59% Say Running a Small Business Is Harder Today Than 5 Years Ago [INFOGRAPHIC]

Small businesses don't exactly have it easy. And with new marketing technologies emerging at a rapid pace in recent years, it's no wonder 59% of small business owners say it's harder to run a small business now than it was just five years ago.

But "harder" may not necessarily be a bad thing, considering 72% of small business owners also expect their 2013 revenue to outperform their 2012 revenue.

This all according to some new survey data from Constant Contact, brought to our attention by AllFacebook. The survey asked 917 small business owners to explain what it's like running their small business now compared to five years ago. Then, in honor of National Small Business Week (#SBW2013), Constant Contact compiled this data into an infographic to highlight the study's discoveries about how running a small business has changed. Take a look at the infographic, and feel free to share some of the tweetables below.

1) 59% of small business owners say it’s harder to run a business today than five years ago. Tweet This

2) Of the 59% of small business owners who say it's harder to run a business today, 55% said the economy has hit their business hard. Tweet This

3) Of the 59% of small business owners who say it's harder to run a business today, 49% said it's harder to keep pace with technology. Tweet This

4) Of the 59% of small business owners who say it's harder to run a business today, 40% said there's more direct competition. Tweet This

5) Only 12% of small business owners said it's easier to run a business today than it was five years ago. Tweet This

6) Of the 12% of small business owners who say it's easier to run a business today, 89% say online marketing tools make it easier and less expensive to market their business. Tweet This

7) 84% of small business owners said using, or using more, online marketing tools is a big challenge today vs. five years ago. Tweet This

8) 59% of small business owners said general economic uncertainty is a big challenge today compared to five years ago. Tweet This

9) 27% of small business owners said using, or using more, automated business solutions (payroll, inventory, etc.) is a big challenge today compared to five years ago. Tweet This

10) 98% of small business owners use email marketing today, compared to 64% five years ago. Tweet This

11) 87% of small business owners use social media marketing today, compared to 10% five years ago. Tweet This

12) 40% of small business owners ranked word-of-mouth as their most powerful marketing tool today, compared to 32% five years ago. Tweet This

13) 75% of small business owners said their top concern today is finding new customers, compared to 78% five years ago. Tweet This

14) 65% of small business owners said their top concern today is having enough time to do everything needed to run their business, compared to 61% five years ago. Tweet This

15) 58% of small business owners said their top concern today is retaining existing customers, compared to 49% five years ago. Tweet This

16) 51% of small business owners said being locally owned and operated is a major reason why customers support their business today, up from the 42% five years ago. Tweet This

17) 55% of small business owners said the volume of customers has increased over the last five years. Tweet This

18) 49% of small business owners said customers spend more money at their business now than five years ago. Tweet This

19) 63% of small business owners said customers have higher expectations today than five years ago. Tweet This

20) Small business owners said customers expect more value (71%) and more discounts (52%) today than five years ago, making it harder to turn a profit today. Tweet This

21) Small business owners were fairly evenly split about whether it’s easier (30%) or harder (35%) to find new customers today. Tweet This

22) Of small business owners who think it's easier to find new customers today, 53% credit more affordable online marketing tools. Tweet This

23) Of small business owners who think it's harder to find new customers today, 49% say customers are paying less attention to marketing. Tweet This

24) 54% of small business owners said they haven’t achieved the growth they hoped for five years ago. Tweet This

25) 58% of small business owners said they see their business thriving five years from now, with more customers and/or more employees. Tweet This

26) 26% of small business owners said they see their business holding steady five years from now. Tweet This

27) Only 8% of small business owners said they see their business possibly closed five years from now. Tweet This

28) 72% of small business owners expect 2013 revenue to outperform 2012 revenues. Tweet This

Did any of these statistics surprise you? For the small business owners out there, how do you feel about running your business today vs. five years ago?

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Apple's iDilemma: Can Apple Escape the Whirlwind of Disruption?

In 1997, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen coined the term “Innovator’s Dilemma” to describe the situation in which a company becomes the victim of its own success and gets toppled by new technologies.

