MelvinBlog

A blog that chronicles my journey on online marketing, blogging, social media, technology and life.

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How B2B SaaS is Stimulating Entrepreneurial Growth

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This is a guest post by Danny Roberts.

Becoming a small business owner is both challenging and exhilarating. It often represents the coming to fruition of what started as an idea and is now a reality. You now have offices, a legitimate business, letterhead, staff, etc. But with great power comes great responsibility, and so the entrepreneur is also in need of making decisions regarding services, applications and infrastructure needed to support the business.

A trend that is continuing to gain momentum among small business owners and entrepreneurs is the incorporation of B2B SaaS applications into one’s startup or growing enterprise. SaaS entails the hosting of software on the cloud that is accessible to anyone (with the proper credentials) from anywhere around the globe (provided they have an internet connection). Mostly handled through subscriptions and memberships, SaaS has gained in popularity because of its flexibility and affordability for many small entrepreneurs. There are many advantages to using SaaS apps for small business, a handful of which are outlined below.

Before SaaS came into the picture, deploying a new system in an organization could be extremely costly in terms of time and resources required to manage a full-fledged implementation. Customizing a software product to a business was normally not within reach for smaller businesses, and even larger ones struggled with the cost of consultants, IT resources, and upkeep. Now, with the advent of SaaS, these barriers-to-entry have been all but eradicated. Smaller companies are able to pay a subscription and have access to software solutions that would have been previously out of reach. Providers take care of updates, patches, and other technical maintenance needed for the software, which frees up resources that were once designated for costly IT departments. Additionally, unlike the implementation of a proprietary application which requires a significant commitment of company funds and resources, SaaS solutions can be terminated or shifted as the business requires. By capitalizing on the advantages of cloud hosting, the business owner can explore new products with far less restrictions than a proprietary product would allow.

SaaS solutions afford business owners a greater flexibility to grow. The way usage is structured, SaaS is able to meet a company’s needs in the now, in terms of size and number of users; but should the business grow, cloud-based solutions are inherently scalable and can thus relatively easily serve the needs of the organization in the future. Knowing that the incremental cost of growing an IT infrastructure that supports the business is manageable, the entrepreneur can spend more time on the organization’s core business rather than being held back by the cost of expanding. What’s more, because SaaS solutions are able to handle the needs of a growing workforce, more customers, increased inventory, etc. the marginal cost of hiring one more worker, or adding additional clients becomes more economical.

The multi-tenant model in which SaaS applications are offered is another way these solutions are stimulating entrepreneurial and small business growth. By engaging clients from several industries and organizations, these solutions promote a constant two-way flow of feedback. This allows the user to enjoy a state-of-the-art SaaS application that is continuously updated by like-minded business owners, making it a better and more up-to-date product. Because SaaS applications are being constructed and renovated based off of crowd-sourced wisdom, this essentially makes them tailored solutions for specific types of business problems.

Business owners looking for SaaS solutions should take advantage of online marketplaces to research and compare SaaS apps that can suit their needs. An extremely flexible and affordable alternative to proprietary applications, SaaS allows the entrepreneur to devote more time to core business functions while being assured that support systems are safely in place. The future for small business owners is looking bright indeed!

What Is Small Businesses Take In Mobile Apps

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This is a guest post by Katie Lewis

Today a larger crowd depends on mobile to access Internet than laptops or desktops and the number of smart phones and tablets hitting the stores are just mind boggling! Undoubtedly, applications on these devices can get business go pro with the marketing efforts. What more we need to bring a mobile app strategy, if not the data which affirms the importance of apps.  The big brands are already there and we have to before our competitor does.

Irrespective of the industry, gaining loyal customers stays the priority goal. And mobile apps have turned more a vendor-agnostic tool for marketers to carry out tasks and reap customers from their fingertips. From hr apps to event apps to the ones you can save money, they make it happen- render support, services smooth and amass loyal customers. Remember, it is always easier and cheaper to keep your existing customers than finding new. Don’t you think the smart solutions are making day-to-day business operations way smarter?

