Whether you’re running a sales meeting, a product demo, or a training class, it can be hard to translate in-person presentation skills to an online event. But with travel budgets shrinking and the constant need for increased productivity, online meetings are a must for connecting with far-flung colleagues, customers, and partners in a cost-effective and efficient way.

We asked Christine Olivas, Marketing Communications Manager at iLinc, to share some tips on how to run a great web-based meeting and what you need to know to get started.

BuyerZone: People may be familiar with the basics of preparing for a face to face meeting – making sure the room is prepared, organizing slides or notes, etc. What’s the online equivalent? How should someone prepare to run a great web conference?

Christine Olivas: There are three main areas to focus on – and two of them are similar to what you’d do for an in-person event, translated to the virtual world.

The first is customizing the online room. It’s the equivalent of doing the technical set up in a physical room: what do you want the audio to sound like, and what do you need to make it work? What about video? What time do you need to reserve the room? How far in advance will you invite participants?

Of course, some customization options are more specific to the online world, like deciding what region of your desktop to share, or whether you will enable public chat. As you approach this piece of the planning, remember that it’s about leveraging the wide variety of available features to control the in-session experience of your attendees. The best difference? Unlike physical meetings, there’s nothing to rent – it’s all built in to the conferencing platform.

The second area is creating great content. This is another aspect that’s shared with traditional meetings – but obviously the delivery of the content will be different from an in-person event. Conferencing tools are there to help presenters adjust their presentation style and plans for audience engagement: for example, while it’s difficult to have everyone editing a document in a physical location, online it’s easier to have everyone participate.

Third, you need to take your voice and translate to the online realm. There are things we do in person that we don’t even realize we do: standing up, for example. Presenters who are very engaged, energetic speakers when standing may find that when sitting in front of screen, their voice loses engagement and enthusiasm. Just remember that practice makes perfect: any good web conferencing company will have training courses to help you make the transition.

BZ: How much practice or rehearsal is useful? How much is too much?

CO: Well, it depends on your previous experience. If you’re a pro, and you regularly lead seminars or sales demos and are experienced with in-person or phone presentations, you won’t need much, just some practice to ensure that you’re comfortable in the online environment.

But in this day and age, people who’ve never run an important meeting before are being asked to do it, as the low cost of online meetings makes it possible. In those cases, more practice is necessary: probably 2-3 run-throughs of the materials with an internal “practice audience,” and a couple of times in the conferencing room to get used to the controls. If other speakers are involved—say for a lead generation webinar—a formal rehearsal that runs through the actual script for the event in real-time is imperative.

Practice is key – and  in some ways, made easier in the web conferencing environment  because you can recreate the conference room environment exactly. For many face to face meetings, you’d be practicing in a board room, or your office, where the light, acoustics, computer, and other features are all different than the space where the actual presentation will take place.

When using web conferencing tools, however, you can practice exactly how it’s going to be – and then take advantage of the built-in archiving and review capabilities to evaluate your practice sessions. Watch your entire presentation and ask yourself: when did I stop being engaging? This gives you the ability to assess your own performance in a real-time, accurate way that you don’t usually get in person.

When it comes to online training, instructors generally have more experience in classroom, so the results are mainly dependent on a successful transition to the online environment. Often, traditional classroom instructors have many existing habits and specific ways of delivering content, so getting your instructors to leverage virtual tools to create a great learning experience is the key to success. Once they get over the hump of relying on their existing tool set and methodology, a whole new world opens up, allowing them to focus on the content, avoid distractions, and truly engage their audience of learners.

BZ: If someone’s comfortable presenting a PowerPoint deck in front of a small group, will those skills translate well to an online event? Or how should they adjust their style?

CO: For many presenters, one of the biggest changes is switching from hand gestures to online tools to make your points. For example, when doing an in-person demonstration in front of a group, people often point to or touch the screen – online, they just have to remember to use the mouse to highlight specific areas. You need to retrain old habits. The impulse to do everything with your hands is powerful – and you need powerful tools to make up for it.

There’s also the video component. People in virtual settings have to learn how to present themselves: because the web cam is focused on your upper body, you have to be more engaging and be aware of how your facial expressions communicate your message.

For example, if you’re sitting at the computer, clicking around, and not looking at the web camera, the visual image becomes one of you looking down constantly. You should also think about which colors will look good on camera. It’s not rocket science, but you have to think it through. It requires some investment but it pays off: once you get used to it, you can have some fun.

BZ: What about the slides themselves – are there any adjustments a presenter should make for online presentation?

CO: The biggest factor is that you can actually transition away from static slides. Obviously slides are still useful for emphasizing takeaways or bullet points, but the great thing about a conferencing tool is you can seamlessly switch back and forth to other applications, videos, or flash demos. It really lets you change up what you can do.

