ROI

Can Social Media Redefine Traditional Business Intelligence Strategies?

September 8, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

It seems that in recent years, social media has become a more frequently integrated element of a new company’s business intelligence platform or an existing business’s revamp of an old one. There is no doubt that the use of social media has begun to be a common format for business interactivity and in doing so, continues to contribute in leaps and bounds, to a company’s business intelligence.

Business ROI

One of the key goals of any business intelligence is to help attain a higher level of ROI. Business intelligence popularity continues to grow and is digitally multiplied with the use of social media networks and many available tools to manage them. This can make the time and money investment minimal, while providing maximum coverage for a company’s products and services. The promise of greater visibility, extended business decision-making opportunities, and the ability to reduce overall operational cost is why Business Intelligence continues to grow.

Options in Social Networking

There are incredible options in social networking and all businesses need to hash out the best options for their particular products or services. Overall Business Intelligence platforms can include an overall open choice in social network options such as a specific brand of blogger, or even a singular social platform like a Facebook Fan page. There are also options for platforms that include business intelligence features. Companies like Dundas and Lyzasoft offer their users Business intelligence platforms integrated with vital social networks.

The overall ability to instantly deploy business intelligence to help increase the end user experience will most certainly achieve greater functional and visual capabilities. This can also lead to yet more self-service business intelligence applications. A large number of businesses now also use social media analytics tools to rate their own company’s brand awareness as well as utilizing it as a tool to fully examine the competitors.

Learning how to leverage business from social networking tools is a main focus in many high-end marketing campaigns, and that mass is likely to continue growing.

Business Intelligence Solutions Services

A responsible business intelligence solutions service provider will fully integrate the role of social media into a business’s BI to help increase its functionality and provide rewards for integration participation.

Thankfully, the collision course that companies are on with social media has a happy end-result. Companies need to remain continually savvy when it comes to all available options where business intelligence and social media can integrate to add communicative or brand awareness impact. Because of its unstructured nature, social media networks may be some of the most difficult elements to integrate into a business intelligence platform, but it is well worth the investment in time or money that is spent in doing so.

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SquareUp – Your Credit is good everywhere & anywhere!

March 1, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

As the story goes, the idea for this new service came about when Twitter inventor and co-founder, Jack Dorsey, happened to see a street artist which he liked. Wanting to support him Jack found he didn’t have cash. The artist did not have a way to swipe a credit card.

With that idea in mind, a company was formed, co-founded by Jim McKelvey and Jack Dorsey. Money was raised (mainly from Digg’s Kevin Ross) and the prototype was unveiled to the world in beta trials at the end of 2009.

SquareUp.com enables merchants to accept payments via credit cards through their smartphones and tablets. No electricity is needed and it can be done any place where cellular reception is available.

By signing up with the company, merchants get, free of charge, an attachment which plugs into the earphone socket of their smart phones. The card is swiped through a slot at the top of the attachment.

When activating the program (as an app) on the smartphone or tablet, the process becomes very simple and self-explanatory. Input the amount, let the client sign with his finger and you get the approval very quickly. What’s more, you can send a receipt immediately to the customer’s e mail. A map helps you track where you have used the device recently.

As with any other credit card service, service fees apply. The current rate is 2.75% on a swiped transaction (with no additional FEE) and 3.5% + 15¢ per keyed-in transaction.

Who would use this?

On a Plum TV interview, Jack Dorsey put the example out there of, the Babysitter. Everyone from Babysitters to street vendors can find value in this new product, and he was just referring at the time to the recipient. Jack continued on to talk about how much convenience it makes for those of that simply do not carry cash and still want to purchase, support or partake in activities that until now had no method of payment besides cash, which less and less people carry.

What Can This Mean For Small Business?

Although most online businesses have methods for sending and accepting payments online, these systems are certainly not fool-proof, and often users in different countries may suffer from restrictions or high fees just to accept incoming funds. This has actually created quite a gap in money exchanges carried out online because just as with instant messengers, there are just so many to choose from, that users will select the one most convenient and manageable for them.

However, this does leave the aforementioned gap, some users simply cannot accept the form of payment that you may be restricted to.