The term gets bandied about quite a bit, but lately it has been applied to an unlikely target, a corporation that until recently has been seen as invincible, superhuman, and immune to the forces that disrupt ordinary organizations: Apple.

Roger McNamee, co-founder of private equity firm Elevation Partners, tells Bloomberg TV: “Apple is caught in a classic innovator’s dilemma. They’re doing the same things that they were doing five years ago. The difference is that five years ago they were creating the smartphone market.”

And there’s Olof Schybergson, CEO of a consultancy called Fjord, writing on GigaOm that, “As things unfold over the next few years, Apple will probably become a new textbook example of the Innovator’s Dilemma.”

These comments are coming out in the wake of Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC), where Apple showed off updates to two computers (MacBook Air and Mac Pro) and two operating systems (OS X and iOS). These products are cool but not earth-shattering or revolutionary. The most important one, iOS 7, has been received with disappointment. And two big potential game-changer products that Apple has been rumored to be working on -- a TV and a smart wristwatch -- have yet to appear.

But Apple seems to be feeling a bit defensive about this, as evidenced by the fact that its marketing chief, Phil Schiller, made a point of saying at WWDC, "Can't innovate anymore, my ass." The crack backfired in some quarters, including The Verge, where Nilay Patel wrote that Schiller's "bravado clouds the company's real challenges."

Two questions arise. First, are observers correct in asserting that Apple is caught in the classic Innovator’s Dilemma? Second, if they are correct, how can Apple wriggle out of the trap?

Christensen's theory is that companies that create hugely successful products become obsessed with protecting those products and serving their customers, but because of that they miss out on the next big thing. So market leaders end up getting disrupted, often by rivals who start out by making cheap knockoffs that at first aren't nearly as good as products made by the market leader.

If you've been following the smartphone market, that sounds not entirely unfamiliar.

The problem is, it’s not like there’s a Dilemma Police who can declare that yes, this company is caught in Christensen’s whirlwind of disruption. There’s no clear line that you can draw and say that, once it’s been crossed, a company is in trouble.

On the other hand, when you find the dreaded “D Word” showing up next to your company’s name, you can at least say that you are in a place where you’d rather not be.

For a powerhouse like Apple, the fact that people are even talking about this is kind of hard to believe. 

Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that just a few months ago, Christensen himself said at a conference that Apple could become victim of the Innovator’s Dilemma, because smartphones are becoming increasingly commoditized, making it more difficult for Apple to charge premium prices. (Note that Christensen said this could happen, not that it had happened.)

What should Apple do? McNamee says Apple should focus on making iOS more useful and connecting it with iCloud to make an overall ecosystem that’s more intelligent and helpful -- one that can anticipate your needs.

“It’s about putting context into everything you do,” McNamee says. “What Apple should be doing is taking my calendar each night, populating it with all the information I need for the next day, and updating it in real-time as I get to each new thing.”

McNamee is correct that Apple needs to get its act together in cloud services, where right now it lags badly. And the kind of intelligent ecosystem that McNamee is imagining would be amazing, if Apple (or anyone else) could actually create it.

But that in itself may not be enough. The reality is, Apple needs something big. This is a company that will do $170 billion in revenues this year. The only thing that’s going to move the needle for Apple is a product that’s as big as the iPhone -- one that transforms an entire market. As far as I can see, the incredibly messed-up and inefficient TV industry remains Apple's best opportunity.

Some analysts believe Apple could introduce a TV before the end of this year. I for one am hoping they’re right.

Image Credit: JD Hancock

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5 Simple Ways to Boost the Impact of Your Marketing Automation Workflows

We've talked about the basics of marketing automation workflows quite a few times before. If you're reading this post, you are probably already running a few workflows. So I'm not going to talk about how to get them started -- though if you want a refresher, here is a pretty comprehensive guide. Instead, I want to talk about what to do after you've got a few workflows under your belt.

I think many marketers (myself included) get so excited that they have some workflows running in the first place that they kind of forget about them once they are set up. Lots of people don't spend time optimizing those workflows or asking questions about whether those workflows were set up correctly in the first place, even though spending some time optimizing workflows can really improve your marketing efforts.