If you’re showing software, for example, you can give a guided tour instead of just screen shots. Anything that best highlights your topic.

So the transition to a virtual meeting setting is less about doing different things with a tool like PowerPoint, and more about being able to switch back and forth between different types of content. It also allows you to be spontaneous with your presentation if something isn’t working or the questions take you in a different direction than expected.

BZ: What about interactive features like polls and Q&A? How can you best use those types of tools to encourage participation?

CO: It boils down to really knowing your audience and what message you want to deliver. The best presenters use a variety of tools and deliveries, both planned and spontaneous. Planned interaction includes basic tactics like running a survey at the end of a demo to gauge attendees’ interest in follow-up calls.

Spontaneous interaction with the audience can be enabled by your tools. In iLinc, for example, there’s a participation meter that shows you how many people are paying attention. If attention is lagging, the presenter/instructor can recognize that fact, then spontaneously bring up interactive features such as polls to get people back in or ask for feedback.

In an educational setting, whiteboarding or annotating gets everyone involved at once, and iLinc’s tools even include breakout groups so you can subdivide a class for short sessions and more direct engagement.

BZ: What about tips for attending online meetings? How can you get the most out of an online presentation?

CO: Again, a few things that overlap with what you’d do for a physical meeting.

1. Prepare in advance – pretty much all conferencing tools include a link to test your system in your email confirmation. Do it! Test your system ahead of time. It’d be nice if you could join all web meetings instantly, but it’s sometimes necessary to upgrade certain core technologies or plug-ins before. Testing in advance will avoid any delays on the day of the meeting.
2. Leave plenty of time – if you were at an in-person conference, you wouldn’t wait until last minute to sprint to your next session. It takes some time to find a link, load it up, enter your info, and get started – so try to arrive a little early.
3. Be attentive to the audio/video options—if you want to participate in the video portion, have a web cam ready. For audio, make sure to have a phone if needed, or speakers or headphones for computer audio.

In general, don’t just be a static observer. Be aware of ways you can ask for help – a good presenter will tell you in advance. Our software has a feature called ‘hand raise’ that lets you request attention, and most services have some kind of public or private chat feature. Listen to the announcements at the beginning of the event so you know how to reach out and make sure your questions or concerns are addressed.

For anyone who spends a significant part of their workday on a computer – and that’s an increasing number of employees even at non-technology-based companies – using two monitors provides measurable productivity gains. You may think dual monitors is just a perk for programmers or stockbrokers – but given how far the prices of LCD monitors have dropped, that’s just not true.

The basic reason to go to two monitors has to do with how the typical computer user works: users rarely spend all their time in one application. Instead, the average office worker is likely to be switching back and forth between their email, spreadsheets, web browsers, and role-specific applications like a CRM system, database, or accounting software.

Dual monitors let you work on multiple documents at the same time. If you’re creating a report based on a large spreadsheet, or writing an email to review a document, you’ll be able to see both the source material and what you’re writing at the same time. Here’s an example where the user has one monitor set to portrait mode for email, and the second is in the traditional landscape mode.

Photo courtesy hywell

Side-by-side monitors are also ideal for preventing distractions from completely derailing you. As the Time article says, “Now I could keep my e-mail and the Web open on one screen while my Microsoft Word document ran on another. This kept me on task. Even if I did go off to the Web, my document was always visible, beckoning me to come back to work.”

To get that additional screen real estate, it’s considerably cheaper to buy an extra 17″ or 19″ monitor – typically between $100 and $200 – than upgrade to a jumbo-sized monitor that may cost $1,000 or more.

Most modern computers can easily run two monitors. This includes Windows XP, Vista, and now Windows 7 machines, as long as you have a video card with two ports, as well as Mac OS and many Linux operating systems. Here’s a look at how to set up Windows machines for dual monitors.

I just switched to dual monitors myself, and I’m trying to figure out how best to use the additional space. If you have suggestions or comments, leave them below.

Encouraging volunteerism is a great way for companies to give back to their communities – especially when finding the money for cash donations is difficult. BuyerZone has been volunteering at the Greater Boston Food Bank for the last 9 years. It’s not a huge commitment: we take most of our staff, usually 40 or 50 people, for a half day sorting and packaging donated food that will then be distributed to food banks around the area.

Our big surprise this year was GBFB’s sparkling new building. We saw it being built when we went last year, and wow – is it an improvement over their old facility! More info and tips on getting started with corporate volunteering after the jump.

Here’s what we were doing: sorting food, beverages, and other household goods donated by local supermarkets and drug stores into specific categories like protiens, juice, or canned foods.

