In September 2011, almost 1/2 of tablet users made purchases using their device. 12% of Internet-using Americans own tablets.We are also seeing an increase of purchases made on tablets than on smart phones.

Here’s an eye-opener out of Website Magazine about Tablet usage:

“Mobile advertising company Jumptap, in conjunction with comScore, recently released Wave Two of its ongoing research project titled Understanding Mobile Audience, which “shows that tablet owners are almost as likely as PC and laptop owners to use their tablet device to make purchases.” According to the study, a whole 63 percent of tablet owners make purchases on their devices; this is compared to 83 percent of PC owners who shop on their computers.

How do you know if your customers use tablets?

Right now, here are some facts:

60% of tablet users are male
48% are 18-34 years old
43% have households incomes of $50,000 or more
47% have created a wish list on their tablet in the past month

Scan over the flyer below, there’s really interesting finds!

Earlier this year I wrote about Groupon and explored if it’s really helping businesses grow. This has been a pretty hot issue lately and I know I’ve seen a few businesses in Portland close shop because Groupon wasn’t the best decision for them. Others have been abused by some LivingSocial or Groupon customers and swear to never use them again for their business.

Michael Koploy of SoftwareAdvice.com recently emailed me to share a blog post where he laid down guidelines for businesses who want to consider Groupon or similar online coupons as part of their marketing plan. You can read the entire blog post here. Keep reading below for some general tips on what to consider when using an Online Coupon Service .

How Groupon works: A Brief Review

Groupon’s big pull is it’s wide reach of users. There’s a ton of folks signed up to get Groupon’s newsletter everyday. If you are willing to offer a product or service 50-90% off, Groupon will help promote it. If not enough consumers purchase the deal, you got a day of free advertising at no cost, no strings attached. But if the deal does sell enough, Groupon takes 30-60% of the coupon revenue after credit card processing fees. Groupon will then make payments in 3 phases over 90 days.

Two things Groupon promotes to businesses: lots of advertising and new customers. But does it work for every business?

3 Things to pay attention to when thinking about partnering with Groupon:

1. You don’t need cash immediately. Groupon pays out in 3 phases, so be prepared to offer a product or service without full revenue for up to 90 days.

2. You don’t need repeat customers: Groupon promises to bring new customers to your business and do repeat business. Studies have shown that 36% pay beyond the Groupon deal and only 20% return to the business.

3. You can handle a crazy amount of customers. Having days where you are having to scramble to make everyone happy, Groupon customers and your regular customers can be a nightmare. See below for some example of typical Groupon customers.

Different types of Groupon users (taken from the http://thecustomercollective.com/inboundsales/49613/does-groupon-work-your-business)

• The Economical Buyer

The “Economical Buyer” springs into action the minute he logs on his computer in the morning. He looks for a deal at a restaurant or bar he has avoided because he is too cheap to pay full price.  The “Economical Buyer” is very unlikely to provide repeat business unless you are going to continue these drastic discounts off your products/services.

• The Penny Pincher

These buyers are obsessed with trying anything and everything they haven’t yet experienced in their city. They treat Groupon like a giant buffet offering hundreds of businesses for them to sample. Normally a small business would be happy to have Groupons sold to people that like trying new places. But “The Penny Pincher” never thinks twice about going back to someplace a second time, they’re too focused on lining up plans to visit the next 10 places that offer a deal.

• The Coup-o-halic

These folks look at Groupons as free money. “Wait, you mean I spend $10 and get $25? That’s like $15 free!” As a result, they buy every single deal that is offered. Hoarding these Groupons to use at the absolute best, most useful, cost-saving moment, they drastically alter their shopping and living behaviors for months at a time in order to live off the stockpiled deals they have accumulating around them.  These are the same type of people that would go to five different grocery stores for the weeks groceries just so they can get redeem that weeks coupons.

• Your Current Customers

This guy isn’t going to waste his time trying new places or buying Groupons he may or may not use. He knows what he likes and sticks to the same routine and establishments each week. He doesn’t get caught up in the hype of Groupons for new or trendy places, but he watches the offers like a hawk. The moment a Groupon is offered to a place he visits regularly, boom! He’s on it like white on rice, buying the maximum allowable number of Groupons. Then he smugly but awkwardly spends the next 8 weeks using a Groupon for his $30 bar tab at his local watering hole.

The bottom line is take a close look at your numbers and costs before doing a deal with Groupon or Living Social. Think about the type of new customers you want to attract and how much you are willing to sacrifice or pay for each one. Some businesses have successfully launched their own version of Groupon, offering discounts on package deals of food, massages, pet-washes, etc. They are announcing them to the current customers and clients and are seeing a better return on investment. There’s no middle man and they make more money overall.