If consumers suddenly had a way to accept credit cards on the spot, how much would this change how small businesses function? How much would this actually benefit those who are struggling to make a break into the world of bigger business? Who can really benefit from on the spot credit card charging access?

Street Sellers
Flea Market Vendors
Catering Companies
Musicians
Artist
Charities
Small Venues
Craigslist Sellers

I think the point is made. Those who previously had no other method to transfer funds, or the ability to sit down at a computer and manage their accounting from there, can now use their smartphone to manage funds literally on the go.

Although service fees do apply, most small business or vendors will not mind the loss of required transaction funds, since some fee has always been associated with credit card processing and the fact that without the SquareUp application, they would have never been able to initiate the transaction in the first place.

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How Much Money Should You Make? How to Sell Online…

January 31, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Have something to sell? No? You may not think so, but I’d bet good money that you already do, or have the skills to easily create things that could sell well online. Quite frankly, when it comes to selling online, you are 100% limited by your own ideas of what your limitations are. Too vague? Maybe this will explain further.

You do not have to own a jewelry store, pawn shop, or music store to have a product that is high demand and high profile that will sell well online. Regularly, regular people are creating their own businesses by doing exactly what they like to do, what they are good at, and what is easily done in their own homes.

Art – Custom paintings, creative furniture covers, frames, the list is actually endless in the art department.
Handbags and Purses – There is actually a fairly large market for handcrafted bags and purses.
Bath and Beauty – There are hundreds of thousands of people making a nice living by creating eco-friendly, and homemade bath and beauty products.
Candles – Candles of all sizes and styles are always in demand. Most especially candles that are created for weddings or religious ceremonies.
Ceramics and Pottery – This can entail many things, but a good potter will know exactly what products people can use the most and create them accordingly.
Clothing – Handmade clothing and used clothing have a big market online with many different venues. E-bay does not have a monopoly on secure online open seller sites.
Crochet – You may not have thought all of those hours you spend crocheting that blanket for the co-worker with a new baby was worth much, but blankets crocheted larger for a bed size for instance, regularly sell for several hundred dollars online.
Edibles – No one says you will be able to make a living cooking dinner for people and selling it online, though some do. But if you have skills in the kitchen, be aware that a few dozen decorated sugar cookies can rack in over a hundred dollars.
Furniture – Have carpentry skills? You don’t have to build and ship custom couches to make money. Try building light weight veggie boxes or trinket boxes online. You would be shocked how much custom designed items like this can go for. And the shipping won’t kill your wallet either.
Glass – Do you have skills at blowing glass? What about etching it? There is a huge market for these items in holiday, wedding, and religious ceremonies for this.
Holidays – Any holiday, all year long. If you have a special skill with creating Halloween costumes, or a knack for making nice Christmas ornaments, you have what it takes to sell online.
Music – You don’t have to be rock band quality. If you have a guitar and a nice voice, sell your skills online to create jingles, videos or other audio products for the many businesses that are desperately hunting them daily.
Pets – Like making dog sweaters? Seriously, browse some pet clothing shops online. Outrageous prices. If you can do better, you have a lot of money waiting on you as you read this.
Plants – Seed sharing is not only an incredible idea for producing great new strains of fruits and vegetables, but it is also a lucrative business to do so. Got some incredible moss covering some of your property? You can sell small chunks of it online for ten bucks a piece all day long.
Vintage – Vintage items of any kind are always top sellers. If you inherited some clothing from a great- great anything, don’t turn it over to the second-hand donation box just yet. Even they may not know what to do with it. But a vintage shopper online will.
Weddings – Have skills with creating invitations? Knack for decorating? Sell your skills, or your wedding products online. You may have a bit of competition, but nothing a little targeted marketing may not cure.
Woodworking – If you have woodworking skills and are not selling those in the creating of custom frames, plaques and the thousands of other quick finish job options online, you are missing out.

So that’s a great place to start. Now that you’ve had a moment to think on it, maybe you just need to know how to begin.

Selling Online

Product sales online are divided into three categories.

Selling physical products
Selling downloadable products
Selling services

Note: Even if you’re not taking money digitally your still selling so make sure your brand and pitch are in line with the consumer need.

