. 7. Keep as much cash on hand as possible. Plan ahead for the December/January slow down, and make sure you have cash ready to meet any demands that crop up during what is hopefully your busiest time. You don’t want to have to use credit if you don’t have to.

November/December/January are crazy months, and cash flow can be really tight, but the end of the year is also the time when many businesses make 40% of their yearly revenue, so early planning can be really advantageous. Now, go optimize those landing pages for your holiday sales. Give TKG a call if you need a hand.

So, how about a tutorial on how NOT to use social media to promote your business? You might have seen on Twitter or Tumblr this week a story about a woman shopping and tweeting her less than enthusiastic opinion of the store.

The store turned out to be a Price Chopper. The incident was one that we have all probably done plenty of times. A shopper went into the store, was dissatisfied with the produce section and Tweeted it. What she wasn’t expecting, I am sure, is the store to take notice, track down her Twitter profile, use the info on it to contact her employers. The email sent described this shopper as “destructive and negative”, if I recall correctly. Really? Destructive? I happen to find it much more destructive of the social media folks at Price Chopper to track down this woman’s employer and rat her out for something she did on her own time, with a private Twitter account. They even went so far as to insinuate that relations between the two companies would be compromised if action wasn’t taken against the shopper.

You have got to be kidding! I think we should start offering a Breakfast Bootcamp on how NOT to use social media. In this instance it was clearly used in the worst possible way. This story is of course all over the web, and I would not be too surprised to see Price Chopper suffer some internet backlash on this. It was inappropriate at best, and downright stupid at worst.

It wasn’t like she used profanity, under her company name, with the knowledge that it could cause her job to be in jeopardy. She merely stated that :
Every time I go to @PriceChopperNY I realize why they r not @wegmans . Tonight -bare produce area & this sign (twitpic).

She did compare them to a competitor, and nobody likes a negative comparison, but she’s a consumer, entitled to her opinion. It’s one of the reasons people like Twitter. How much you wanna bet they stocked some fresh produce as a result, and are trying harder to keep it that way?

As a business owner, you have to make sure the people in charge of your social media are smart about it. Make sure they know that you don’t run down a consumer, you Tweet them back to find out how to improve their experience with your establishment. You might want to offer them a coupon or something. I bet if that had happened in this case, the Twitter user would have tweeted the good outcome, and Price Chopper would not be receiving the web backlash it is now.

There are a couple of interesting posts up about this, so if you’d like to read on:
http://www.blogworld.com/2010/09/20/social-networking-fail-price-chopper-lashes-out-about-negative-tweet/

http://pricechopperfail.tumblr.com/post/1156969465/price-chopper-attacks-customers-job-over-negative-tweet