Google+ could be a huge competition to Facebook, but one huge part that’s missing is Business Pages. Google+ claims they will release their own version later, but it in order for Google to compete, waiting to introduce it later may not benefit them at all.

Even though Google hasn’t set up a section for businesses to list their information, businesses are still doing it. Google stated they plan to run an experiment to test brand profiles in the next few months. In the test group, they will observe how users interact with commercial brands Profiles through various Google+ services like Circles. If you are a business interested in participating in this test should fill out this web form.

In the meantime they plan to take down “non-user profiles to help deter businesses from doing it. This hasn’t stopped businesses from setting them up, Mashable was one of the first to create a Google+ profle: . Ford Motor Company has also created a Google+ profile.

Word on the street is when the business profiles exist, they will function similar to Facebook Pages with Adwords and Analytic integration. They will be indexed, “followable” and posts/updates can be +1′d, just like the “like” button in Facebook. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens.

A local group, CEIC asked me to give a marketing presentation last  month. I have been talking to alot of people about story telling and having a purpose. I thought that it would be very pertinent for small businesses that are struggling with the economy to go to the chalkboard and reinvent themselves (or strengthen their current brand). My thought process was to demonstrate the “story” principle is to begin with local businesses that belong to the CEIC.

Get to Know Your Neighbor Tours

The CEIC offers once a month to go to a local members business for a tour. The “Get to Know your Neighbor” have been very successful for our group. They all begin the tour of the facilities with the owner going into detail about the company’s story. Franz Bakery, Taos Tea, Pratt & Larsen, Dennis Uniform or David’s School Specialty Co are just a tasting of the tours that we have had this year. Repeating their story to people in the community is an important part of marketing your company’s brand. And it is not important that the owner of the company knows it but their employees as well. If they understand the story, they will understand the company’s purpose. People like stories and like to tell others!

There is a little more of a challenge when you have a company that falls into the “Generic” category. Dentists, bankers, doctors, financial advisors, designers, etc. Even my company, Inkspot Graphics, has been a challenge to differentiate between me and my competitors. Besides making money… what is my purpose? To find out more about Inkspot Graphic’s story and purpose.

What About When You Don’t Know Your Marketing Story?

Your story has to peak your audiences curiosity. It is not that I am efficient or save my clients time & money. It can be that you work closely with non- profits, charities or support local schools. If you still are drawing a blank, I recommend that you talk to your clients and listen to your employees. They will help you.

Back in 2008, we had a little downturn. Most of my business at that point was accomplished by word-of-mouth. I found out the hard way that is one poor way to market your business. Since then, I have reached out to strategic partners to assist me in marketing my business. I have a group of professional men & women have an identical business model as my company. They compliment me. They help me brainstorm marketing ideas (for my clients). It is a very proactive way to help your clients build their companies.

Strategic Partner, Lasko Printing, has saved my Butt a Couple of Times

One of my partners is Lasko Printing. I can tell you of a couple times when they saved my butt. A good example of this is when their pre-press specialist called me and said, “I don’t do this very often but I was reading part of your CEIC postcard and it really didn’t make sense.” I told him that I am not a copywriter but he was definitely correct. Another time I had a piece that didn’t fold correctly and we worked it out and my client was very happy with the final product. I wouldn’t have the same results if I printed either of these pieces with an on-line printer. The on-line printing market is after pleasing color and bulk runs of printing. You cannot get any first timer advice. . .period!

Now back to your story.
I would ask you to do two things.

1.  First read a great book by Annette Simmons called “The Story Factor”.

2.  Call me at my office and I will sit down with you over coffee and we will brainstorm your story.

It is important for your business to have a story and you and should make your employees evangelists which will spread the news of your purpose!

Looking for a catch all solution for your e-commerce presence is challenging. Did you realize that there are over 500 solutions out there? It’s enough to drive a business owner crazy. Today, I’d like to focus on two well-loved companies: Volusion and Shopify . I’d like to describe what they have in common and what makes them stand out. Hopefully this can help you make a decision when trying to decide which one to work with. Both are excellent, solid solutions that can help you increase your online sales.

First, let’s look at the similar features of the hosted solutions:

*Both companies have a base price starting at $29.99 monthly

*They both offer hosted solutions. Unlike other e-commerce solutions, both companies host the actual e-commerce stores and transactions and offer support through email and phone. They both upgrade and repair their software, handle bandwidth and security as well.

*They both offer to help you build a store with your own domain.

*Both work and integrate with most shipping providers (UPS, USPS, Fedex)

Here’s a look at some of the major differences:

Volusion:

*Provides extras features SSL certificates,  merchant accounts, live chat software, and integrating with social networking options.