While we were there, I took the opportunity to talk to Amy Cooper-Ayles, Director of Volunteers at the Food Bank, about some of the reasons companies choose to volunteer. She pointed out some key benefits that can appeal to even the most pragmatic businesses:

• Group events help you do valuable teambuilding while helping the community. “You could do a ropes course, or sit down and talk about teambuilding,” says Cooper-Ayles, and while those can be effective, “you could also work together to help tackle a social problem.”
• Local volunteering can boost employee morale. “People find it fascinating to sort tomatoes,” reports Cooper-Alyes, and while I personally might not use the word “fascinating,” the work does give you sense of satisfaction. In addition, the work allows the receptionist and the CEO to work side-by-side, creating a good sense of community within your team.
• It’s a great way to demonstrate community involvement. Building community relationships is important to many companies – it shows respect, helps with the corporate image, and can even help with recruiting.

So you want to get started with corporate volunteering? Cooper-Ayles suggests that you start by having one person at your company be in charge of coordinating your volunteer efforts. For smaller companies, that can be part of an existing HR or office management role; larger companies sometimes hire a dedicated staffer.

You may want to choose a charity that’s related to your industry, but it’s not necessary. The GBFB reports that they regularly get volunteers from major supermarket chains in the area – but also that their mission has such broad appeal that it’s easy for anyone to get involved. It’s worthwhile to look locally: you might be surprised what charitable organizations are in your immediate area and could use your help.

Also, be smart about choosing when to volunteer. Cooper-Ayles confirms what many larger charities report – the time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s is often overcrowded with volunteers, especially at charities like homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Thanksgiving slots in particular fill up months and months in advance.

You can also vary your approach: instead of taking the whole team at once, you can encourage individual volunteers by offering an additional day or two off for charitable activities. You miss out on the teambuilding benefits, but you still prove to employees that you place a value on giving back to the community.

Here’s the BZ crew after a hard morning’s work. (I’m in the extreme lower right.)

As much as “holiday creep” is an annoyance, the answer is yes: if you want to book a hotel, function room, bar, restaurant, or other popular location for your winter holiday party, it’s time to start making some phone calls.

Event planners report that many businesses are waiting a little longer to book their holiday parties this year – but you can bet that by late October or early November, bookings will start to pick up. Get ahead of the curve and you’ll find that you have more leverage for getting a good deal.

Everything’s negotiable…

And we mean everything. As companies large and small attempt to deal with the still-faltering economy, restaurants and bars know that holiday party budgets aren’t likely to have a lot of give in them, so you’ll find that many will be willing to work with you to find something that fits your budget.

Here are a few areas to negotiate:

• Food choices. Get more and/or better snacks for the same price.
  

  A good spread is key -- but don't overpay!

• Room fees. Most restaurants and bars will waive room fees if you so much as ask – they make their money on the catering.
• Alcohol prices. The location may offer a discount if you let them pick a couple of brands of wine or beer to serve; if you’re going for an open bar you may be able to get soft drinks included for free.
• Per-server costs. If the location is staffing your party with waiters to pass food or bartenders, consider those costs negotiable.
• Times. The venue may offer a private room until 10 pm, wanting to open it to the public after that. If you have a late-night crowd, ask if you can extend private hours.

… if you’re willing to walk away

Of course, negotiating is easier if you’re willing to look at other locations. If you simply must have a location, because it’s the hot spot in town or because that’s where your company party has been held for 15 years, you may find it harder to get the venue to give any ground.

It’s always worth shopping around. Call two or three places and get detailed proposals before committing to a single location – you can always use details from one proposal to help get a better deal out of another venue.

Want to get more out of online marketing – but you don’t know SEM from SEO? You’re not alone: millions of small businesses are trying to understand how to effectively market their business online.

We recently spoke with Matt Malden of Yield software, a company that focuses on providing tools and expertise for improving online marketing results. He recently co-authored The Link Economy, a guide to maximizing the value of your web site, and shared some of his expertise for BuyerZone readers.

BZ: What do small businesses need to consider when they first venture into online marketing?

MM: There are a couple of critical aspects of online marketing. A lot of small businesses think of only one aspect (either natural search or cost per click advertising), but it’s important that both are considered in concert with each other.

First is SEO, search engine optimization. What you’re basically trying to do with SEO is make sure that the search engines rank you highly for natural search results – in other words, unpaid listings in the main search results.

The second is SEM, search engine marketing – also known as pay-per-click – which is advertising in the paid section of the search engine results. To get there, you bid on the search keywords that you want your ads next to, and they show up on the top and right sides of the screen.

I think there has been a lot of talk of both areas, but what gets overlooked is this: once you’ve spent all the time and/or money to get traffic to your site, how do you maximize experience for visitors once they get there? What you should really try to do is increase the conversion rate for customers, whatever a “conversion” is to you: a user who subscribes to your newsletter, purchases a product, requests a sales call, or downloads product literature. No matter what your goal is, increasing conversion is something that has a positive impact on your business

There’s a whole discipline called landing page optimization designed to tune your web site to convert more visitors to customers, no matter where they came from. Once you start considering SEO, SEM, and landing page design at the same time you can really structure a complete web marketing strategy.

