Online Marketing Tools for Small and Medium Businesses


Well, you have been reading about it almost everywhere: while you were tweeting, while using your email marketing software, or while reading your trade journals. The latest online marketing strategy with the extensive reach of over a hundred million captive prospects is Social Media Marketing.

The results of leading research organizations like Pitney Bowes show (in their recent May 2011 survey) that nearly 20% of small to medium businesses prefer the stupendous reach of social media. The power of this new e-marketing tool truly has an impact.

The three major marketing tools that SMBs use are:

  • Email Marketing
  • Advertising
  • Mobile Marketing
  • 25% of SMBs have no marketing strategy

Further research by independent email marketing software firms such as Constant Contact, only reiterates the point that social media marketing is the most popular for small businesses, just behind direct mailing, email marketing and print advertising. Besides, the number of businesses increasing their social media presence with online promos, product information and talk-back spaces has also been substantial over the past year.

The top two free emarketing strategies for SMBs

Given the statistics, you should leverage email marketing and social media to optimize your business. Here again, there are several products, but expanding at explosive rates is Facebook and looks to be the network with which you should begin.

Continuing your email newsletter strategy will help you to interact with clients personally as well as offer customized product details to the client. While social media will give you a live or instantaneous connection with one client (and probably thousands of others, who follow the client) with a single tweet.

Take Away

Social Media will briefly introduce you and help you reach prospects in a multiple-level- cascading effect at almost 0.01% cost and close to 55% ROI on leads generated. Besides, it is easy to use and is most definitely a mass-reach marketing tool.

Read more posts on Ramon Ray & the Smallbiztechnology.com Team »

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/65tMtKjsj30/online-marketing-tools-for-small-and-medium-businesses-2011-6

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The 7 Immutable Laws of Investing

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This article has been adapted from our sister site across the pond, Fool U.K.

James Montier, one of my favorite investors whom I've profiled for our "Investment Greats" series, has recently published a white paper titled The Seven Immutable Laws of Investing. As the name implies, the paper addresses what he sees as the seven truths or principles that should guide sensible investors. Let's review.

1. Always insist on a margin of safety
Montier devotes most of his paper to this very important point. He describes valuation as the closest thing to the law of gravity that we have in finance, as well as the primary determinant of long-term returns. We must aim to buy below our estimate of fair value, giving ourselves a margin of safety in case of errors or misfortunes.

Worryingly, he does not see any asset class as offering a margin of safety at current prices (or more accurately, at the prices in March), in absolute terms -- true, some are relatively cheaper than others, but that is not an endorsement. It's like being presented with the two ugly sisters and being forced to date one of them. Montier would rather hold cash and wait for Cinderella to come along.

2. This time is never different
The more things change, the more they stay the same; it's easy to forget that sometimes and to think that we are working with a new paradigm, especially one in which prices continue to rise far above their long-term trend lines.

And "long term" is the key -- Montier makes the point that looking at the 30 years up to 2007, one might conclude that house prices had never fallen in the United States, but taking a longer time period or a more international perspective, there was plenty of evidence to suggest that a sharp correction was due.

Rather than throwing out the handbook of investment, we may be better advised to stay true to the principles that have guided sensible investments since time immemorial.

3. Be patient and wait for the fat pitch
In words often attributed to Warren Buffett, "The stock market is a wonderfully efficient mechanism for transferring wealth from the impatient to the patient."

Montier makes the point that far too much emphasis is placed on annual, monthly, or even daily performance, when really we should be focusing on the longer term. We should also be on our guard against "action bias" -- the desire to do something. This is arguably easier for private investors, who don't have the same requirement to appear busy.

Instead we should wait for the "fat pitch," the ball that we really should play, rather than playing every ball that comes our way regardless of quality.

4. Be contrarian
John Maynard Keynes said that "the central principle of investment is to go contrary to the general opinion, on the grounds that if everyone agreed about its merit, the investment is inevitably too dear and therefore unattractive."

It sounds easy when stated like that, but to go against the herd is to go against human nature, to the extent that it can almost physically hurt.

"Being a contrarian is a little bit like having your arm broken on a regular basis," Montier says, but "I can't believe that valuation-indifferent speculation will end in anything but tears."