Appsbar co-founder Scott Hirsch said, “apps are the fastest growing thing in the history of consumer products. Everyone is impressed by how fast it’s growing and I think it’s just starting.”

Let’s see what apps can do for you and why your small business need to plan on your app based marketing strategy.

Reach Customers

Understanding the location of your customers’ helps update them with offers relevant to the specific area. Customers love simple, fun and engaging apps that can provide instant perks, which can be a way to keep them happy, entertained and delighted. Business apps help you reach a wider customer base, than with a traditional website. Also, new users can find you via generic search by integration of social networks to expand the scope and reach of your business.

Face Competition

Small businesses still lag behind in developing a mobile strategy to gain a significant edge over competition. As users are clamouring for mobile interaction, they will favour the business that facilitates it. When you’re the only one in your industry, or one of the few with an app, helps secure your reach for paramount or if you are already there, you won’t risk what you have discarding the mobile.

Build Trust, Credibility

An important reason why people have put their trust and time in using mobile apps is the user experience. Custom mobile apps provide customers a one-on-one experience which cannot be found with generic websites. Due to effective interaction and engagement, mobile apps are more likely to bring interest to your services, enhance credibility and reputation.

Generate Extra

There are different ways to monetize business app. When you charge for the app on the marketplace, it will allow you to bring some extra revenue when customers download the app. Also, you can offer products through the app along with purchasing solutions for the customers. No matter how you monetize the app, it makes an extra revenue option.

Invigorate Business

Testing out new business strategies can boost innovation, and open up your thinking to energize your business. With mobile apps, it is easier to find out who is accessing your content, also helps to improve the way you relate to your clients. Keeping contact with current customers will be a platform to expand and expose your brand to potential customers, by leveraging the fastest growing technology of time. Mobile apps are effective and affordable investment that will invigorate your business to enter the new age of media and marketing technology.

Branding

Brand building and extension comes easy with a custom app, where you can exhibit your products and services, how it best converts. This will provide customers the kind of user experience that will make them come back and spread the good word – reputation to the brand. Remember, people trust friends and family more; you have to earn it.

Know Customer Behavior

Being on page with customer behavior is the key to deliver the service that is expected and beyond. Business apps provide you with right insights and info on customer behavior, shopping patterns, letting you tailor everything they want. Proactive communication with customers will help to know them better and provide timely response to their needs. You can say no to guessing, but trust data to improve customer satisfaction and retention.

At least 89% customers started doing business with a competitor on account to a poor customer experience. Yes you always have to do better than your competitor.

The Anatomy of a URL: The Components of an SEO-Effective URL

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This is a guest post by Emma-Julie Fox.

The URL or Uniform Resource Locator is the representation of a website’s server IP address. Instead of an alphanumerical long-tail address that will be impossible for people to quickly recognize, let alone memorize, URLs are designed to be easily recalled and read by Internet users.

SEOmoz.com has an excellent graphic image published in 2009 that clearly shows the parts of the URL and what each component is called.

Source: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-cheat-sheet-anatomy-of-a-url

The illustration clearly shows what the components of a URL are. There might be some confusion between the folders/paths and the page titles in the URL. Let the diagonal slash be your guide. The folders/paths are indicated by succession diagonal slashes. The page title is the set of keywords right after the last diagonal slash in the URL.

It is usually a sensible sentence or phrase because it is the actual title of the article or topic discussed in the page. The words are separated by hyphens, sometimes underscores, both of which are usually used in lieu of the spaces between the words in the title.

SEO Concerns in URL Construction

If you recall, there was a time during the 1990s wherein using general words in URLs, particularly in domains, was the smart thing to do. At that time people were still warming up to the Internet and still learning how to use search engines. Instead of searching for keywords alone, many would make the mistake of adding a .com at the end of a query.