So if you understand how workflows work and you've implemented a few, you're ready for the next step: making workflows work harder, better, faster, stronger for your business. (Because when I think workflows, I think Kanye. Or Daft Punk. Whichever you prefer.)

Before writing, I spoke with some internal experts on workflows -- Maggie Georgieva, Matthew Wainwright, and Sarah Goliger. These optimization recommendations are based on their experiences and what they've found to have the biggest impact in workflow optimization.

This is an easy one to start with. (I'm a big fan of easing into workflow optimization. It makes it seem more accessible.) Many marketers start setting up workflows for things that really don't need workflows yet. Seeing how many active contacts you have enrolled in your workflows will help you identify which workflows are suffering from a top-of-the-funnel marketing problem -- in other words, you aren't enrolling a ton of contacts in the workflow in the first place.

What you do with that information is up to you. You might decide you can kill that workflow altogether; it's not something you want to generate more contacts for, anyway. Or, it may help you identify a specific TOFU problem you didn't know existed.

But now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

You already know that your workflows can start in a few different ways. But did you ever consider how a contact entered your workflow might affect your marketing success? Contacts will automatically enter your workflow from a form submission or a list -- in particular, a smart, or dynamic list. Depending on where they came from, you'll have very different levels of information for each type of content.

So what can you do with this information? Let's say your workflow uses a form as its starting condition. You might find that you lack some visibility into the persona of the contact because the contacts came through a form -- and most people aren't going to spend time filling out a long form in exchange for an ebook. On the other hand, you might have some insight into the type of content they prefer based on what your contacts download. Knowing that the starting condition is a form, you might adjust your marketing activities -- and the content you send via your workflow -- to try to get more nuanced information about their persona or the level of engagement they have with your content.

Or perhaps you trigger workflows based on a smart list (you can see what this might look like below). My colleague Sarah Goliger likes to do this because for her purposes, it gives her better insight into her contacts. "Triggering a workflow based on a list gives me the power to leverage all the information in our contacts database. That means I can group together any criteria that are important for me and then target the content of my workflow more effectively." If you trigger workflows from a list, you'll have a better understanding of the contacts within the workflow -- but it's possible that they won't have downloaded all the same content, making the future content selection process a little trickier.

Whatever situation you find yourself in, simply being aware of the differences in starting conditions -- and using them to guide your workflow optimizations -- can help you deliver a more well-rounded lead to your sales team.

If you're using HubSpot for workflows, you have goal-based workflows built right into the tool. If you're not, let me explain what goal-based workflows are -- you can hack these on your own, too -- because they're really important for more purposeful, data-focused workflows.

All right, so let's get past the jargon and just call it what it is -- goal-based workflows are nothing more than, well, goal-based marketing campaigns. Just like every marketing activity should have a goal, so should campaigns you're launching in your workflows, right? Right. And when you hit your goal, you stop, right? Right. (And move on to a bigger, better goal, of course.)

That's what goal-based workflows do -- once you hit a preset goal in your workflow, your campaign stops for that particular lead. Goal-based workflows are so important because they make sure you aren't sending irrelevant content to your leads. You wouldn't want to keep sending the same emails and CTAs to leads who have already taken action on that content, right? Goal-based workflows make sure that your leads always receive relevant emails to the workflow stage they're in.

Caution: Be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking you've hit a goal because of a workflow. For instance, a lead could turn into an MQL because of many things, some of which don't have to do with your workflow. So while goals can help you use your workflows with a purpose, be careful not to attribute the entirety of hitting any given goal to a workflow alone.

We've been talking a lot about email workflows in this post -- and that makes sense, since that's really what most people think of when you talk about workflows. But you're not getting the most out of your workflows when you stop at email.

For instance, have you ever considered using workflows to automatically notify your sales reps of important lead intelligence information? Let's say that a lead visits your pricing page and then requests a demo. That lead might be ready to buy, so you want to make sure a sales rep knows about it. You can use workflows to automatically notify sales reps whenever someone visits your pricing page, signs up for a demo, or requests to be contacted by a sales rep (among other things) -- a perfect tool to help improve your SMarketing relationship.

