Business Community > Blog > 'small business'

Top 3 Reasons TradeSeam is Ideal for Small Business Marketing

Monday, August 6th, 2012

For a lot of small business advertisers, the concept of social media marketing may still seem foreign and a little out of place from the more traditional small business marketing efforts they’ve come to know and trust over the years. But for those looking to finally take the leap, knowing they’re already behind, where should they start to get their feet wet in the social media? Look no further than TradeSeam, the proven powerhouse for small business marketing.

Here’s a look at The Top 3 Reasons TradeSeam is ideal for Small Business Marketing:

1. TradeSeam Users Are Primarily Small Business Owners and Entrepreneurs

• TradeSeam offers the highest concentration of small business of any social media network and has now exceeded small businesses in over 200 countries and territories.

• More than hundreds of thousands of companies have created their own business profile page

• Users on the network are there to connect with customers and are already in a buyers mindset, compared to LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter which is primarily utilized for personal use

• A survey conducted in summer 2012 found 22% of small business advertisers were using utilizing Tradeseam for their social media marketing, compared to 50% for Facebook and 43% for Twitter. This is proof that small business marketers have found a use for Tradeseam, a growing social network and are seeing results

2. TradeSeam Profile Pages Keep Your Customers & Prospects Informed

TradeSeam continues to make advancements to their business page profiles, and probably the most notable advancement was the timeline status update feature that was introduced in May 2012. This allows companies to post ongoing activities, related company news and the latest product/service advancements that then appears directly in the news feed for those who follow your business. This keeps your customers and prospects informed each time they login and see your updates, and may make the difference with touching them at just the right time as they’re looking to solve a problem.

3. TradeSeam Helps Attract Sales Leads

TradeSeam is currently the host of more than hundreds of thousands of business listings and users. One of our users can submit RFQs/RFPs forms or can call you’re you to inquire about your products or services. The service is available to small business owners for free. Small business owners can also connect with your ideal prospects by sharing updates, special offers that are delivered to your followers via email. By utilizing these features to share useful promotions as well as starting engaging content, you’ll gain credibility among prospective customers and some may even begin following your business and turning into leads.

These are only a handful of the reasons and features that make TradeSeam is the right social media marketing tool for small business advertising. If you’re convinced you need to get more proactive and need some more details click here to get started.

Share |

Tags: ,
Posted in Social Media Marketing | 7 Comments »

Get A FREE Social Media Marketing Quote

How entrepreneurs survive on credit card funding

Monday, July 30th, 2012

Twenty five percent of entrepreneurs and small business owners in the US go without a paycheck for at least a year in order to keep their companies solvent. Fifty five percent of them have gone without a paycheck at least once with their entrepreneurial startup in order to keep their business afloat.

That may be shocking to most of us who collect a regular paycheck. But most small business owners and entrepreneurs rely on multiple sources of income as a common way to make ends meet. Starting a business is risky.

For many entrepreneurs, maintaining good credit is more important than getting paid. Long hours, low pay, if any, and unstable finances are the norm for an entrepreneur. Small business owners and entrepreneurs sometimes keep themselves afloat using the credit card shell game. They pay one credit card off by taking an advance on a new revolving credit line by transferring debt to another credit card.

In the end, the buck stops with that business owner. Therefore, entrepreneurs deserve to make the big bucks when they succeed because they certainly pay a significant price both emotionally and from a risk capital perspective when the business is not successful.

That risk-reward dynamic may be the opposite of what happens in Corporate America. But most of these small business owners wouldn’t trade places with the CEOs of Fortune 500 corporations. Small business owners and entrepreneurs are in a much better position today in bootstrapping their companies as the cost of launching new startups is significantly  lower than two decades ago. More importantly, small business owners can now use social media tools like Tradeseam to market their companies to their target customers and get maximum exposure online.

You can build your brand and promote your business with your potential customers everywhere they are by clicking on sign up to get started now!

Share |

Tags: , ,
Posted in Credit Card Processing | 1 Comment »

Get A FREE Credit Card Processing Quote

How to get Free Website Traffic

Monday, July 16th, 2012

How to get free website traffic is important, and most great companies take it seriously.

Website Traffic

In the last decade of the web generation, several thousands of websites have been launched, but the big challenge has always been how to get website traffic.  Why are the users going to end up on your website versus the billions of other websites out there? And despite more than a decade’s worth of effort, we’ve basically only really see five key sources of traffic to websites:

1) Organic or also considered as free online traffic

Free online traffic is like cocaine. Once you have free web traffic, you always want more of it. Website visitors come in and do more when they visit your website directly by entering your URL in the browser, because the visitors arrived with a certain intent, and that makes a difference on their level of engagement with your website.