Equipment

So the first thing you need of course is a computer and an internet connection. Be sure you have a reliable connection. Losing the internet for a couple of days mid-sale can cause you to end up with bad feedback or reviews that can be highly detrimental to your online business.

Tip: Setup a backup plan, who has wifi in your area and maybe a valuable tool like coffee?

Funding

You will need to have a credit or debit card to do many of the functions online. Although having a checking account is nice, not many businesses will accommodate automatic checking, instead, use your bank ATM card as your debit or credit source.

Tip: If you can’t afford a charge back or lack of funds availability get a corporate card because credit is far more forgiving then bank accounts when it comes to fraud. If your credit is in the recent tank like so many others ask your bank about secured cards that start at as little as $300. Credit cards are much more safer then bank accounts when it comes to internet transactions. (This tip thanks to Doug @ Suffolk County National Bank)

Email

You will need an email account. For business purposes, try to find an email server that will allow you to get your company name in the email address. Yet one more way to put your company name into cyberspace for recognition. Google, Hotmail and Yahoo all provide free email accounts that are commonly compatible with many other sites and services online.

If you grab a domain you like run a generic, sales@ info@ and use a POP setup, in the early portion of your business you don’t need to be spending money on exchange services and avoid any tech that tries to tell you otherwise.

Domain and Web Hosting

If you want to be easily found, and easily remembered, you will need to get your own domain name and find a web host with good solid service. Always try to get a .com if at all possible. Of course you or a hired web designer will still need to build the site, but never settle for a free option on another sites server alone.

SEOTrick: Avoid your name, you not famous or important (yet) take a look at your product or what your customer is searching for, run that through the AdWords keyword tool and buy a domain that fits that.

No one says you shouldn’t have an Ebay store, but you should also have your own. The Ebay store should actually be used to direct customers to your real store front, the one you own the domain and pay the host for.

Exercise the Options

Do not limit yourself to your website and an extra Ebay store on the side. Although you should be careful not to overextend yourself, there are so many other options available that it’s hard to imagine an online store owner that does not network themselves and their product. Check out these sites to build an extra store front. One more place on the net with your product, and one more place on the net with your name on it. Don’t let someone tell you that you should pay for this or that service because they have great online storefront options, use these free options.

This isn’t the stopping point. Check out the unique ideas these online product sellers are marketing themselves.

Take note of those sites. Register with them, offer a lower cost product you have, and with each product you send out, send a business card with your real website address on it. Offer them a discount for shopping directly through your store. Do what you have to do to network your business, but never, ever, just pop a store up and wait. There is no quicker way to fail and to let frustration cause you to give up.

Merchant Services

Get your account set up with a merchant service that will allow you to accept credit card payments. You can do this several ways, but Paypal does offer great merchant services at about the best price you are likely to find.

Authorize.net is arguably the largest and easiest plug and play merchant account offering integrated web systems and virtual terminals.

Promote Your Site

If you have utilized all the tips here you have definitively gotten a great start on advertising, networking and promoting your site. Go the extra mile, build a blog that provides helpful information on your products, find some affordable SEO services such as those who will help you release great PR’s for reduced cost. Remember those micro sell sites you exercised your options on? Check thoroughly through those for some quick and incredibly affordable marketing and advertising options as well.

They may not shoot your store to the top all by themselves, but with your own efforts and theirs combined you will have definitely begun to make your mark as an online seller.

Good Luck!

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Social Media Trends for 2011

December 14, 2010 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

2010 was a banner year for social media. It was the year in which Facebook overtook Google in site traffic. It was a year in which some surveys claim that 95% of companies are using LinkedIn to look for prospective employees.

The use of social media through mobile devices tripled. The tablet became popular and threatens to revolutionize laptops and school books.

What can we expect in the coming year? Here is what a few experts agree on:

– Big companies will take a serious look at the social media, integrating it not only locally but globally. Companies like Dell computers and Jet Blue are already doing it.

– The mobile and tablet war creates social computing – the competition is heating up with new tablets and smart phones coming into the market. It will create more discussions on the web. Social media will be on the go even more than it is today – out of the house, out of the office on the move; in trains, planes and automobiles. There will be more competition, variety and affordability in devices.

