What’s your brand? Branding in small business can be the key to success. When marketing globally or locally, branding sets you apart. But there is much more to establishing a brand for yourself or your business than might at first meet the eye. In a world of infinite choices, it is one of the most important ways you can distinguish your business or yourself as an entrepreneur. Let the following roundup be your guide to the art and science branding for your small business.
Personal Branding
How to brand yourself in the workplace. Who needs a business to create a brand. A personal brand that communicates to others who you are and what you stand for is something that can benefit those working in many fields. Here’s just one example of how personal branding can be used to set you apart in theworkplace in the same way a business might use the process to brand a product or service. Karen Keller
Personal branding social media style. This guest post from small business news social media site BizSugar.com looks at the use of social media in establishing personal branding. Obviously, the same techniques could be used (and are used everyday) by small business to establish a powerful brand with which customers can immediate identify. How are you using social media to establish your personal branding? The Personal Branding Blog
Trends
Social media key to even the biggest brands. Maybe the first step in understanding how branding has changed is to understand how the new tools of social media has put large and small brands on the same level playing field. A look at how the largest most traditional brands have abandon traditional media in favor of social media campaigns demonstrates how important these tools are for branding in general. And all are easily within your reach. BrandChannel
Strategy
Three big picture branding ideas. Sometimes people who talk small business branding get pretty darn specific when it comes to giving you advice. Here instead is big picture branding advice. REALLY BIG. In terms of the basic ideas you should always have in mind when thinking about branding your small business, this post is a great overview. CIK Marketing
Facebook as a flexible branding tool. If social media is indeed one of the chiefest forms of new business branding, especially for small businesses with limited budgets, than certainly Facebook, arguably the king of social media sites at the moment, may be among the most flexible. Here’s a look at how it can work for branding your business. Winning Workplaces
Philosophy
Why small businesses need branding too. Does your small business need an identity? Does it need to stand apart and on its own so that partners, suppliers, clients and customers will remember and come to you instead of your to your competitors. If the answers to any of these questions is yes, than you already know the answer to these questions, you already know the answers. Noobpreneur
From Small Business Trends
Small Business News: What’s Your Brand?
Categories: Business News
Go Granny: Fighting Back With Social Media, Not Super Bowl Ads
Small Business Trends - Fri, 02/04/2011 - 17:20
Take that, GoDaddy!
With the Super Bowl coming up this weekend in the United States, many people will be glued to their televisions. Some of us couldn’t care less about the game — no, we’ll be watching this year’s Super Bowl ads. Because in true American fashion, it’s not just a sports game, it’s a business opportunity.
But what if nearly $3,000,000 for 30 seconds of TV time isn’t in your budget? And what if your competitor is known for big splashy ads? That’s the sort of dilemma that small business owners face everyday.
In that case, you fight back with creativity and whatever else you got.
A short while ago around 4:00 pm Eastern time, Network Solutions released its video “Go Granny,” featuring Oscar-winner Cloris Leachman. The video takes aim at GoDaddy (without actually using the name of the company) and their now-famous Super Bowl ads featuring young women wearing tight T-shirts.
Network Solutions calls its video a “mockumentary.” Cloris Leachman talks about how she “got the whole thing started” and was the first one out there shaking her booty to sell websites – until she falls asleep in between takes and has to be woken up. She mocks the black-leather-wearing stereotype of the spokeswoman of Network Solutions’ competitor, saying how you “sweat like a pig inside these things.” With some humorous delivery Leachman, aged 84, pokes fun at herself in the video, calling herself a “smokin’ hot babe.” (Who knows, maybe this will be Leachman’s “Betty White” moment.)
Be sure to watch completely to the end, after Lisa Stone, the co-founder of BlogHer, appears. There’s a final funny bit.
The video is being released solely through social media channels, not on TV channels. I’ve embedded the video below — it’s a little under 4 minutes.
-
Network solutions will be posting updates this weekend about the “saga” of Go Granny on a special Twitter channel (@Go_Granny), or using the hashtag #GoGranny.
Note: I am on the Network Solutions Social Media Advisory Panel, giving ideas for how Network Solutions can help small business customers with social media. So I am delighted to see Network Solutions using social media this way, and “eating its own dog food,” as they say.
From Small Business Trends
Go Granny: Fighting Back With Social Media, Not Super Bowl Ads
Categories: Business News
Entrepreneurial Cheeseheads Work Both Sides of the Street
The Entrepreneurial Mind - Fri, 02/04/2011 - 15:16
Full disclosure -- I am one of those nutty Cheeseheads you have been reading about with the Packers in the Super Bowl.There is an entrepreneurial angle to the Super Bowl XLV that involves the iconic symbols for both of the... Jeff Cornwall http://www.drjeffcornwall.com
Categories: Business News
One on One: Tien Tzuo of Zuora
Small Business Trends - Fri, 02/04/2011 - 12:30
Welcome to another in our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. Tien Tzuo, CEO of Zuora, a leader in cloud-based subscription management for billing and payment solutions, spoke with Brent Leary in this interview, which has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, page down to the loudspeaker icon at the end of the post (the gray and black icon right above the “About the Author” section).
