Running an Online Business

Using Analytics to Drive Your Online Marketing Strategy

by Casie Gillette SEO Manager at Grasshopper Do you know who is coming to your website?  Who is buying your product?  Where they are coming from?  What they like and dislike? Analytics are an extremely valuable asset when it comes to your website and your online marketing efforts. The more informed you are on where [...]

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The Weakest Link – Your Social Media Marketing “Killer App”

By helping you maximize “weak ties” Social Media Marketing provides small businesses with a powerful tool that doesn’t need an overwhelming amount of complexity to be useful. Its power is based on the simple human desire to be connected and the tools that now exist to enable you, as an individual to fill that desire.

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Social Media Marketing: The Marketing Skills you can learn from Obama

I was fascinated by the analysis of the Obama campaign. In many ways, Obama’s campaign and its success is a big, bright, “LCD sign” of the times. New media has come of age in a very public way. Most people seem to agree that the campaign used a number of techniques to capture an audience and [...]

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Getting Investment, Key Factor: Initial Valuation

If you are going to get outside investment to start your business, you need to know your initial valuation. Valuation is essentially price. Say you want to bring in $150,000 from an angel investor. The immediate question from the investor will be something like: “at what valuation?” Sometimes that’s called “pre-money valuation,” because the instant [...]

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Get the most out of your Newsletter

Breaking News for Email Newsletter Publishers: You can do more with your online newsletter! Ask not what your readers can do for you; ask what you can do for readers. That’s right, every single time you publish a newsletter and send it you’re your subscribers, you should be asking yourself one question; “Is this newsletter [...]

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Building an Email Marketing List

Rome was not built in a day. The Romans took their time building something great You can’t take random ingredients and expect to bake great Lasagna. You need specific ingredients and instructions. If you’re buying email lists with unqualified prospects, it can turn out to be a recipe for disaster. Building vs. Purchasing Email Lists [...]

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Do You Have an Online Business Plan?

Your business plan has been carefully drafted, written and re-written and is ready for implementation. You may have spent weeks or months writing it, and it represents all of the goals and objectives for your business. You will definitely have a website because you know that in today’s business world, that’s a necessity and it [...]

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Domain Names and Trademark Law

In theory, choosing a domain name is simple. If it is memorable, pronounceable, short, clever, easily spelled and suggests the nature of the commerce on your website, you’ve got yourself a winner. But even if your choice is brilliant from a marketing standpoint, it may be worse than foolish from a legal perspective. Your name [...]

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Steps to Starting an Online Business

Starting an online business is much the same as starting any business. You should go to your local town hall and find out what the requirements are to form a business in your area. Also ask what is required at the state and federal level. In most communities you must register a trade name. If [...]

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What Is a Web Plan?

Every Web plan has to fit the needs and situation. You must be able to customize your Web plan to fit your company, rather than follow a recipe to build a cookie-cutter plan. Even so, there are standard components you just can’t do without. A Web plan should always have a market analysis, website strategy, [...]

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