Small Business Marketing FAQs
What is a small business? The government has introduced certain criteria including the number of employees, annual receipts, affiliates and other applicable factors to identify a small business. It can be quickly determined by using SBA’s NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) Lookup. Enter the business description; NAICS will locate the business type in the resulting table.
What is marketing? Marketing refers to the commercial processes involved in promoting, selling and distributing a product or service.
What does marketing involve? Marketing is an organizing tool. The four basic aspects of marketing include the four Ps such as product, price, promote and provide. It involves market research, formulating strategy and selling based on two important principles. The first principle states that all company policies and activities should be directed toward satisfying customer needs.
The second is that profitable sales volume is more important than maximum sales volume.
What is marketing strategy? Marketing strategy is the summary of the marketing goals. It is the formulation of the methods used to achieve the marketing objective.
What are the major constraints for small business marketing? The major constraints for small business marketing include budget limitations, lack of adequate resources and tough competition.
What are the important collateral marketing materials? Collateral marketing materials consist of printed marketing materials. They include brochures, business cards and news letters.
Small Business Financial Software
Starting a new business takes a lot of effort. Part of that ongoing effort will be tracking the income and expenses generated by the small business. There are many small business financial software products capable of meeting your needs. Deciding on the best solution for your small business is the goal of this article.
It is important to determine the financial accounting needs of your small business when looking for software. Depending upon the type of business that you operate, the following functionality needs to be considered:
Track Customers and Sales
Invoice Customers
Manage Inventory
Process Credit Cards
Create Budgets
Perform Payroll Functions
Business Tax Reporting
Paying Bills
Most of your time will be spent entering data into your business accounting software solution.
An important consideration is the bank that you do business with. Most provide data feeds, verify that their format can be uploaded into your financial accounting software. This can save you hours of effort.
With hard work and determination, your business will grow over time. Pick an accounting software solution that will grow with the business and meet your needs in the future. This can be accomplished by selecting a product with an upgrade path with more options or a product that you can add modules to later.
Their are accounting solutions that are available online using a web browser or by installing and using on a computer. If you will be out of the office for long periods of time, an online solution may be a better choice.
Insuring Your Small Business
Obtaining the right kind of insurance for your company is as important as getting enough insurance. When you own a small business you are at risk of losing your business or your personal assets in the event of an unforeseen and detrimental event. You are at risk for lawsuits, theft, theft of customers personal information, fire, auto accidents, and paperwork mistakes. There is insurance to cover most anything that might happen to you and your business, the task is to find out what kind you need.
Typically all small business’s need General Liability insurance. As the name states, it will provide standard coverage for your premises and operations. It is up to you what your limits should be, but they should be ample enough to protect you in the worst case scenario. Most businesses will need to go beyond a general policy and get some form of specialty insurance which is specific to their industry.
Listed here are some of the available types of insurance:
1. E-commerce – Insures against any loss incurred due to internet intrusions such as hacking for customers personal information.
2. Auto – This is very important if your business owns or utilizes any type of vehicle. It is separate from the General Liability policy.
3. Workers Compensation – If your employee gets injured on the job you will be covered. Some businesses are required by law to have Workers Compensation coverage depending on the number of employees they have. This varies by state so make sure you check with your state government.
Small Business Insurance Basics
Running a small business can be tough at times and most businesses run a fine line between being profitable and making a loss. These narrow margins leave small businesses very vulnerable to the risk of losses resulting from accidents, theft or lawsuits. Minimizing risk is essential for small business owners and adequate insurance is an essential solution for this. Business insurance offers protection for when your product or service fails, when someone is injured on your property, when a thief walks off with your office computers or when your driver crashes the company vehicle.
Getting the right type and amount of cover is a daunting task for most people. As a result many small businesses are either under insured, over insured or worst of all not insured at all for vital risks. The type of business you are running and the types of products and services you offer will largely determine the type of insurance you require. In general, small businesses need a combination of the following types of policies:
Public Liability Insurance
This type of insurance policy protects your business from lawsuits associated with damages caused by your business or injuries sustained by people on your business premises.
Professional Indemnity Insurance
If you are a professional like an accountant, investment advisor, tax consultant or even an insurance broker then you should definitely consider taking out this type of insurance policy. It protects you from losses that could occur should a client sue you for advice or services that may have led to the client losing money. Professional indemnity insurance covers legal costs, court fees and pays the settlement should you be found liable.
Small Business Internet Hosting
Considering the ever-growing number of businesses these days, competition has become much tougher. As a small business owner, you continuously need to produce distinct strategies to entice potential customers. This is why coming up with a site for your small business can be very satisfying. Growing your online presence has a lot of benefits.
Net sites can be considered as platforms where you can showcase new products and transmit service updates. In just a few clicks away, customers get the latest data pertaining to your products. This is the finest means to interact with consumers. As time passes by, you will see an amazing increase in sales.
Evaluate your needs
After making up your mind to shell out some money in producing an Internet site, you then need to find a web hosting provider that will suit your business needs. You may think of signing up for pricey offer since they provide more tools. But you must consider hosting plans that are just appropriate for your small business. First, you must assess your needs. Knowing what you need will help you make an intelligent decision.
Expensive plans provide more features which are not necessary to your small business. Settle with a basic package to begin with. Anyway, a lot of small business Net hosting companies will allow you to move on to a more sophisticated plan if necessary. You must put to mind that a lucrative price doesn’t assure you of a high quality offer. Lots of cheap small business web hosting packages have the same features as the costly ones.
Small Business Conference Calling
Small business conference calls are growing in popularity because they enable small business owners and operators to save a tremendous amount of time while communicating less expensively with more contacts. With telecommunication costs going down, and travel and meeting costs going up, it is only logical to see small enterprises converting to teleconferencing.
Small businesses have a number of conference calling options available to them. The vast majority of companies with less than 500 employees outsource for conferencing services and do not maintain or staff conferencing centers. The vast array of conferencing services, combined with very competitive pricing, makes the idea of purchasing conferencing hardware or software impractical.
Outsourcing your conference calling services is quick and easy. Establishing an account is usually free, and once you are set up you will receive via email a call-in number and a set of passcodes — one passcode for the moderator or leader of the conference (there can be more than one leader) and one passcode for the participants or conferees.
At the designated time, everyone calls the same phone number, punches in their passcodes and your conference begins. You can also obtain web conferencing or video conferencing services which will enable you to show PowerPoint presentations or live video streams during your audio conference. Conferencing can be simple or sophisticated, depending upon your particular application or needs.
One of the most popular services is called flat rate teleconferencing which provides for unlimited usage for a fixed monthly fee. You can access your conference bridge anytime 24/7 and talk as long as you want.
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