The Official BizUnite Blog

Small Business Saturday is November 24th

Sponsored by American Express, Small Business Saturday is held each year on the Saturday that falls between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year that Saturday is November 24th. While it may seem like you have plenty of time left, it’s important to start preparing your website for the big day.

Each year, American Express seeks to help small businesses by encouraging patronage of small businesses. Customers who register their American Express cards to shop at small businesses on November 24 will be given a $25 credit for each registered cardholder. Customers need only register their cards ahead of time to qualify for the refund.

Today

• ‘Like’ the official Small Business Saturday Facebook page. This will not only sign you up for ongoing updates and reminders about Small Business Saturday, it will also provide information about participating in special contests hosted for small businesses.
• Sign up for ShopSmall to receive ongoing communications about Small Business Saturday, including advice on how your small business can participate.
• Evaluate your small business’s online presence, taking into account local customers who might be searching for you for the first time through sites like Yelp and Angie’s List. Make sure it’s easy for those customers to find  you.

October

• Utilize the many ad tools available in the Small Business Saturday Toolkit. These include signs and tutorials on small business marketing activities like creating a Facebook presence and uploading a YouTube video.
• Work with your web designer to make sure your website is ready for the influx of traffic. Decide which specials you’d like to offer and create banners and signage. The toolkit can help with this.
• Promote the $25 American Express credit and let customers know you are participating in Small Business Saturday. You’ll be amazed how many customers hold American Express cards and will be willing to shop if they know they’re getting a $25 credit.
• Create a way to capture customer information to a database. As you receive a larger-than-usual influx of customers on Small Business Saturday, take advantage of the opportunity to get information on those customers that you can use for future mailings.

November

• Finalize website testing and optimization.
• Hang Small Business Saturday signage prominently in your store’s window and/or near the cash register.
• Promote your Small Business Saturday special offers on your company’s social media sites.
• Don’t forget your current customers. Contact them to let them know about the special offers you’ll have for Small Business Saturday.

When it comes to promotion, it’s never too early to start preparing. Thanksgiving weekend will be here before we know it and with so much competition for attention, small businesses are more challenged than ever to make an impact on Small Business Saturday.

http://www.smallbiztechnology.com/archive/2012/09/countdown-to-small-business-saturday-time-to-start-preparing.html/

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day is fast approaching –April 22^nd- and with it comes the awareness of how we can run our business efficiently while helping the environment. There are many ways to reduce our carbon footprint and be more ‘green’ minded. One way of reducing energy and lowing energy costs is simply turning off our computer at night, unplugging powercords, and switching electronics to energy-saving settings. Replacing cleaning supplies is another way to do your part by making environmentally proffered choices like Clorox GreenWorks, CLR, and Seventh Generation. Not only do these products help get your workspace clean but they are also composed of earth friendly options and less packaging than competition. Lastly, make sure you are taking all steps to recycle. Setting up recycling containers in all departments of your office allow encouragement for employees to recycle as well. Ink cartridges, printer paper, water bottles, etc. are all easy to recycle and really help Mother Nature. Not only does BizUnite follow these procesures but we urge you to do the same. We even made it simple for you to do with our cost saving Office Max program!

 

Happy Earth Day!

2012: The International Year of Co-ops!

The Cooperative Business Journal’s Nancy Jorgensen wrote an interesting article in the Jan/Feb newsletter about the October 31^st celebration of Cooperatives. The article states that 150 co-op and community leaders attended with the same theme in mind, “Building a Cooperative City”. With more than 100 co-op leaders from around the world, the UN General Assembly declared 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives. The theme of unity and delivering a better tomorrow was a common theme of the celebration.

            ICA President Dame Pauline Green stated, “Co-ops are everywhere,” She goes on to explain, “Until you stop and look at their scope and addictiveness, you don’t realize this values based business model is what people have been yearning for and what governments need in order to support and solve many of these international crises that we face today”. Overall, it seams like The Year of Cooperatives comes at a perfect time for all hands to be on deck to make positive business changes. There are a lot of expectations of this International Year of Cooperatives but all in all, the key is improvement of what wheels are already set in motion.

Small Business Saturday: November 26th, 2011

Pledge your support for Small Business Saturday®

The 2nd annual Small Business Saturday® is a day dedicated to supporting small businesses on one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year.

On November 26, we’re asking millions of Americans to Shop Smallsm at their favorite local stores and help fuel the economy. When we all shop small, it will be huge.