– Facebook location based services will probably overtake all the others. With the huge amount of users –over 500 million – and with tons of data and the programs behind it, they will become the biggest.

– There will be a social media overload. The average user experiences Facebook, Twitter, G mail, chat, Skype, Tumblr etc. Many experts in social media have adopted systems to access all of them at once but average users might get a case of schizophrenia, with so many profiles on so many social networks. Integration will have to become more wide spread.

– Social media will be integrated into other tools, making websites important again and more modern.

– More and more companies will turn their social media connections into customer service, answering questions and complaints.

– Social recruiting will get bigger. Even small companies will go to social media to find new and better applicants.

The Niche You Need To Target To Promote Your Small Business

October 25, 2010 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

You have your products ready, and your services are in place. Your brand image is ready and your marketing collateral is all written, designed and printed out. You now need to target your preferred demographic, your target audience and the niche your small business will occupy.

Nearly every product or service is aimed at a specific demographic group that will be interested buy it. As a small business, you need to do some market research to determine your sales demographics and establish a target audience.

If your product is something that a wide range of customers will use, you will need to create various marketing campaigns to reach different segments of this broad market, maximizing visibility. Then there are products and services which have a fairly specific target audience which need to be zeroed in using a more specific manner. This is called niche marketing and if done properly, can be very beneficial and cost-effective.

How do you determine your market niche? Ask yourself the following questions:

What should be the age of your potential customer?
Who would be more interested in your product, a man or a woman?
If your product is pricey, what income level should your potential customers belong to, preferably?
If your product requires it to be used in a certain way, what is the education level of your potential customers?
Is your product something that will be used by a family or an individual?

What will your customers appreciate the most about your product? Its price, easy availability, or ease of use? What do they like or dislike about the product or service in general?
Where does your audience research for products? Do they use the Internet, newspapers, books, or television?

Based on the results of your marketing research, you should be able to determine the focus of your advertising and marketing efforts. If you happen to find that your potential clients spend are frequent users of the internet, likely that your best marketing lever would be a Web page or an e-newsletter. Again, if you find that your potential customers are interested in listening to talk radio, you would do well to develop promotional strategies that revolve around radios.

Your audience might change too, depending on various factors. It’s always important to keep on top of who your target audience is. Do this, and you will maintain a steady flow and easy returns.

Is your SEO or Visibility Company Wearing a Black Hat?

September 23, 2010 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Since the time when people first figured out that good placement on the search engines is crucial for internet traffic, they have been thinking of a way how to game the system.

Not really game. More, how to use the system for profit. You don’t really have to sell anything, they thought, you can provide information and link to sites that do.

Hence, a game of cat and mouse begun between Google and those thinkers. But to understand that we need a little bit of theory.

Almost everything uploaded on the web is being looked at. Not necessarily by people, although that happens from time to time, but mainly by machines.

One of Google’s systems scans the uploaded pages. “Crawlers” or “Spiders” scan the page to look for repeated words that will help it categorize the site. It looks at headlines, Meta tags, hyperlinks etc. After that, another system Google uses involves indexing the pages according to the crawler’s find.

That much is known. Once the ‘thinkers’ manage to figure out what works best to get their site high on the search engine page, they took advantage of it. They stuffed keywords and tags and manipulated the system in what is called Spamdex.

Google adjusted. They added a few measures, like the amount of back links and their importance to the ranking on the search engine result page. Once the ‘thinkers’ figured that out, a way was found around the measure. By 2007 Google mounted a campaign against what is called ‘link farms’ which, in some cases, included thousands of sites created for the sole purpose of creating back links.

This game is still going on. Google announced that it has more than 200 criteria for page rank and in 2005 started personalizing the search results for each user.

That is called White Hat seo. It is a technic used to comply with Google’s guidelines and is not meant to deceive.

White Hat seo is not just about following the rules; it is about providing the costumer with the correct information. It is about creating content for searchers, not for search engines. Making the content easily accessible to the spiders and the easy to index is what White Hat seo is all about. It is in many ways connected to the web development that enables customer’s accessibility.