*Their Shopping cart features real-time inventory management, batch order processing, and an integrated editor to make creating content pages simple.

*RSS feeds can be added to the dashboard and include free customizable, free website templates.

*They offer security alerts, step-by-step training videos

*Allows your customers to create wish lists, or email item information to a friend or even post customer reviews.

Shopify:

*Default theme includes easy-to-use product management tools to help business owners manage and track inventory and online orders.

*Ability to tag keywords for Search Engine Optimization and flexible layout of dynamic content.

*A wide variety of design, product management, online ordering, admin interface, and marketing tools. From the backend, you can have complete control over the HTML and CSS.

*Drag and drop ordering of product images

I’ve spoked with different businesses about which solution they preferred and the answers is usually “it depends”. I think it boils down to what features you are looking for, what’s important to you, how you run your current business (do you only have an online presence or are you only a brick and mortar store?) and many other factors. I hope this review can help you make that decision and help you move closer to using the best solution for your business.

DeviantART is a social network dedicated to artists and those who appreciate art. Since 2000, DeviantART was one of the first social networks to offer a free account with a personal profile picture, a blog, space to post artwork, and photo ability as well as space to comment and message.

It’s held a success model on running an online community – it’s sustains itself with layers of revenue streams: A working virtual goods and currency system, premium members and a retail shop that sells art-related merchandise and branded goods. The website also has a print service that allows artists to sell their art and earn royalties.

One of the more popular features is Muro, a free drawing tool that lets users comment with art instead of words. For example, on a Muro thread, a user draws a cat with front paws extended but the rest of the body is left for others to “fill in”. More than two dozen community members responded with different body parts with dragon wings, a mom tattoo or scales. Tools like Muro really give the community members an opportunity to be playful and have fun with art.

What can you learn from this special online community that you can apply to your own community of users or consumers? Here’s five tips the founder Angelo Sotira uses to maintain loyalty on the website.

1) Try it out. If you have an idea, pitch it to your audience and see how they react. Feel it out before launching something full force.

2) Get people excited! There’s always passion behind new ideas and it’s important to let it all out and share that energy. Put emotion into what you are doing.

3) Be Fair. DeviantART employs a “fair exposure” policy and lets everyone feel like they belong. DeviantART’s front page tries to maintain a balance of groups and mediums throughout the site (which is challenging when you have over 2400 categories).

4) Stay cool. Don’t always react to everything. Pick and choose your battles.

5) Hold yourself accountable. Just like as if you were in public office, follow through on what you say you’ll do.

Sales results for 2010 are impressive! Black Friday saw $648 million in online sales, making it the heaviest online spending day so far, a 9% increase from last year. You know how it happened? Social networking, email, mobile marketing, websites, blogs, video and more!

Let’s take a moment to focusing on one of the ways stores achieved these numbers: Shopping on Facebook!  How easy is it to list your products on Facebook and create sales?

Some e-commerce solutions offer Facebook integration. It’s important to evaluate if Facebook is a good market for your services and products. For example, this could reflect how many fans you’ve grown in the past year through marketing on your Facebook business page. It’s also important to see what options you have with your current e-commerce platform. Do they make it easy to sell on Facebook?  In this article, I’d like to explore how two companies are helping businesses sell on Facebook.

One of the opportunities of having your products within Facebook’s framework is

• using the “Like” button for specific products
• getting comments on products and services
• customers can easily share the product’s info amongst friends
• get more exposure, leading to more online sales!

Core Commerce offers a Social Commerce application, a Facebook application, that allows you sell your products directly on your Facebook profile or page. An example of this is setting up a tab within your Facebook’s business page called “my store”. Inside this tab, the Social Commerce application is installed and customers can view specific products the business allows to be displayed. Customers can add these items directly to their cart and checkout through Core Commerce.

One example of a business using Core Commerce’s Social Commerce is Petandkennelsupply.com. If you visit their Facebook page, you can see that they set up a “My Store” that displays certain products. This is a very simple version of the application because as soon as you click a link to an item within the Facebook store, it immediately takes you to their main website to purchase the product.

Payvment is also offering a solution for business owners to sell on Facebook. Payvment allows you to build your Facebook storefront by uploading photos, setting prices, and more. It is TRUSTe certified, ensuring you with online privacy and safety. It works to allow customers to stay with Facebook’s comfort Zone, never having to leave the site. As a business owner, you can also add special discounts and “Like” to products, which contributes to a higher visibility.

An example of a store using Payvment’s Facebook feature is Grayce by Molly Sims. If you go to the Facebook page, you can see the list of products and if you click on one, you are taken to a page that pulls up Payvment E-Commerce Storefront Application which asks you to allow to share info. Once that is authorized, you are able to purchase the item. A nice feature of Payvment is that you never leave  Facebook’s website to make the purchase. You are also able to “share” and talk about the product.