However, nobody knows the magic wand to get free website traffic. If anybody tells you they know the answer to increase your online traffic for free, she or he is simply taking you for a ride as there is no free lunch. They don’t now how.

2) Emails

The good news is that email does work and it is also the bad news for our inboxes because it means consumers have to deal with spam. Our recommendation is not to spam the users with marketing messages via emails but allowing users to subscribe to your newsletters for product updates.

However, the email channel tends to be very transactional in nature and it is often very difficult to turn it into a richer user engagement with your website.

3) Search Engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo

Small business owners have realized that it’s important to make an effort to get this legitimate source of traffic using search engine optimization. But, most entrepreneurs and small business owners realize that this is an arms race – you need to have millions of web pages with rich content to win the SEO game. And, even then you have to wonder if you are able to attract the targeted traffic or just getting unqualified visitors to your website.

4) Search Engine Marketing (SEM) also known as paid search

Small business owners have found a lot of ways to purchase web traffic, so there are options – clever ways to find the users you want, and convert them for a fee. You can also buy targeted traffic. This requires small business owners to spend cash for an uncertain future value. One of the dangers of buying online traffic is not realizing that the new users, acquired through these channels may have different economics that may be quite a bit different from the original business model.

5) Social Feeds using Tradeseam

If a small business owner or entrepreneur does social feeds right, you can reach a huge amount of your potential customers very quickly. The social feeds can be personalized and targeted traffic. This is the primary viral marketing tactic that is very important for all small business owners and entrepreneurs in todays web 2.0 generation. The small business owner needs to push the right type of content using a social media service such as Tradeseam. Tradeseam automatically self distributes your unique content about your business to all the social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. to drive viral customer acquisition for your business and get more website traffic.

Get started with social feeds by clicking on the link and start getting more online traffic to your website using Tradeseam -> Sign Up – Its Free!

Share |

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Search Engine Optimization | Comments Off

Get A FREE Search Engine Optimization Quote

Small Businesses Bracing for a Bad Summer

Monday, July 2nd, 2012

The US fiscal cliff, slowing emerging markets, meltdown in Europe and even the weather are keeping small business owners up at night. But which of these factors is having the biggest impact on their small businesses varies depending on the industry.

A survey of small businesses  that was recently conducted indicated that 65% of them were seeing an apparent slowdown in business but it doesn’t appear to be consumers worrying about the fiscal cliff, Europe’s debt crisis or the slowdown in Asia. Instead, a majority of the small business owners blame the challenges of managing their companies’ inventories after the warmer winter on weaker sales.

Its been very difficult to get inventory right and that’s been true from the large vendors to the smallest mom-and-pops. That results in constant promotions making it very difficult to preserve profit margins. The small businesses claim they are getting traffic to their websites and storefronts, but prices are getting squeezed.

Some small business owners and entrepreneurs have cut back on promotions to focus on providing more value and high level of customer service so loyal customers keep coming back. Some of them have found that the rich people are often back and their spending habits are good. However, the Harrys a term used to define middle income consumers are now dining out more as a luxury. This has pushed the customer counts down, but overall sales are up.

Submit your website on Tradeseam if you are a small business owner looking to get free traffic to your storefront as Tradeseam is a social media service that puts your business in front of your customers everywhere they are online. Click here to get started now…

Share |

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Business Cash Advance | Comments Off

Get A FREE Business Cash Advance Quote

Small Business Tax Breaks and Credits in 2012

Friday, June 1st, 2012

American entrepreneurs and small business owners continue to grow their businesses and create jobs due to an unprecedented level of tax breaks that have been signed into law over the past several years. This includes billions of dollars in US tax relief that have been signed into laws such as the US Recovery Act, the Small Business Jobs Act, the HIRE Act, the Affordable Health Care Act, and the Tax Relief and Job Creation Act.

President Obama has recently proposed a small business tax credit tied to hiring new employees. Under Obama’s proposal, you would receive a 10% tax credit for small businesses that hire or give raises in 2012. For example, a small business that increased its payroll by $5 million would see a $500,000 income tax credit.