BZ: What are the major mistakes companies make when planning an SEM campaign?

MM: I think the biggest mistake is that they put all their eggs in one basket. For example, some companies focus exclusively on free listings. That can be great – but there’s a lot of opportunity in the paid search results, too. On the flip side, you can focus a lot on paid search, but miss opportunities to get a lot of free traffic.

The broader issue is when companies focus on measuring “cost-per-click” [CPC].  It’s an important metric, but can often be misleading. With too much emphasis on CPC, what you’re trying to optimize is how to get people to your site at the lowest possible cost. What good is that if it’s the wrong people?

More important is the cost of acquisition [CPA]: the total cost across SEO and SEM to acquire a customer. That’s a more valuable statistic – in the first scenario, where you’re optimizing for CPC, you’re counting all the people  who never convert to being customers – keep in mind the difference between visitors, who just come to your site and leave, and customers, who perform the action that you want them to.

With CPA you get a pure measurement of the cost to obtain a customer: it’s the most relevant indicator of the value that your web marketing activities are having on your business. If you optimize your online marketing for the best CPA, optimizing for natural search is critical because you’ll drive more acquisitions without the costs. On the paid side, you can concentrate on acquiring the right traffic rather than the most traffic.

Having an effective strategy for minimizing CPA allows business to attract visitors that become customers, and let their competitors attract the visitors who are just going to be “clicks.”

BZ: What is the best approach/mindset to a complete SEM strategy?

MM: I think it’s really daunting for an average business to be effective in online marketing. It’s extremely complex and labor intensive – and at the same time, even a small mistake in managing a paid search campaign can quite expensive. I have empathy for businesses experimenting with SEM.

That said, it’s important to dive in and understand how the pieces of the puzzle work. Do your research and you can learn a lot: how to execute across paid and natural search, determine which is most effective, and decide how many resources to invest in each area. You’ll also learn that each discipline is complex in its own right, and it’ll take effort to be ultimately successful.

There are a number of technologies out there that are extremely helpful, as well as agencies and consultants who can help. It’s important to find someone or something to help you, so it’s good that there’s so much out there. It’s almost impossible to get the desired results in such a labor-intensive arena if you manage the whole process manually.

BZ: Are there other metrics that companies which advertise online should look at?

MM: After CPA, which I’ve already said is the most critical, there are several others to look at: conversion rate can tell you how your landing page and offer are performing, click-through rate lets you know how your ad copy works, and bounce rate – the percentage of people who leave immediately after arriving – shows you the traffic that’s not at all interested in your offer.

I don’t recommend you pay much attention to informational metrics like time on page. That can tell you how compelling your content is, but until you develop correlation that time on page leads to conversion, it’s not very relevant. The ultimate goal is to get them to convert and that’s the metric you should be optimizing for.

BZ: Is it possible to succeed at both SEO and SEM without sacrificing one for the other?

MM:  Absolutely. Although, while you should optimize each one in its own right, the strategies need to be integrated together. Your performance in SEO has a definite impact how you do on your paid search and vice versa.

If you’ve got the #1 position for keywords you’re targeting in natural search, the position you need to reach in paid search will be different than if you’re #3 or #15 in natural results. To figure it out, you’ll need to experiment: adjust your SEM bids, determine the value of the position you’re paying for, and see if the traffic still comes if you’re more reliant on your natural search results.

You don’t want to leave opportunities on the table. Use them to complement each other, but neglecting one over the other is a huge mistake.

BZ: What new strategies or methods are becoming more important in online marketing?

MM: The emerging trend is leveraging technology to optimize marketing spend and behaviors. Early adopters did this manually, modeling with spreadsheets and doing so periodically and reactively. Then a wave of consultancies emerged to apply domain expertise for SEO and PPC. They learned how to intelligently apply information technology, including specialized software, cloud-based systems, complex algorithms, and statistics, to optimize spend and labor cost for effective strategy.

So the trend is to use technology for a competitive advantage. If you’re not using these tools, how are you going to compete with the sophisticated, intelligent web marketing systems that are evolving?

BZ: What final tips can you provide for novice and advanced SEM professionals (to cut costs, become more efficient, get better results, etc)?