Or perhaps you just want to make your job easier by clearing up your cluttered CRM. You're probably getting some folks who fill out your forms with fake information, and you don't want to be sending them an email saying "Hi asdf,". You also don't want to manually go through your database double-checking records. Instead, consider using workflows to do some database cleanup on a regular basis. Set up a workflow, make Marketing and Sales happy, and pack in a long weekend with the time you saved on manual data cleanup. Everybody wins. 

A lot of the appeal of workflows is the automation. You just set it up once, then let it do its magic!

... but you're not done just yet. You still need to come back and check on the workflow's progress. It's that last part that's easy to forget.

Some might say you should be optimizing your workflows constantly. Maybe if you're nurturing hundreds of millions of leads ... maybe. But I'm going to be a little more realistic with you and just recommend you check in on your workflows every few weeks, or when you start seeing some workflow red flags.

So how do you know when you see a workflow red flag? It will depend on what your goals are with workflows, of course, but one glaring sign your workflows aren't performing well is a low CTR of workflow emails. If you see those CTRs dipping below your goal, it's time to reexamine your workflow. Maybe the email content just isn't that engaging or the CTA just isn't that action-oriented. 

Once you get going with these workflow optimization tips, you'll start to have very specific -- and potentially advanced -- ways of monitoring those red flag moments. For instance, my colleague Matthew Wainwright is very closely aligned with his sales organization. As a result, he is looking at internal CRM data for red flags -- like work rates or opportunity rates -- to see if a workflow isn't working as well as it should be. Those red flags would be a signal that he should go back and make some tweaks, perhaps to the offer in his emails or the email design itself.

He might also use those red flags as an opportunity to test something outside of the email, like the logic behind the triggers in the workflow. For instance, this could be an opportunity to see whether a workflow generates more opportunities if there's a trigger based on a lead viewing a pricing page, or whether there's a certain number of times a lead must visit your website (5? 10? 20?) before they're ready to be called by Sales. Or it might even be as simple as changing the timing of the emails in the workflow.

In an ideal world, you should always be checking in on your workflows to see if there are opportunities for optimization. But in reality, it's not always going to happen. At the very least, you should check up on underperforming workflows and give them the love they need to work harder, better, faster, stronger for your marketing.

What do you do to continually optimize your automated workflows -- beyond just the basics?

Image credit: ew.com

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Top 5 Internet Marketing Tips For 2013

Small business owners don’t go into business to become marketing experts. For you to succeed however, mastering marketing is a critical component. I believe that these Top 5 Internet Marketing Tips For 2013 are critical for a business to implement sooner than later.

Where are the most important Internet Marketing tips that will positively affect your online presence.

1. No more static, boring websites 

A static website that talks only about you is no longer a useful marketing tool. No one has time to read about how great you are if they don’t know what you can do for them. Instead, transform your website into a useful tool that helps your prospects understand who you are and what you can do for them while making it easy for them to contact you.
Creating quality, relevant content attracts your target market and positions you as the expert in your industry. Whether you like to produce content or not, you must find a way to create information that helps your customers. How you provide this information will depend on your target audience. Just make it easy for them to acquire and read your content.
By providing helpful content, you will,

• Educate your prospects
• Capture their attention
• Earn their respect
• Gain their trust

When someone has figured out that they want to work with your company, respond quickly to their inbound requests. This will continue to build the relationship with them that you began with your content.

2. Fresh content is required to Online Marketing survival

A content plan and editorial calendar helps you create a road map for what content you will develop over a period of time. Whether you can plan for 12 months or a few weeks, planning ahead helps you to not waste time trying to figure out what content to produce and in what media – text, video or audio. You might want to check out the Editorial Calendar WordPress plugin to plan your blog posts.

3. SEO is the still very prominent 

With the changes to the Google search algorithms over the last year, old style SEO no longer works and in fact, there are many SEO techniques that if you keep doing them will kill your visibility.
The best thing you can do is learn a little about SEO, what works and what doesn’t. Then you can decide whether you should hire a local, reputable marketing company to help you or do it yourself. Start with on-page SEO for your WordPress website. Install a plugin called WordPress SEO and spend some time learning how to use it. This robust plugin helps you walk through the SEO process for every page or post on your website.