This was why it was a clever move to simply use general keywords in the domains because it increases the possibility of appearing first on the SERPs.

At present though, this is considered old-fashioned and no longer valuable for SEO purposes. Internet users now know better. It is now considered tacky to use keywords for the URL of a business website that has a perfectly good-sounding company or brand name. Besides, it only confuses users when they see the header of the website bears a name different from the one they see on the domain.

However, evidence shows that incorporating keywords in the URLs can still give a website more bearing on the SERPs. This leads websites to the following compromise: since it’s not a good idea marketing-wise not to use the brand or company name in the domain, the relevant keywords are therefore delegated to the folders/paths, page titles, and named anchor in the URL. These are the components that can help increase the SEO value of a URL.

So how does one come up with an SEO and user-friendly URL?

1. Buy them from domainers.

Domainers are people or companies that create SEO-friendly domains and sell them to any interested individual or business. Many domainers even develop the URL prior to their purchase, parking it and publishing relevant content on the dummy page. This makes search engines recognize the URL, giving buyers significant leverage for their future SEO campaigns.

Some of the most popular domain sellers are GoDaddy, NameCheap, Name.com and 1and1. You may find cheaper rates at lesser-known sellers that are equally good at their job, like Lawrence Ng’s oversee.net.There are also individual sellers that you can find in domain selling markets, like Sedo, Digital Point Forums, and NamePros.

2. Do a keyword research.

Non-brand domain names start with a very thorough keyword research. If you don’t have a brand name or don’t want to use your company name for your website URL, search for keywords that are commonly used by searchers of your niche. Keep things simple and short so that people can easily remember your website.

3. Follow your sitemap for interior page URLs.

It is customary for all other pages within a website to have lengthy URLs. They are made up of the domain and the folders or navigational links under which they belong. As much as possible, use the folder names in the URL so that page viewers will get the gist of the page’s location by merely looking at the navigational links. This can also help crawlers index newly-published pages more quickly thanks to the logical placement and labeling of the webpages.

4. Use the brand or business/company name.

Using it for a website URL is a smart move as far as branding and SEO is concerned. Coupled with marketing for the products or services offered in the website, people will be able to easily recall brand-oriented URLs.

Branding is closely associated with SEO in the online arena since the goal is basically to become a thought leader—that when people think of your niche or general products and service you can provide, it’s your company or website that they will think of first. By having the brand or company name in the URL, you can simultaneously optimize your website and your brand name.

How to write an SEO-effective URL is another matter that is worthy of its own discussion. The items in this article are merely suggestions on how you can start with choosing/buying/creating a URL.

Emma-Julie Fox writes for Pitstop Media Inc, a Vancouver based SEOcompany that caters to businesses across North America. If you would like to invite the author to write on your blog too please contact www.pitstopmedia.com.

3 Non-Scammy Ways to Add Advertising to Your Website

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This is a guest post by Amanda Green.

To ad or not to ad, right? For most website owners, that is the question. If you’ve got a highly visible website with a regularly-updating blog, you probably know that your increased web presence brings hundreds if not thousands of visitors to your site every day. (Even more, if you’re using SEO properly.)

So you’re well aware that adding advertising to your site can turn those pageviews into cash, but you’re probably hesitant to pull the advertising trigger. You’re a designer, after all. You like clean lines and unified themes. The last thing you want is one of those scammy “Take 6 inches off your belly with one weird trick” ads cluttering up your right sidebar.

Luckily, there are a few tried-and-tested ways to gain ad revenue without having to add weight-loss scams or dancing mortgage men to your beautiful, carefully-crafted website. If you’re averaging more than 100 pageviews per day, you’re leaving money on the table unless you implement one of these options.

Google AdWords

Google AdWords are those tiny ads that appear on the sides and bottoms of webpages. They’re visually discreet but can earn you a large chunk of money if you have a regular following. Unlike the other solutions in this article, there’s very little you get to choose about Google AdWords; you get to decide where the ad is placed on your site, but Google does all the rest. You barely notice the ads are there until you get an email from Google with the subject line “You’ve Been Issued a Payment.”