MM: A few tips:

1. Be empathetic with the user experience of your targeted customers. This starts when they’re in the search engines looking for your products and services: don’t use your language or the industry-approved terms. Think about the words your customers use to talk about your products or services.
2. Make sure your ad copy is stellar and representative of what you offer. Regularly experiment with your ad copy so it’s compelling and effective.
3. Search for your company and see what snippet shows up for your company in natural search. That snippet is something that the search engine reads from your page – most of the time it’s your meta description tag, but that’s not always the case. The search engine chooses what text to display, so know what they’re using and make changes when necessary.
4. A lot of novices direct paid search traffic to their home page – avoid this mistake. You want to take them to a targeted page that has content directly related to the ad they’re clicking on. Your company may have 10 or 100 products, but if a keyword ad promotes one specific product, the landing page should focus primarily on that particular product.

Finally here are two great ways to lower your CPA: effectively utilizing negative keywords and geo-targeting.

1. Negative keywords prevent your ad from being displayed to individuals who aren’t good targets for your business. For example, if you sell guitars, you’ll obviously want to bid on the keyword “guitars,” but you don’t want to advertise to anyone searching for “guitar lessons,” or you’ll getting a lot of traffic that’s not relevant to you. Adding terms that you don’t want to advertise on prevents your ads from popping up needlessly (and costing you money).
2. Geotargeting allows you to send different messages to different geographies. For example, the NFL can run one add that has a Redskins message in the DC metro area and a Cowboys message in Dallas. You can also limit the areas that your ad displays in, if you’re only active in certain markets.

Deciding whether or not to buy smartphones for your employees doesn’t have to be a complicated decision. As prices for phones and their data plans fall and the costs of being offline or unavailable increase, it’s becoming easier and easier to see how a small investment in technology can benefit your business in the long run.

The primary benefit of smartphones over regular cell phones is that they let your staff access email and many web-based applications. As more and more urgent business gets done over email and the web, that’s a key advantage.

Balance costs and risks to decide who gets smartphones

Comparing risks and costs to avoid them is a good way to approach this decision. One of the most obvious risks to businesses that generate revenue online is server crashes. The instant your web site goes down, you’re losing money. That’s why IT employees at tech companies are often the first group to get smartphones. (Well … that, and the fact that the IT department often gets to make the technology purchasing decisions doesn’t hurt, either!)

Courtesy of Apple

And just because you don’t sell your products online directly, don’t think that this doesn’t apply to you. If your customer database or production web sites go down, losses could mount quickly. The costs to protect against these problems  – a few hundred dollars for a phone plus the price of a monthly plan – are tiny compared to the loss you’d suffer if your site was down for hours.

Opportunity cost is another important risk to consider. Do you have salespeople who travel regularly? Compare the profit from one major sale to the cost of a smartphone. Looks like an easy decision now, doesn’t it?

Keep in mind that when buying phones for a business, you may be able to save money in a few ways. If you’re buying enough phones – probably 50 or 100 – you can get steep discounts from the providers. You can also share minutes among the phones, so you don’t have to worry about individual usage patterns as long as you stay within your allotted minutes.

Set clear guidelines

Smartphones aren’t as glamorous as they were a few years ago – some people see them as tethers that make workers into slaves for their employers. But nonetheless, a new iPhone or Blackberry can be a fairly flashy perk, and if you don’t create clear guidelines as to who gets them, you may get some employees complaining.

Before you start buying the equipment, outline the types of job responsibilities that qualify someone for a company smartphone – and apply those rules fairly. You may also want to have rules based on your corporate hierarchy – all VPs get one, for example – but keep in mind that often it makes sense to start with lower-level employees in critical departments, while higher-ranked staff in departments with little need for constant email contact can wait.

Blackberry or iPhone?

Despite the surge in popularity of the iPhone among consumers, Blackberry devices are far more popular in corporate environments. The main reason for this is that Blackberries offer more security features designed for corporate IT departments. They include the ability to remotely wipe a Blackberry if it’s lost or stolen, limits on the types of applications that can be installed, and remote management of an entire set of phones. Right or wrong, some larger corporations simply require these sorts of security measures, and while iPhones are starting to add some of the features, they’re not designed with central management in mind.

Blackberries are also available on multiple cellular networks, while iPhones are available exclusively on AT&T until at least 2010 in the US. While they were little more than glorified pagers at first, Blackberries have also had longer to establish their advantage in corporate environments.

Of course, the iPhone has a big advantage in the number of applications available for it. That may not be a big selling point for companies that want employees using their equipment solely for work-related reasons, but there are thousands of excellent applications for business travelers, sales work, and other legitimate activities.

There are detailed comparisons of the iPhone and Blackberry models all over the web: Bold vs. 3G, Storm vs. 3G, Curve vs. 3G, multiple Blackberries vs. iPhone. You’ll find that there a lot of personal preferences and slight differences: many people prefer one over the other based on subjective feelings.

If you bring this question up in a crowded room, you may also find that people can develop strong feelings about their personal electronics, so tread carefully.

Plenty of experts will tell you that aggressive marketing spending makes sense in a recession – but there’s a chicken and egg situation you’ll have to address. If business is slow, you don’t have the money to aggressively launch new marketing campaigns; if you don’t launch new marketing campaigns, it’s hard to get business to pick up.