4. Mobile Websites Are Required

Mobile is how people are using the Internet now. Get ready to support mobile access to your website so you don’t miss out on this opportunity. Most small businesses will not be able to afford having both a browser website and a mobile website designed and developed. If you transition your website to a responsive theme, you can support all devices easily.
Responsive web design responds to the size of the device being used and there are many free and premium responsive WordPress themes available. Although a responsive theme may not be the right choice for all websites, the benefits of responsive theme design outweigh the negatives. Therefore, it most likely will be the most popular small business solution for mobile support.

5: Email Marketing – List Building

Have you developed an opt-in email list for your business? Email marketing complements your online presence. It enables you to reach people who have proven they are interested in you by signing up for your email list. Make it part of your content plan to create a valuable product such as an ebook, whitepaper or useful tool, that people get for free when they sign up for your email list. Then develop a content strategy that continues to help your list with problems they have. This continues to develop a relationship with your subscribers and attracts those interested in your business.

Can your future clients find your business online?

Evaluate your business based on these 5 small business marketing trends and determine whether you need to do something drastically different. If you are stuck with your online marketing with a dated website, no mobile support, an expensive SEO firm asking for more money and little to no fresh content to help your prospects solve a problem, then it’s time for you to take control.



James Hickey
Internet Marketing Expert and Mentor 
Visit My Web Site Below And Learn How I Make Serious Money Online And How You Can Do The Same. Free Information Reveals Top Secrets: 
www.sd-entrepreneur.com
www.InternetMarketingTrainingCenter.Net

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Tags: 2013, content creation, email marketing, experts, home business, internet marketing tips, james hickey, sdentrepreneur, seo, small business, social media marketing

Content Promotion Tips for Online Community Managers

  Content Marketing, Online Marketing

In a few weeks I’ll be giving a talk at the University of St Thomas in Minneapolis to a class on community management on a topic that I think will interest many of our readers.
Online Community Management is a function that has existed in the digital world for a while now, stretching back to the days of bulletin boards and online forums. Today that role looks a bit different.
Not be confused with a Social Media Manager, a Community Manager is typically the “voice of the brand” on the social web as well as the voice of the community back to the brand. Functionally, this translates to social media listening and engagement but also includes some promotion of brand messaging.

Content Promotion Tips for Online Community Managers

How Personas Guide Meaningful Content Creation & Optimization

As marketers accumulate information about customers, it is also important to identify common characteristics and patterns to help guide messaging, engagement and offers.
Behaviors that contribute to your business objectives like, sales, advocacy, sharing, referrals and repeat business might contribute to your understanding of an “ideal” customer that can be characterized as a persona:
Admin Bob – Influences the CEO on software purchases and cares about price, service and speed.
Being able to identify your “best” customers also means there’s another end to the spectrum:  patterns that reflect undesirable customer behaviors and an “avoid” persona:
Gatekeeper Jane – Maintains power by filtering information to the CEO about software purchases. Cares about control, recognition and status quo.
Companies that solve different problems in different markets may determine that multiple personas best represent their target audience.

How Personas Guide Meaningful Content Creation & Optimization

20 Plus Tips on How to Optimize Your Presentations & Public Speaking

What does it mean to “optimize” your presentations? Keywords in your speech? Including your Twitter handle on all slides? Repositioning the slide content through Slide share, Flickr, Visual.ly and on blogs? The answer is yes – all of the above. And more.
More marketing and communications pros are getting on board with the idea that public speaking is fuel for content marketing. The problem is, the focus on creation and promotion centers around individual content objects or presentations.
An optimized presentation strategy means having a narrative or story that includes your brand’s key messages and how the live presentation is connected to other content objects.
A live presentation can be connected to other content objects like a research report which might be connected to a series of blog posts which are connected to individual digital assets like images, polls, influence r interviews, info-graphics, press releases, podcasts and so on. You get the idea.

20 Plus Tips on How to Optimize Your Presentations & Public Speaking