AdWords uses suggestive advertising, so if you write about using Photoshop to create a logo, it’s likely to generate an ad for a Photoshop tutorial. This is good for your readers, because they are able to read your blog and then find relevant information by clicking on the AdWords links.

Like most aspects of advertising and SEO, Google AdWords changes its algorithms regularly. This means you need to stay up-to-date by following people like Rich Gorman, the SEO and advertising guru who regularly reports on new AdWords developments. That way you can continue to write posts that generate the best suggestive AdWords, which in turn earns you the most clicks and the most money.

Amazon Affiliates

The Amazon affiliate program works in two ways. First, it pays you every time someone buys a product by clicking through a recommendation on your site. Second, it pays you every time someone clicks through a recommendation, doesn’t buy the recommended product, but buys something else instead.

The easiest and cleanest way to use the Amazon affiliate program is by including Amazon affiliate hyperlinks in your blog posts. Write a post about how much you love Edward Tufte’s book series, and then hyperlink every time you mention a specific Tufte book. Readers click on the links and are taken to Amazon’s page to buy the Tufte books immediately. Whether they buy their own copy of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information or they buy something else, you get paid.

Amazon also creates clickable icons you can embed either in blog posts or on your sidebars. Each icon shows the image of a specific product, and it is possible to create a carousel of icons under the header “Tools I Use” or “What I’m Reading.” These are great ways to gain additional revenue without covering your website in garish ads. (They’re also a great way to answer the question “what tools do you use,” because I get that question all the time.)

Project Wonderful

Suppose you’re the type of designer who doesn’t want ordinary ads. Suppose you want artistic ads, created by design artists just like you. That’s where Project Wonderful comes in. Created by Ryan North, the man behind Dinosaur Comics, Machine of Death and other uber-projects, Project Wonderful allows artists to design their own ads and bid to place them on other sites.

You get to choose the size of the ad, the placement of the ad, and the types of ads you will accept. Maybe you only want web developers to advertise on your site. Maybe you’re fine with webcomics or musicians advertising on your site. Whatever you choose, you’re guaranteed to get a striking, well-designed, often quirky ad that reflects your own commitment to artistic work and creative thinking.

Use these three ideas to get some non-scammy advertising on your site and start earning more money. The next time you ask “to ad or not to ad,” you’ll know the right answer.

Don’t Kick the Phone to the Curb

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This is a guest post by Amanda Green.

It’s a new day for marketing, and those at the cutting edge seem most eager of anyone to abandon the older methods of soliciting customers and dive headfirst into the newest options.

While it is true that jobs in telemarketing are down due to the sluggish economy, that is likely to be more because of overall advertising cutbacks than of decreased effectiveness.  Why is that the case?  Because nearly everyone has a telephone, but only 51% of American homes have a computer.

So every company that has chosen to rely on social media, pop-up ads, banner ads, direct email solicitation, or promotion of their website via other ad media is missing out on a huge percentage of the population.

How are these firms making such a critical error?  It’s tough to speculate on why, but they may be taking a distorted view of social media use because of the speed with which Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the like are adding new users.

For the savvy firm, sticking with the older, reliable methods can provide rewards in terms of building a client base.  Here are some ways it can help to continue working with clientele over the phone.

No More Mystery Calling

Good client searches involve making the most of every bit of information you can find.  Sometimes that can be a phone number from old sales records or even one found on somebody’s desk calendar.

Who does that number belong to?  Could it be your next Customer of the Year?  If you want to maximize the potential of every floating bit of info you have, gather up numbers like that and use the best reverse phone lookup service you can find. A lookup service can identify the businesses and consumer base with an associated phone number – which can allow you to find a target audience easily.