Putting that problem aside, now is a good time to get started. Consumer confidence is starting to pick up and there are signs that the Federal stimulus is helping the economy towards a slow recovery.

So if it’s time to start new marketing efforts but you don’t have extra budget to throw around, what do you do? Here are a few low- and even no-cost marketing tactics you can apply right now.

1. Amp up an existing marketing program

A good way to get started is to pick a marketing program you currently run or have run in the past and take a fresh look at it. Think creatively about what you could do if you spent 10% more on that program: not just more ads or direct mail pieces, but some new edge, offer, or gimmick.

An example the experts at MarketingSherpa caught recently was OfficeMax’s paper-bag insert into the Sunday papers. Sure, that cost them more than their typical Sunday newspaper flyer – but it stands out as a fun, creative piece.

Pick a mail piece, trade show, newspaper ad, online campaign – any single marketing activity – and come up with a creative way to spruce it up, make it stand out, or enhance its performance.

2. Take control of your online presence

This may or may not fit your definition of marketing, but more and more conversations and interactions with your company are happening online – and they’re not all going to be on your web site, if you have one. (What’s that – you don’t even have a web site yet? Don’t get me started.)

First up is claiming your local listing on Google, Bing, and other major search engines. More information here – but the gist is making sure you’re in control of what the search engines are saying is “official” about your business.

If your business is covered by industry review sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, or other consumer-facing sites, make sure you’re registered on those sites as well, so you can respond to any potentially damaging comments.

If no such site exists for your business, look for professional forums, associations, and other online hangouts where your customers are talking to each other. Believe me – it exists, and if you’re not at least paying attention, you’re missing out on a chance to build relationships.

3. Try Internet lead generation

Ok I admit it, this one is self-serving, as BuyerZone is in the lead generation business. But it’s a low-cost way to find new potential customers, and when you absolutely need a measurable ROI on your marketing spend, it’s hard to beat.

Lead generation programs are available in all kinds of industries and approaches. BuyerZone focuses mainly on office products and services, construction equipment, and software, but if we’re not right for you, chances are there’s a source out there for you – like ServiceMagic for home contractors of all kinds.

The best lead generation companies share a few characteristics: they attract prospects who are actively looking to make purchases, they let you carefully define what types of buyers you’re interested in connecting with, they verify contact information, and they offer a refund policy for any mistakes that may slip through.

The best part is the easy-to-measure ROI: just compare how much you spend on a batch of leads with the value of the sales you make from them. Find out more about BuyerZone’s lead generation programs – or check out the full list of products and services that we can provide leads for.

4. Get social

Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn? Yes, the social media channels have been getting a blizzard of publicity this year, and for good reason: with no investment except your time, you can expand your reach, build your brand, and start bringing in new customers.

However, unlike lead generation or direct mail, social media activities don’t usually result in immediately measurable sales: they’re longer-term, brand-building activities. But since they can take a while to build up steam, it makes sense to start participating in one or two social outlets sooner rather than later.

Of course, a few high-profile successes don’t mean these channels are a perfect outlet for everyone. And they take a lot of time to get right: there are plenty of mistakes you can make on Twitter, on Facebook, and in social media in general. Don’t just rush in headfirst: take your time and watch what other businesses are doing before getting too involved. You’ll find there’s a long term payoff that comes from being connected to customers through multiple channels

5. Go for content marketing

Content marketing is the idea that providing valuable information without a heavy-handed marketing message is an effective way to grow your business. Content marketing evangelist Joe Pulizzi has plenty to say about content marketing, including this great overview of what content marketing is and how to do it.

It can be something as simple as a blog post, a podcast or short video, a white paper, or email newsletter. Write something helpful, interesting, funny, maybe even controversial – whatever it is that your customers need – then distribute it as widely as you can. By providing great info for free and without heavy-handed marketing messages, you build trust with your customers and prospects, making them more likely to come back next time they need to buy.

Note that in any kind of content marketing, you’ll have to include some basic marketing messages about your company – but it’s important to keep them light and out of the way.

What free or low-cost marketing tactics do you like? Let us know below. And no, standing on the sidewalk in a sandwich board isn’t going to cut it.

I’ve had customers tell me they “found me on Google” – but it doesn’t sound like they were at my website. How do I find out what’s going on? Where else am I appearing?

There are plenty of directories out there that will include your listing without notifying you. Most often, they include basic listings for many businesses, then charge for “premium” listings that include more information or appear higher in the results.

However, the chances are good that you’ve been found through Google’s local search results. These are popping up for more and more search terms, but especially for queries that include a city, town, or state. Take a look:

The results labeled A, B, and C – as well as more listings on the next page – are based on a combination of information that Google finds on the larger web and details that have been entered into their Local Business Center.