5. Risk is the permanent loss of capital, never a number
Using beta as a proxy for risk may be mathematically elegant, but risk is not volatility. Quoting Keynes again: "It is largely the fluctuations which throw up the bargains and the uncertainty due to fluctuations which prevents other people from taking advantage of them."

We should regard risk as the probability of a permanent loss of capital, and that loss can come from three sources:

  • Valuation risk -- paying too much for an asset.
  • Fundamental risk -- underlying problems with the asset that you're buying. Also known as value traps.
  • Financing risk -- leverage.

6. Be leery of leverage
"Leverage is a dangerous beast," Montier says. "It can't ever turn a bad investment good, but it can turn a good investment bad. Simply piling leverage onto an investment with a small return doesn't transform it into a good idea."

Much of what is termed "financial innovation" is nothing more than thinly veiled leverage, and he believes we should view it with skepticism.

7. Never invest in something you don't understand
This is a mantra you'll see repeated very often on The Motley Fool, and Montier agrees with it: "The financial industry has perfected the art of turning the simple into the complex, and in doing so managed to extract fees for itself."

In his opinion, if you can't understand it, you shouldn't be investing in it.

To what extent will these seven "immutable laws" inform your decision-making? Let us know in the comments section below.

More from Padraig O'Hannelly:

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Source: http://feeds.fool.com/~r/usmf/foolwatch/~3/G7o1_x_nGFY/the-7-immutable-laws-of-investing.aspx

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Distracting Young Drivers? There Are Lots of Apps for That

Phone apps used while drivingDistracted driving has been a growing problem since cellphones came into wide use. Now, new research shows that among the young, the proliferation of mobile devices and the explosion of apps they have spawned have made the problem much worse. The University of Alabama Youth Safety Lab reports that mobile apps have become a particular danger to young drivers.

"The technology is evolving so rapidly that science hasn't caught up to looking at the effects that mobile app usage can have behind the wheel of a car," wrote researcher Lauren McCartney. "But something needs to be done because in psychological terms, Internet use involves substantial cognitive and visual distraction that exceeds talking or texting, making it much more dangerous."

The research also shows that among survey respondents, one in 10 "often," "almost always" or "always" use mobile apps. Another third use apps "sometimes" while driving.

The study results shouldn't come as any surprise. Smartphone use has exploded in the U.S., and is by far the fastest-growing portion of the handset market. Online research firm Comscore recently reported that "74.6 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in April 2011, up 13 percent from the three-month period ending in January 2011." Smartphones using Google's (GOOG) Android OS and Apple (AAPL) iPhone dominated the market in April with 36.4% and 26% market share respectively.

A driving force of smartphone growth -- and perhaps the most important one -- is use of apps. Apple has more than 425,000. Google's competing app arsenal, while an order of magnitude smaller, continues to grow quickly.

The apps revolution was propelled by the rapid deployment of high speed 3G connected devices. Imagine what will happen as 4G is widely adopted: The risks for young drivers -- and the danger they pose to others -- are only likely to increase.


Gallery: AOL Readers' Tales of Distracted Drivers
Distracted Drivers

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Source: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/06/28/distracting-young-drivers-there-are-lots-of-apps-for-that/

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Find A Lawyer Guide

Often people want more information on Lawyers, thus we decided to write this article. Writing has been a pleasure, be sure to tell us your thoughts. The chances are if you are looking to get a lawyer you’re at a very stressful time in your life, and are overwhelmed. It doesn?t have to be as hard [...]

Source: http://www.legaldebthelponline.com/2011/06/27/find-a-lawyer-guide/

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Going Short on CFDs

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One of the benefits of trading CFDs (Contracts for Difference) is that you can go short (sell with the hope that the value of your contracts will fall) as well as go long (buy with the hope that that the value of your investment will go up). However, trading CFDs gives you the ability to trade financial instruments without owning them. So how can you sell something that you don't own?

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Source: http://ezinearticles.com/6367493

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Secured Loans And Remortgages Can Even Be Used As Consolidation Loans

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Most homeowners have heard of secured loans and remortgages, and also have basic knowledge about these loans, believing them to be a way by which homeowners can borrow money. However many know very little more than this, and when they need money they are unsure of whether a remortgage or a secured loan is better for them, what interest rates they both have, or how to proceed to make an application. The fact is, that there are many similarities between remortgages and secured loans, and which one is better depends on a person's own particular circumstances.

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Source: http://ezinearticles.com/6376170

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