According to the White House, the measure would address the need to invest in small businesses and jumpstart new hiring and entrepreneurship. The tax break would be limited to $500,000 to make it more valuable to small business.  Unlike the GOP bill that would allow small businesses with fewer than 500 employees to deduct 20 percent of their income in 2012. Although the tax deduction in the GOP bill is limited to half of the cash wages paid to employees. The Tax Policy Center estimates that half of the benefit of the small business tax cut proposed by the Republicans would go to the wealthy people earning more than $1 million. The House Republicans have countered by arguing that their bill puts more money back into the hands of small businesses so they can reinvest those funds to accelerate the growth of their business and create more jobs. This claim has been disputed by a non-partisan think tank on small business taxation, but it’s not clear that Obama’s proposal would add many jobs either — it could simply benefit businesses that planned to hire anyway. Nor is it clear that Obama’s proposal will be supported by many Republicans in the Congress and may be dead on arrival.

Obama also plans to propose extending through 2012 one of the incentives on the N.F.I.B.’s agenda: the 100% bonus depreciation for 2011 that was signed into law as part of the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts. Bonus depreciation is broadly popular, and this part of the president’s proposal may have a better chance of becoming law.

Entrepreneurs and small business owners are welcome to join the conversation on Tradeseam to help jumpstart entrepreneurship and hiring that will contribute towards the global economic recovery for a better future for all.

Share |

Tags: ,
Posted in Tax Preparation | 10 Comments »

Get A FREE Tax Preparation Quote

Moonlighting | Employee by Day, Entrepreneur by Night

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

Every employee that decides to start their own business venture does so because they perceive entrepreneurship as the shortest route to self-actualization. In other words, they wish to unleash the entrepreneurial potential deep inside themselves and seize control of their own destinies.

Yeah, right. In reality, almost everyone who starts their own small business does so for two reasons. First, they think they’ll get paid their true worth. And secondly, they relish the freedom where they aren’t answerable to someone else.

Budding entrepreneurs need to find work that they can do during the flexible hours that make up their spare time. That way, they can deliver that much-rehearsed speech to their existing boss only when they’re sure they can afford to.

Here are 10 new business ideas:

1. E-Commerce

If you’d like to own a retail store, but can’t afford either to pay the rent or to put in the hours, then e-commerce is for you. It takes very little investment to start up, you can begin on Amazon and eBay, and you can expand with your own e-commerce website as you start generating revenue streams.

The principles behind e-commerce are exactly the same as those for other forms of retail:

  1. buy cheaply, usually in wholesale and bulk;
  2. sell the products for less money as there are no overhead costs;
  3. make sure that the difference between your buying and selling prices (your profit margins) is enough to cover your costs, and deliver a healthy profit stream.

It ain’t rocket science, not least because someone who builds a successful e-commerce web site design can often make more than a rocket scientist.

2. SEO (search engine optimization)

If you like the online world, you can specialize in the search engine optimization (SEO) field. This requires specialist skills, which helps a web site to appear higher in search results on Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines. With search engine optimization services, you need to be able to identify keywords and write rich keyword based website content without repetition becoming too obvious. You see? The keyword “search engine optimization” appears three times just in this short paragraph.

3. Telemarketing services

Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. Maybe it would suit you better to find part-time work that you can do from home around hours that largely suit you. In that case, why not investigate freelance telemarketing opportunities?

Of course, you’ll only succeed if you’re good with people, and don’t mind the occasional bit of ripe language from callers whom you’ve dragged out of the john. You won’t make a fortune (most telemarketing companies earn $6-$12 an hour) although there may well be commission opportunities as well.

5. Call Center Services

Providing you have a broadband connection, you could always think about offering inbound call center services. This is quite similar to telemarketing services, but you’ll be handling inbound calls from customers and the public, so it better suits people who can’t cope with cold calling. You just log on to the call center using your home computer, and calls are automatically routed to your home. And you have exactly the same applications, on-screen scripts, and information that someone based at the real call center has.

Just think. You might end up working for your voip services provider, bank, or credit card processing companies.

As if you aren’t already.

6. Pay Per Click Marketing

Pay Per Click Advertising is all about pay for performance marketing. This is when advertisers don’t pay a flat rate to have their banner appear on a Web site. Instead they pay for performance – every time someone clicks on the banner and links through to the “landing” page.

It’s absolutely essential that these banners and text ads are constantly monitored in order to make sure that they continue to perform well. This is called Pay Per Click, and takes the form of someone analyzing volumes of data. If you love data analysis, this may be an ideal entrepreneurial business for you.