The LBC lets you provide a pretty good set of details about your business: hours, payment options, photos, videos, additional details that you define, even coupons for visitors to print and bring with them. The best part about it? Including all of that information is free.

You may be wondering why you have to duplicate information that’s already on your regular web site. The answer is simply that these local listings almost always show up at the top or near the top of the search results, while your web site isn’t guaranteed to be there.

Keep in mind that Google isn’t the only search engine in town. Here (again) is how to claim your local listing in Microsoft’s new Bing search engine. And here’s a great writeup of how to claim your listing on Yahoo!. Don’t worry if you’re not a flower shop – the instructions work for any business. On the other hand, keep in mind that Yahoo’s pending integration with Bing may do away with those listings.

Another example of a directory you should make sure you’re listed in is BuyerZone’s own Local Directory. Our directory is an easy way to find the B2B suppliers your company needs — and if you’re not already listed, we’ve made it easy to add your business.  Even if you are already listed, editing your listing lets you add company details and product descriptions that can help you stand out from your competition.

Finally, before you start working on your local listings, take a look at these tips on enhancing your local listings. The title says “Google” but the advice applies to all 3 major search engines.

For most consumers, gift cards are a routine part of the retail landscape. They’ve steadily increased their coverage, from big chain retailers to smaller businesses in many industries. We recently talked to Dan Battista, Vice President of Sales at ProfitPoint, about how small businesses are using gift cards and the best ways to maximize an investment in a gift card program.

BuyerZone: What are the basic types of gift card programs?

Dan Battista: At its core, whether the retailer runs it themselves or a third party runs it, any gift card program has a few basic components. There are the custom cards themselves, then the ability to track value on those cards. In one way or another, the system lets merchants provide customers with stored value cards to use in future.

There are two different types of programs. Open loop programs can be used anywhere, like prepaid credit or debit cards. Closed loop programs can only be loaded and redeemed at the one retailer and tend to be more effective for merchants.

Even within closed loop programs, each one is different – some have more limited capabilities, only allowing basic loading and redeeming of dollar values. Other programs differentiate themselves with additional support and assistance they provide to the merchant: web-based reporting, the ability to load and redeem value without the card being present, or 800 numbers or web sites to conveniently check balances. Those types of features start to differentiate better programs from the pack.

Another example is the loyalty card. Better gift card programs also have the capability to run and manage a loyalty program. A loyalty program gives you the opportunity to reward good customers, encourage them to visit more often, and entice them to spend more when they visit you. In the best systems, it’s a two pronged attack: the gift card program attracts new customers who may not have visited before, while the loyalty program encourages customers to visit more often and spend more when they do.

BZ: What are the biggest benefits of gift cards for merchants?

DB: One of the biggest benefits in my mind is that gift card programs enable your best customers to refer friends and family very easily. When customers give a gift card for a holiday or birthday present, or if other businesses distribute gift cards to employees, they’re providing a stamp of approval for your business – and that referral brings in new customers.

Word of mouth via gift cards is a very cost effective way to attract new business – and it’s also word of mouth the easy way for customers. Whoever purchases the gift card doesn’t need to go into a lot of detail about the appeal of the business to make their recommendation.

Another major benefit is that gift cards easily deliver positive and significant ROI thanks to unredeemed cards. Of course you want people to redeem the cards – but somewhere between 10% and 20% of prepaid gift cards never get redeemed.  The percentage tends to be higher in smaller businesses with fewer locations, as opposed to chains or franchises. That 1 in 10 or 1 in 5 tends to pay for the costs of the program.  Also, when using gift cards, customers tend to spend 20% to 40% more than they would have otherwise.

BZ: When should small businesses consider a gift card program?

DB: There isn’t really a threshold before a business should consider a gift or loyalty card system. Gift card systems are affordable, robust, easy to use, and easy to implement – even for the smallest businesses. Most systems don’t require additional expensive equipment.

In fact, brand new businesses are some of the best candidates for gift card systems. Take a restaurant that’s just opened its doors: every customer is a new customer. You only get a couple of opportunities to earn their loyalty, so they should have a loyalty card system in place to reward those new customers and turn them into regular customers. They can also load gift cards with a small value and distribute them to new customers as they come in.

BZ: Gift cards have an obvious market in retail companies. What other industries use gift cards, and how?

DB: Gift cards don’t have to be pigeonholed for specific industries. It’s true, restaurants, retailers, and salons and spas are the most likely users. But we see our customer base vary widely, from those traditional customers to colleges and universities, hospitality and hotels, and even B2B industries.