* * * * *
Small Business Trends: Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what Zuora does?
Tien Tzuo: I have been in the enterprise software industry all of my career. I joined Salesforce.com in 1999 as employee number 11 and held a bunch of executive roles there [including Chief Strategy Officer]. I had a ringside seat to watch an industry transform from a product to a subscription way of thinking.
At Zuora, we think that years from now businesses will find themselves buying less and less products and subscribing more and more to services, whether software services [like] Google applications, or transportation services like a Zip car, or computing power from Storage, or collaboration from Box.net. We think the world is shifting to a subscription-based economy.
Small Business Trends: What are the differences between the subscription economy and the economy we have grown up with?
Tien Tzuo: It’s a whole different way of thinking. The old way is a 20th-century way of thinking anchored around manufacturing, where you think about your product and how many units you can ship. The new way of thinking starts with the customer:
How many customers do I have?
How many customers did I have at the start of the year?
How many customers have I acquired?
How many customers have I lost?
What is my average revenue per customer?
Perhaps if I am more sophisticated: “How do I segment my customers into high, medium and low value customers? How do I move them up that chain? How do I get a greater share of wallet?” It’s a way of thinking of the customer as a user of your service on an ongoing basis, and coming up with subscription-based plans that allow them to opt for the plan that best suits their needs at that moment.
Small Business Trends: What are the positives and negatives of the subscription economy?
Tien Tzuo: It’s a great way to increase revenues and generate customer loyalty. Amazon.com is a transactional oriented company, but they came up with this idea of Amazon Prime. This allows people to pay $79 a year and [join] a club that has benefits: in this case, free shipping. That creates customer loyalty. Amazon Prime customers are much less inclined to go to a competitor’s website because they have this membership and get [value] out of it.
How does that apply to small businesses? Perhaps you run a print shop. You can have a transactional mindset: People come in, pay for a print job and that transaction is completed. Or, you can say; “Why don’t we put all of our customers on a plan?” There can be a zero-dollar-a-month pay-as-you-go plan, or a $200-a-month plan where you get 10 percent off all of your print jobs. On the $1,000-a-month plan, you get 25 percent off of all your jobs and priority placement in the queue and a dedicated account manager, or something like that.
Think about your business, not in terms of how many transactions you can have or how many products you can ship, but as a collection of customers—high-value customers, medium-value customers, low-value customers–and find ways to drive customer loyalty to drive repeat purchases, drive greater revenues and build a sustainable business.
The downside is the systems we use. From accounting to point of sale to e-commerce, [they] aren’t really geared toward this way of thinking.
At Zuora, [we offer] a set of systems that help companies, build, manage and grow subscription-based businesses, including a billing module, a membership management module, a subscription management module, a payment and collections module.
Small Business Trends: What kind of companies would thrive as part of the subscription economy?
Tien Tzuo: All sorts of businesses. Technology companies, media companies, business services. It’s really your choice as to how you want to view your business model.
Small Business Trends: How developed is the subscription economy?
Tien Tzuo: It’s in the early stages. There are subscription-based services that we all subscribe to–cable TV, phone–but nobody has taken a step back and said; “You know, it’s not just a billing model; it’s a business model.”
Small Business Trends: What should companies do upfront to make sure they have the right kind of business model to take advantage of the subscription economy?
Tien Tzuo: Start by looking at your customers. How many customers do you actually have? How many customers have actually purchased your services or products in the last quarter or year? How many customers have made key purchases? Start segmenting your customers into a top 20 percent, middle 40 percent and bottom 40 percent. Go talk to the customers—ask:
What other services would you like to have from me?
Is there anything that would encourage you to use additional services?
If you use my competitors’ services, when do you choose my service as opposed to my competitors?
Is a subscription-based plan something that you would be interested in?
I also encourage companies to experiment. If you have the right tools, the cost of experimentation isn’t that great. Why not just launch a service with a $50 plan and a $200 plan and a $2,000 plan and see where it goes?
We have a customer, Ning, that allows users to build a social network. For several years they offered [this] free. Overnight, they switched from a free model to a paid model. The percentage of customers [that converted] exceeded their wildest imagination. Why? Because they had a great service. By having a three-tiered pricing model, from $19.99 a month to $49.99 a month, they allowed customers to choose their own [price] and were able to transition into the subscription economy.
Small Business Trends: Five years from now, where do you think we will be with the subscription economy?
Tien Tzuo: I think we will find ourselves buying much, much less, but a big part of our daily lives will be wrapped around services we subscribe to.
Small Business Trends: Where can folks learn more about the subscription economy and Zoura?
Tien Tzuo: Visit our website, www.Zuora.com, and also connect and network with other companies that [use the subscription model].
From Small Business Trends
| Comments |
|
If you have issues with any of our advertisers or articles PLEASE let us know ASAP.
If you have a complaint Click Here Please provide details with dates.
We go to great lengths to provide reliable information to you and expect our articles and advertisers to comply with our policies and Truth In Advertising.