7. Website Design

It was only recently that Web site design was an incredibly difficult job that required many skills and much specialist knowledge. Nowadays, anyone with a good eye for layout and a professional web design software can build very appeal looking websites. To check it out, just type “easy Web design application”  in Google.

Of course, large companies still need specialist web designers, but with mom-and-pop stores going online all the time, there’s plenty of demand for talented small business website design companies as well. You’ll do even better if you team up with a graphics designer.

8. Tax Preperation

Entrepreneurs are often bad at keeping their books in order. So there may be plenty of small businesses in your area that would welcome help with their tax preperation.

You may have to offer to pop in every week or two to pick up the latest invoices, receipts, bank statements and so forth, but the work itself can be done in your own home at times that suit you.

Share |

Tags: , , ,
Posted in E-commerce Solutions | 16 Comments »

Get A FREE E-commerce Solutions Quote

Making Money In A Way that Environmentalists Love

Saturday, May 29th, 2010

Saving energy is the need of this decade. Resource pools are shrinking and many countries are facing the after-effects of exploiting the planet. Every individual must pitch in to conserve the environment. Businesses in particular can make a major contribution towards saving energy by taking simple, yet effective steps.

The great recession has emphasized a fact that was always known but not truly appreciated – doing business on the internet is cheaper. Apart from enjoying the monetary benefits facilitated by the internet, businesses also do the ecosystem a favor by saving the energy consumed in running brick-and-mortar establishments.

Corporate websites increase the visibility of a business on the web while e-commerce solutions serve as a cost-effective sales channel for any business. Effective web design & development enables businesses to increase revenues and  profit streams by promoting products and services online, and it results in a smaller carbon footprint as customers get what they want with a few clicks online instead of having to drive to the locations of the respective business. Furthermore, by incorporating credit card processing capabilities into  websites, businesses reduce usage of paper and ink. Invoices too can be sent to customers via email rather than snail mail. For the rest of the business activities, recycled paper is a viable option.

Search engine optimization providers can increase the organic ranking of websites by optimizing the website content, building inbound links to drive link populariy and developing meta tags resulting in additional traffic to the website from major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. This can all be accomplished at a fraction of the cost as search engine optimizaton prices are much cheaper than traditional advertising via direct mail, newspapers, radio and TV.

In addition, Search marketing companies can bring more traffic to the websites and drive sales leads. Online marketing such as Pay-per-click advertising and social media marketing are not only more effective, but also more measurable than radio/TV/newspaper ads and banners; they also do not use resources and non-biodegradable plastics that poison the ecosystem.

Businesses should also encourage energy saving business practices within their offices such as switching off equipment when not in use, taking prints only when necessary and always make sure they are double-sided, avoiding strychnine disposables and so on. Environmental services and energy efficiency companies can guide businesses on how to “green” their offices.

Share |

Tags: ,
Posted in E-commerce Solutions | 23 Comments »

Get A FREE E-commerce Solutions Quote

Sweat Equity – Cash Strapped Companies Find A Way To Do More With Less

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

Outsourcing and globalization of manufacturing allows companies to reduce costs, benefits consumers with lower cost goods and services, and causes economic expansion that reduces unemployment, and increases productivity and job creation.

 - Larry Elder

The outsourcing industry has been crucial in supporting partner businesses that have been challenged by insufficient workforce or skills for the operations that are an inevitable part of every commercial enterprise. Without the convenience of outsourcing services to professional and skilled third parties, many businesses today would stop functioning. With an outsourced partner, businesses are freed from the responsibilities of recruiting, hiring and training employees in required skill sets. They are also spared the costs of employment contracts, insurance, office space and equipment.

As outsourcing companies work for more than one customer, they have adequate personnel, necessary expertise, and the experience to do the job faster at competitive rates. Businesses only need to tap into an established and organized workforce that just needs to adapt to its way of working. However, that’s not the only advantage. Outsourcing companies such as call centers,  medical billing and logistics help the hiring company rework and standardize its working policies leading to sustainable revenues.

Inbound Call center services have been in great demand due to the large scale layoffs in the market.  Businesses use call center companies to meet the demands and expectations of peers, customers and suppliers. Call center services handle customer support services, telemarketing, answering services, enquiries, orders, business leads qualification, and appointment scheduling for businesses.