A good service will do more than just give responses on names.  It will provide you latitude and longitude, letting you sync your customer listing with other geospatial tools.  It will also look up toll-free numbers and distinguish between residential and business listings.

Why not just call the number?  Because the level of professionalism is marginal when all you can tell the answering party is essentially “Uh, we found this phone number and wondered if we could sell you something.”  Look the number up, know who or what you’re dealing with, assess the location, and go from there.

A Quicker Foot in the Door

Click.  Even the politest person in the world can dispose of an email solicitation with a step that simple.  One quick swipe across the “delete” button and your carefully worded electronic missive is right in the trash can with all the mail-order pharmacy ads and the Nigerian ripoff spam.

Most targeted phone calls will perform better.  If you are calling someone with a reasonable likelihood for interest in your product, you will at least get your first sentence out before they begin to resist, and likely you’ll get further than that.  Email is quick to send and can provide mountains of information, but it’s very easy for customers to ignore, too.

A Two-Way Conversation

And that excellent, detailed email is unable to answer questions, clarify things, or express personality.  Getting on the phone with a knowledgeable, friendly sales associate makes a potential customer not only feel warm and fuzzy (and valued), it also helps you head off their doubts before they have time to take root and grow into full-blown “no, thank you”.

Face-to-face is always best, but when that’s impossible, there’s no question that the telephone is a close second.  Don’t abandon what many generations of companies found successful just because there’s a new kid in town.

Progress Report on Working from Home

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This is a guest post by Amanda Green.

In today’s world, the lure of telecommuting and internet marketing beckons to many people in the American workforce. The slightest hint of a thought of avoiding the dreaded heavily congested, full-of-construction-and-accidents-rush-hour traffic during the daily commute to the office is enough to bring a smile to the faces of most American workers. After all, many workers have to deal with congested traffic for two hours or more each day. That is two hours of non-productive time that most people would prefer to use enjoying some leisure time away from work.

In many urban areas, like Washington DC, people commute from as far away as West Virginia, which is a three hour trip one-way. That is a six hour commute! Add that to the average nine hours that the worker is actually putting into the workday (eight hours of work with a one hour break) that does not leave very much time for the American worker to spend at home, with a family or friends. Or even sleep!

If the average worker has to commute five days a week, that time adds up fast! Assuming two hours a day, five days a week, fifty weeks a year (hopefully the worker gets two weeks of vacation) that comes to five hundred hours a year! That is almost twenty-one days a year spent stuck in rush hour traffic!

Although many commuters interested in self-improvement opt to listen to pre-recorded books or lectures while commuting, there are plenty of commuters that listen to the radio instead; listening to the traffic updates to see where the accidents are and where they might need to detour. Others spend the time talking on their cell phones, eating their breakfast, or applying their make-up. Once they get to work they may complain about how terrible the traffic was that day and how much they would love to be able to work from home.

Some forward-thinking companies have programs that allow their employees to telecommute. With the assistance of software programs that allow people to remote-access their work files from any computer anywhere, being chained to a desk at the office is no longer a requirement for many jobs. If you find yourself lucky enough to work for a company that allows you to telecommute, or if you become self-employed in the internet marketing business (say perhaps dedicating your life to the pursuit of blogging yourself rich) do not underestimate the importance of creating a home office.

Sure, thinking about sitting in the recliner, feet up, with a laptop computer on your lap, watching television while making a good living blogging sounds like a dream come true.  And it can be fun to do that. But after just a few short hours you may find your shoulders feel like they are on fire, your wrists hurt, and your lower back aches like somebody took a sledge hammer to it!

Aspiring tele-commuters and professional bloggers really need to invest the money and set up a true home office. Having a proper home office helps to minimize the distractions that working at home can bring. Being able to close the door with a “I’m at work” sign can help to let well-meaning friends and family members to avoid interrupting you every five minutes. The money invested in the correct ergonomic furniture, like a proper office desk, will reduce the physical strain on the body and over the long haul will result in higher productivity levels.