Watch this video to learn about Small Business Saturday! http://youtu.be/rIYHjs1vEAo

 

Small Businesses, make the most of the day

From Twitter posts to posters, we have all sorts of tools to help your business get new customers and have a great Small Business Saturday

 

Constant Contact is helping small businesses get ready for the big day

Holiday Planning Webinar

• Learn how to make your email and social media efforts stand out from the holiday clutter

Promotional Worksheet

• Follow these simple steps for developing a special offer that will drive customers to your door.

To-Do Calendar

• An at-a-glance look at how to plan your promotional schedule across social media and email.

BONUS

• Small Business Saturday-themed email templates make it easy to tie in your business with this special day. And they're yours FREE when you use Constant Contact

 

Learn More: visit http://smallbusinesssaturday.com/

Done right, Video Converts

Just like ten years ago when you needed a website to be competitive, website video marketing is very quickly becoming THE must have. There are many reasons why website video marketing is being line-item budgeted by marketers. One of these is that online video production content is the only marketing tool that has a long tail…meaning that a video today can be used for many years to showcase your company and establish longevity and credibility. This long tail means amortizing the marketing investment over a longer period of time. 

Additionally, a consistent video production strategy will improve your Google and YouTube algorithm rankings (they both give higher credit to more established content) and will make it easy for viewers to get more relevant content.

Business video marketing is also great for your daily sales and marketing tactics. Research from Forrester, ComScore, eMarketer, and other top organizations all support how marketing with online video production creates some form of action to move prospects into or deeper through the sales cycle.

• Video boosts conversion rates by an average of 9%. (Internet Retailer, October 2010)
• Videos are 53 times more likely than text pages to appear on the first page of search results. (Forrester, January 2009)
• Products that have videos are 95% more likely to be bought. (Internet Retailer, April 2010)
• Video adds two minutes to visitors' stays on websites. (Comscore, August 2010)
• Video increases the likelihood of a front-page Google search result by 96% with proper page optimization. (Forrester, January 2010)

Online video marketing drives action! Immediately after viewing a company’s video, buyers are far more likely to visit the company’s website or contact the company via phone. In fact, they can be up to 40% more likely to make some sort of contact. This is a pretty dramatic compared to other marketing tactics. 

Video is one of the best ways to engage and convert casual browsers into leads and paying customers because, simply put, video reaches out, informs, and builds trust with your customers more quickly, more easily, and more effectively than any other marketing tactic.

Given this, many businesses understand the power of video but are unsure where to begin. Here are five types of easy-to-create videos to help you get started.

1. Product education/demonstration. You have product/service information on your website…you talk about your products and services every day! Now do it in front of the camera. You are the expert; show your stuff.
2. Post-presentation objection handling. Record answers to the top three objections your customers have after you give your presentation and use them as follow-up material. Present them with confidence and conviction that will build trust in your team to drive more sales.
3. Customer testimonials. Your customers love you and most likely have relevant stories about your team, product, implementation, and service. Find a customer for each product/service you have and start filming!
4. Key people behind your sales team. Don’t your customers love your back office staff? These are the people that support your sales team and deliver the benefits to your customers. Give your sales team videos that educate your prospects on your talented team of professionals, which will be servicing them post-sale.
5. Thank-you videos. Differentiate your company with a video after that important sales meeting. Remind the prospect of your firm’s key value propositions and experience in a personal and information-rich video.

After your videos are produced, distribute them every day in your sales and marketing efforts, on your websites, and at other places on the Internet (such as social networking websites, i.e. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube).

Don’t wait until you have to catch up to your competition…gain a competitive advantage today and produce your first series of web marketing videos.

Click Here to Read More

Grainger, Inc. Tops FORTUNE “Most Admired” List for Second Consecutive Year

For the second year in a row, Grainger (NYSE: GWW) has been named the “most admired” company among diversified wholesalers in FORTUNE magazine’s annual listing of the World’s Most Admired Companies.

Every year, FORTUNE and Hay Group, a global management consulting firm, survey top executives, directors and financial analysts to identify companies that enjoy the strongest reputations within and across industries. Grainger, the leading broad line supplier of maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) products, serves more than two million businesses and institutions in 153 countries

“No matter where in the business they work, our team members help Grainger’s customers be more productive. Every day we help businesses save time and money.”

BizUnite is proud to have Grainger as a preferred vendor partner to offer their services to all of our organizations.  Read more about Grainger at the link below.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/3/prweb8183000.htm