Have any of you tried using these services or have found alternatives? Facebook is one of the most visited websites on the internet at this moment. Keeping in mind, it’s really about sharing and community building can help you keep perspective on if it would work as an outlet for your business.

Right now, using Payvment is free. You can manage inventory and storefront sales. No merchant account required, just use Paypal or Google Checkout.

I recently attended a panel of speakers with the Power MOB. The discussion was Tips & Secrets for owning a Service Based Business. Since I fall into that category, I was eager to hear what the speakers had to share!

The speakers were:

Kim Campbell
Campbell Salgado Studio

Kimberely Bepler
ABC Doula

Robin Taylor
Folklore Media

Here’s some highlights from the discussion:

*Methods in Getting New Clients

-Donating to auctions

-social media

-Get referrals from other experts/consultants in your field

*Product vs. Service Businesses, What’s the Difference:
-Service isn’t a tangible product. Educating people can pay off. Focus on the value you offer, how are you saving them money and time? 1-1 consulting is important.

-Give a complementary session to qualify people

-Offer different budget packages so you can have a variety of clients

*How to price your services
-Market research/find out what is realistic for your city

-Protective pricing (not listing on your website) try not have your customers base their decision to work with you on price

-Offer a special package (a lighter version), just limit the options

-Be open to trade,but have a contract

*Customer Service

-Look for friendly contractors & employees to represent your businesss

-Satisfaction policy – Redo or fix things if customer isn’t happy

-Make your customer happy, it always pays off

-Ask for a testimonial at the end of a project

-Use Survey Monkey or Google Apps to have customers take a survey

*How to Stand Out in your Industry

-Keep yourself and your staff educated

-Promote you and your staff’s education through blogs & social media

-Do webinars, read blogs to keep up in your industry

-Join forums and email lists

-Professional development is a must, build on an expertise

-Don’t get caught up in trends

Want more info? Kim Gordon at Small Business Now offers up some useful tips for a service based business as well.

Lately, I’ve been getting  requests on which are the best Wordpress tools for a Membership based website. I’ve noticed a large trend with different coaches wanting to set up paid membership sites to offer tools for members.

One of my clients wanted a specific solution. Running Evolution,  a company who promotes and trains folks to run their first 5K and beyond through schedule runs and encouragement. Beth, the owner, wanted to offer different membership packages and each package would allow for special discounts on her classes and runs. At first it sounded easy, but then I realized that there’s a few ways you could skin this cat and worked with an e-commerce developer who made some great recommendations.

My developer suggested using a combination of two plugins: WP Membership Premium, a Wordpress plugin that allows create different membership plans, accept payment, and manage these accounts. My developer also suggested treating my client’s classes as “products” so that a coupon code could be applied to them. They could easily be connected into the Membership plugin so that certain memberships would allow for discounted classes. She used WP E-commerce for the shopping cart part.

The website has come together very well and gives my client the solutions she was looking for. I’m so excited that this has elevated her to a new level of growth for her business and gives her the opportunity to change packages and add/edit/remove classes whenever she wants.

The process I walked them through involved investigating their use of marketing and the different channels such as social media, email newsletters, paper newsletters, print advertising, etc. I was impressed how much exposure they were getting through these techniques. We came to the conclusion that Facebook would be their best use of a social media tool because they could share so much about their productions and performances through video, photos, feedback. Twitter, on the flip slide, just didn’t fit the right age range of who they attract.

After marketing, we dove into the the performance and effectiveness of their website. It’s fascinating how each of us doesn’t really see our website like the rest of the world. Over time, it just looks the same and it’s really amazing when you bring in a pair of fresh eyes to see where improvements could be made.

We reviewed simple things such as the placement of signing up for the newsletter. On their current site, a customer would need to click twice to find it. Ideally it would be best to have it on the homepage sidebar and make it so simple you have your customers simply enter their email address and click submit.

Other items were acknowledging that their current design content section was really narrow, not allowing items to be “above the fold”.  This also caused it difficult to manage upcoming news that should be posted on the homepage. I was eager to demostrate how Wordpress would be a great solution for their website content management . A blog could be created to for the non-profit to post news, have it displayed to their front page, be dated and be archived. A very simple way to keep customers and members to keep in the know about upcoming changes. A great win-win!

Over all, I know the client gained a lot of feedback and suggestions for improvement they could act upon on their own and also receive assistance for bigger tasks such as installing and customizing a Wordpress site  from my business and referred colleagues. It was a great feeling to help my client learn what current actions are helping them move toward their marketing goals and what they can do to improve it.