Successful working from home can be accomplished if you pay attention to these important needs.

When Are You Going to Launch Your Kickstarter?

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This is a guest post by Amanda Green.

So you’re a content creator, right? You’re a blogger, an internet marketer, a writer and trendsetter and brand expert.

Tell me about your Kickstarter.

Yes, like it or not, Kickstarter has become the new must-have brand accessory. Although it’s very difficult to make a profit from a Kickstarter (for reasons to be explained below), it’s also now difficult to be taken seriously as a content creator unless you’ve passed through the crucible of crowdfunding. And, because of market dominance and name recognition, Kickstarter is the only way to successfully get crowdfunded; other crowdfunding sites, like IndieGoGo or Quirky, are seen as sites for people who can’t hack it on Kickstarter.

With that in mind: when are you going to launch yours? Here’s what you need to know to get started:

You need a compelling project OR compelled fans

There are two ways to be successful at Kickstarter. First, create something that a lot of people want, like the Pebble Watch. Pebble–after designing and Kickstarting a watch that syncs with your smartphone to show text messages and emails on your wrist–is now a hugely successful company.

However, most bloggers and internet marketers are unlikely to have a Pebble-sized idea in their back pocket. Instead, you’re going to be Kickstarting a content-based project: a book of marketing techniques, a business course for new bloggers or a series of interviews with the best brand creators in the country. For this, you need fans. You need regular interaction with blog commenters and Twitter followers so you have a group of people who will mobilize and fund your project.

Perhaps ironically, the point of a content-based Kickstarter isn’t to make money (you won’t, and we’ll get to why). Nor is it necessarily to sell a brilliant product – that book of marketing techniques is likely to be culled from old blog posts, after all. It’s to announce your ascendance to the next level.

Having a successful Kickstarter shows the world that you have enough authority that people are willing to pay for your content.

This is a key step for content creators and internet marketers. Once you have that Kickstarter badge on your website, everyone will know that you’ve been accepted and supported by “the crowd.” You’ll be able to leverage this into further opportunities, including interviews, guest blog posts and – the ultimate goal – book deals.

You aren’t going to make money

Here’s the bad news. You aren’t going to make any money on your Kickstarter. Not even if you pad your budget with contingency funds or go 100% over your project goal.

This is why: In addition to your Kickstarter’s primary goal (“my new book, Everything I Know About Internet Marketing“), you also need to create tiered rewards. Every person who donates is entitled to a project reward commensurate to the level of the donation. This means you’re going to need to create, produce and ship multiple types of rewards.

Even if some of the rewards are low- or no-cost (like a PDF of MelvinBlog’s Blog Marketing Guide), you’re still going to need to create tangible products for high-level donors. Even a modest product like a “page-a-day marketing idea calendar” is going to cost you far more than you anticipate: in addition to writing 365 individual marketing ideas, you need to design the calendar layout, have the calendars printed, and pay to ship them across the country and overseas.

And that’s just the basic requirements for production and shipping. Smart marketers are going to add extra touches, like branded custom printed shipping boxes. They’re going to create stretch goals (so they can say “My Kickstarter funded at 100% over goal and then hit two additional stretch goals”) which require even more product design, development and shipping.

All of these expenses are on top of the cut that Kickstarter takes, the cut that Amazon Payments takes and the cut that goes to the tax man. (Yes, you have to pay taxes on Kickstarter funds.)

In short: don’t go into your Kickstarter expecting to make money. In fact, most content creators report paying out of pocket to create and ship their Kickstarter rewards.

If it’s a lot of work and you aren’t going to make any money, why bother with crowdfunding? At this point, it’s the equivalent of hosting a YouTube channel or creating your first ebook. If you don’t have one, people are going to wonder why. To maintain authority in the information economy, you need proof that your ideas are supported by large numbers of people. The way to do that, at least for the next year or so, is to Kickstart a project.

So: when are you going to launch your Kickstarter?