White hat seo means using all the tools to have an effective marketing campaign.

Black Hat seo is developing a site for the search engine, not for the user. It is an attempt to learn the system and outsmart it. With technics like hidden text (when the text and the background are the same color thus the customer can’t see it, but the crawlers can) or another method, called cloaking, when the site gives a different page depending if it is a live searcher or a machine.

Search engines might remove a site or lower it’s ranking if they are suspicious that the site is using Black Hat seo. In 2006, two big German companies BMW and Ricoh were removed by the search engines for deceptive practices. The companies apologized, changed their sites and were beck on Google. But if you are a small company, this process might take a lot of time.

In order to avoid problems down the line, you should rely on a reputable consulting firm to do the seo for your site. A company like Puglisi Consulting Group which is able to help you in all your website needs and through their visibility arm, Visibility Acceleration http://www.visibilityacceleration.com/#/seo-visibility/4541420003 advise you on the right ways to approach your world wide web visibility.

Untraditional Ways to Create Buzz for Your Business

September 20, 2010 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Let’s face it, advertising in today’s market is tough. There is a lot of noise out there and a lot of different companies and brands competing for the same consumers. But creative companies are finding untraditional ways to create buzz around their products. See if any of these unusual strategies might work for your business.

Make It a Stunt

Create an unusual event or contest for your business. If you own a restaurant, have an eating contest and award the winner with a year of free meals. If you own a TV repair company, hold a “World’s Strongest Man” competition and see who from your community can complete various strength tests involving old televisions. Award the winner with a free TV set.

The benefit of these types of stunts is two-fold. First, you are attracting new potential customers to your business. Obtain contact information for all contest entrants, and provide losing entrants with coupons that entice them to return to your establishment. Second, you are creating the opportunity for free media coverage. Invite local television, news and blog outlets to your event. You can save thousands of dollars in advertising through just one stunt event.

Attract a Celebrity

It’s no secret that celebrities grab headlines. Get a local celebrity to come to your business and watch the customers roll in. The key is to not only attract a celebrity client, but to get the client photographed or televised in your place of business.

Luckily, the popularity of reality shows has made it a bit easier to get celebrity coverage. Pick up the phone book and call any reality shows that might fit with your product. Be creative; remember that reality shows have very low budgets, so any service that you are willing to provide for free might get you a bit of on-screen time.

Make it Funny

You need look no further than Old Spice’s highly successful “I’m On a Horse” commercials to see the power of humor in advertising. Whether you are posting in-store signage, creating a newspaper ad or shooting a television spot, infuse humor in your marketing to attract customers. If your advertisement makes people laugh, they are more likely to remember the advertisement and your company.

While some types of businesses lend themselves better to unusual marketing than others, it never hurts to take a moment to think outside the box and reconsider your existing advertising strategies.

Is your website outdated?

August 31, 2010 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

A website should be updated at least every six months. The website should be your store front and consider upkeep an operating expense. Websites need to be able to be updated, and interact with Web 2.0, but this can only happen if you/r company is participating in web 2.0. You should have social sites and blogs, but also have them syndicated to your website.

A successful website should include:

– A professional extension of your presentation

– Be user friendly and easy to navigate

– Search Engine Optimization friendly or already optimized

– Use Social Media as a form or networking and community outreach

– Collect Data about visitors, e-mail addresses etc.

– Have a “call to action” for an opportunity

– Provide you with ROI data about your website

When a business starts to struggle cutting back on customer generating expenses is usually the fastest way to run your business out of business. When it comes to cutting expenses choose wisely, while you’ll need to trim advertising and marketing expenses, you don’t want to stop the source of revitalization for your business.

Strategy, Strategy, Strategy…

Instead of running your advertising all over the market, seek the advice of an expert who can help you select a few sources that will produce a reliable and stable ROI. The expenses associated with a professional or expert is easily saved by the expenses of getting your marketing wrong.

Visibility Acceleration is a digital marketing powerhouse that leverages social media, search engines and your website to generate new customers. Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. has the experience and support of professionals and experts in the field of business coaching and consulting to support a plan to help get your business back on track.