By outsourcing some of the business operations such as payroll and HR outsourcing, companies have successfully increased bottom lines and productivity of employees. Temp staffing enables businesses to manage unexpected demand or employee exits. Be it an accountant, IT consultant or janitor, temporary staffing can get you the required personnel.

With a third party taking care of non-core business operations, the business’ workforce is channelized towards growing the core competencies of the business and strengthening the brand. Small business owners too are alleviated from the pressure of keeping track of HR, bills, finance and other operations that can bog them down.

Share |

Tags:
Posted in Payroll Services | 3 Comments »

Get A FREE Payroll Services Quote

Social Networking | The Shockingly Powerful Business Tool You Thought You Knew All About

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

Your friends, family, clients, coworkers, and everyone else you’ve ever known all make up your social network. Thanks to Web 2.0, we now have powerful social networking tools readily available. These websites design are focused on allowing us to stay in touch, though. However, social networking on the Web is a powerful social media marketing solution that can spread the word about your business around the globe as well. Learn about how you can use social networking on the Web to start and grow your business by joining Tradeseam.

Enter Web 2.0: Web Design, E-commerce, and Social Networking

The social web refers to the collection of new, dynamic websites that have hit the scene in the past few years. Breaking away from traditional, static websites, these new sites are designed to allow users to interact with one another.

Wikipedia, for example, is a Web 2.0 encyclopedia of sorts. It’s got a ridiculous amount of information generated and edited by users of the site. Standard encyclopedias are static–unless you physically write on the pages. Wikipedia is designed to let anyone change or add an entry. It relies on crowd sourcing - the sheer volume of its users to sort out pesky issues like whether or not the entry is factual.

Social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, don’t claim to provide any information, but they are just as dynamic. Users make their own profile and then add friends, family, and acquaintances. Users then post updates about all sorts of things. Generation Y–essentially everyone born in the eighties–has a particular penchant for these sites. Businesses, at first flabbergasted by Gen Y’s constant, on-the-clock social networking, have begun to see just how useful these sites can be.

Say, for example, you start a small business. Who knows about it? Your friends and family know, so you talk to them about spreading the word. Imagine how much faster this process would go on the Web. If you’ve just started an e-commerce website business you can disseminate your link to hundreds of people very quickly. Thanks to the way these Web sites are designed, you can easily hit your target demographic, which means better sales leads and a higher return on Investment for your online marketing spend.

Share |

Tags: , ,
Posted in Social Media Marketing | 13 Comments »

Get A FREE Social Media Marketing Quote

Buy? Sell? Pray?

Saturday, May 8th, 2010

If ever a soothsayer was needed, now would be a good time. As we move towards the end of the first quarter of 2010, economists are still in a quandary as to where the economy is headed. With optimists and naysayers forwarding their opinions based on observations and events surrounding various industries, confusion and caution are the reigning emotions. 

 

The predictions of economists are divided into two distinct views. One group predicts a strong rebound; basing their observation on historical data – the upsurge that followed the economic recession in the mid 70s and 80s. The other group predicts a slow growth basing their prediction on the fact that this recession was the consequence of a bubble that burst. Their surmise is that initial growth rates of 3% will not sustain momentum due to underlying weaknesses in business and industries.  

Many align with President Obama’s belief that small businesses have the potential to rejuvenate the country’s economy. Small business has always played a crucial role in America’s economy by creating new job opportunities and leading growth. Obama advocates refinancing small business loans under the Small Business Administration (SBA) for real estate, lines of credit, and capital. The White House says this proposal will help refinance up to $18.7 billion every year in commercial real estate that would otherwise be foreclosed or liquidated. The President has also called for elimination of capital gains taxes for small businesses in 2010, and a $5,000 tax credit for each job created. 

Small businesses themselves are pulling out all the stops to keep their businesses going. By incorporating credit card processing and e-commerce websites into their sale strategies, businesses are reaching out to global audiences to increase sales and profit margins. Outsourcing non-core operations such as payroll processing, medical billing and call center services is helping businesses save a bundle while sustaining productivity. Businesses are switching to cheaper but equally effective services such as VOIP phone systems, web conferencing, and energy-efficient equipment to reduce expenses of communication, travel and every day office operations. 

With every industry doing what it can to not just grow but sustain growth through the year, there is hope that demand will soon rise and revenue streams will be replenished. However, the future is still not predictable and investors are keeping a wait and watch attitude.

Share |

Tags:
Posted in E-commerce Solutions | 7 Comments »

Get A FREE E-commerce Solutions Quote
« Older Entries