An example: a customer of ours is in B2B sales: he sells paint to contractors. He goes to a trade show early in the season every year – this trade show sets the tone for the year, both for him and for his competitors. To stand out, he set up a gift card program and encouraged contractors to prepay for paint for the year – offering the prepaid paint at a discount. He had a great amount of success with the program and now uses it every year. It might be the last place you’d expect a gift card system, but it really helps his relationship with customers. In addition, all the prepayment has really helped his cash flow, helping him launch some new products that previously had too high a barrier to entry.

I’ve also seen event-driven programs for charity events. One customer distributed gift cards through direct mail to potential attendees of a charity auction. They didn’t say what the value on each card was, just a range: most cards were $5 or $10, but some carried $50 or $100, and one had a $500 balance. To find out how much their card was worth, recipients had to go to the auction. It’s easy to do, and brings more value to event: folks who come to the event are happy to spend money anyway, to help the cause, but the intrigue gets more of them to attend.

BZ: What’s the minimum investment to get started?

DB: It’s really very small, depending on how much functionality you want and what you want to accomplish. Getting started entails setting the program up, getting access for merchant to process transactions, and designing and printing cards. All that can be done for as little as a few hundred dollars in some cases. And even typical startup costs aren’t that much more: a typical one location merchant can expect to pay $300 to $500, depending on the components they select.

The best route to a great ROI is to put in place everything you need to be successful, even if it costs a little extra at the beginning.

BZ: What can gift card users do to get the most ROI on their purchase?

DB: This is really important to consider: the more aggressive they are with the program, the more successful they’ll be. The worst situation we see is when a merchant buys a set of custom cards, puts them in a drawer below the register, and waits for customers to ask about buying gift cards. It doesn’t work!

To get good returns the cards have to be displayed prominently. The gift card supplier should supply point of purchase displays to make the cards obvious and available – that’s just a must-do. Since you load value at the time of purchase, you don’t have to worry about theft of prominently displayed cards – with no value loaded, they’re just pieces of plastic.

Merchants can help customers get in the habit of using gift cards by implementing a gift card with purchase program. A customer spends $50? Give them a $5 or $10 card for their next purchase and require them to spend at least $50 to use the card.  Another good way to be aggressive is to offer the cards at discount: 10% off a gift card of $50 or more, for example.

BZ: How does a great gift card system differ from a mediocre system?

DB: There are a couple of ways. One is the support you receive from the provider. Look for a provider that sets you up with the right program, teaches you how to use it fully, provides guidance and suggestions for marketing the cards, and is available for support throughout the relationship. From a merchant’s point of view, there’s a big difference between that and a provider who sets you up and then is never heard from again or isn’t available to work with

In addition, the tools that are available with the program are important. Reporting is one – robust reporting enables you to track the overall success of your program. You want to make sure you receive point of purchase materials and signage. And finally the cards themselves should be high quality, custom cards.

BZ: What security concerns do gift cards create?

DB: The security risks are less than you might think. A gift card program really tracks stored values – it doesn’t actually carry the dollar value on the card. Good systems let you attach demographic information to the card, so if card is lost or stolen, the customer can call and request a new card. With the right system, closing out and replacing a lost card is very easy.

The system should also include risk or fraud detection as part of its reporting. These features will flag any unusual activity that occurs, whether by customers or staff members. That helps take the guesswork away from merchant and eliminates any issues that might arise.

ProfitPoint, Inc. is the leading provider of stored value solutions for the mass merchant marketplace. They specialize in the design and implementation of custom Gift and Loyalty Card Programs and support their programs with all forms of non-cash payment processing products including Credit Card Processing and Merchant Cash Advance.

Earlier this summer, an NYT article about small businesses starting to experiment with social media included this surprising tidbit:

To be sure, the majority of smaller concerns have not caught the online wave. In its monthly index, Discover noted that 62 percent of businesses still do not have Web sites.

Did I read that right? 62%?? In this day and age there is no reason your business shouldn’t have at least a basic web site, no matter what size you are or industry you’re in.

This shouldn’t be news to anyone, but: your customers are looking for you online. It doesn’t matter if you’re a local shoe store, a machine parts manufacturer, or an aircraft repair service. Yes, you used to get all the customers you needed from the yellow pages and word of mouth and local advertising. If that hasn’t started to change already, it will.

You don’t have to be a techie and you don’t have to spend a mint to get a basic, good looking site. For one thing, there are plenty of free web site building tools out there.  Many Internet service providers also offer site building tools to their customers.

While those tools are designed to be easy for anyone to use, you don’t have to do it yourself. It doesn’t cost much to hire a freelancer or web development shop to put together a basic web site. Try our free request for quotes service and we’ll connect you with several qualified web designers. For a relatively low cost, you’ll be able to get your business online, just so potential customers can find you.

By the way — when you start thinking about what you want on your web site, keep these small business web page design basics and these three web sins in mind. No point in putting up a new web site that already makes basic mistakes!