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You may decide to use a recruiter when looking for that perfect job candidate, but why limit yourself to one recruiter when you may be missing out on a huge talent source? Ascendify takes the recruiter/hiring manager relationship to a new level with their social platform. Instead of a limited amount of static listings, Ascendify can offer your company a higher number of quality candidates, increased participation in employee referrals, greater efficiency in screening and more understanding of your brand for potential new hires. The platform makes it easier for candidates to understand your corporate culture, your benefits and special programs that make them want to work for your company.
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Author Archive
Web.com Small Business Toolkit: Ascendify (Social Talent Acquisition Platform)
February 1st, 2013 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichWeb.com Small Business Toolkit: Documents.Me (Document Access Dashboard)
January 31st, 2013 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichIf you prefer working on your tablet or smartphone, but run into problems when you need to access files stored on a laptop or other computer, your life just got a little bit easier. With Documents.Me, you can leave the laptop at home. Documents.Me is a free business tool for iPads and iPhones that makes accessing your documents as easy as touching one button. Whether your files are on a remote PC, Mac, or stored in a cloud application such as Google Drive, iCloud or Dropbox, Documents.Me allows you to access the file and then edit it, email it or add another document to a project.
Google+Web.com Small Business Toolkit: TalkToTheManager (Business Review Solution)
January 30th, 2013 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichWhy wait to see the Yelp review to know what customers think of your business when you can find out instantly with TalkToTheManager? You post a phone number and customers can text you anonymous reviews of your service, products, food or whatever your business does well or not so well. The text is then forwarded to your cell phone and you may choose to respond or not. Your cell number is kept private at all times. TalkToTheManager costs $29 per month and you can cancel at any time. You can also receive preprinted signs with your assigned number for displaying in your store or restaurant.
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Web.com Small Business Toolkit: DeskTime (Time/Project Tracking)
January 29th, 2013 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichWith so many readily available distractions threatening to zap your employees’ productivity, it might be a good idea to keep an eye on exactly what your staff is doing on their computers. Are more hours spent on Facebook during the workday than on getting those invoices out? What about punctuality? DeskTime is designed to find and eliminate wasteful habits. Plus, the reports system shows both the entire company’s work results as well as those of individuals. Don’t worry about invading your employees’ privacy: The system only records application names, website URLs, start times and end times, never anything sensitive such as keystrokes or form input. DeskTime is especially helpful for virtual companies.
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Your 3-Step Plan for a Business Website That Drives Sales
January 29th, 2013 :: Maria Valdez Haubrich
By Maria Valdez Haubrich
Is your small business website driving the leads, customer engagement and sales you want? If it’s falling short of your goals, how can you help your business website perform better? Here are three steps to take.
- Focus on your target customers. If your website isn’t attracting enough customers, maybe it’s too vague and general. No business, or website, can succeed by trying to be all things to all people. Instead of casting a wide net, narrow your focus. Try developing a couple of “personas” that represent your target customer. Be as specific as you can. If your target customer is a busy mom, is she a working mom or a stay-at-home mom? How old are her children? What products is she looking for? Get as specific as you can; this will help you focus on the keywords that will drive that exact customer to your site. By pinpointing the specific groups you’re hoping to reach, you can develop a website that reaches out to those people.
- Focus on your customers’ pain points. A website is first and foremost a marketing tool, but sometimes small business owners forget this. Just like your other marketing materials, your small business website should show prospects that your business understands their pain points and is trying to solve them. Going back to the busy mom customer we mentioned above, if she is a working mom with an infant at home, one pain point might be the need to keep stocked up on diapers in order to avoid midnight runs to the convenience store. Your website and keywords should focus on solutions such as diaper delivery, diapers shipped to your home, auto-reorder of diapers and similar options.
- Focus on a call to action. Sometimes your business website is working well at attracting customers, but when they’re on your site, they just click around for a bit and leave. If customers aren’t taking action on your site, it’s probably because you’re not showing them a clear call to action. Every page on your site should drive customers to take a specific step, whether that’s “Buy now,” “Shop,” “Call us,” “Click to get a quote,” or “Chat with our operators.” If your product or service is one that doesn’t require a lot of thought, your call to action could be simple, such as “Buy now.” If it’s a product such as business equipment that requires a lot of hand-holding before a decision is made, there will be more steps involved, but you still need a call to action for each of those steps: “Click for more information,” “Request a quote,” etc. This is not the time to be subtle. Use action-oriented words that are very specific as to what you want customers to do. Emphasize them with color, hyperlinks and graphics.
Last, but not least, be sure that you test all the changes you make to your site by monitoring your analytics to see what users are doing. By making these changes, you’ll find your small business website driving a lot more business.
Image by Flickr user FutUndBeidl (Creative Commons)
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Web.com Small Business Toolkit: PEX Card (Business Prepaid Card)
January 28th, 2013 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichIs your company’s spending getting out of control? Are you finding it hard to keep track of employee expenses? PEX Card is a business prepaid card specifically designed to help companies take control of employee expense management. For a monthly per-card fee, businesses can distribute funds for employees to spend and then keep track of transactions as they occur. There are no transaction fees and no interest charges, and businesses gain more power over the company’s cash flow. You or your internal PEX Card administrator can easily add funds to your employee cards through the PEX website; that money is available to employees immediately.
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Web.com Small Business Toolkit: Lemon Wallet (Digital Credit Card App)
January 25th, 2013 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichEver forget to bring the right credit card when you’re out with a client? Or perhaps you’ve had your wallet lost or stolen and have had to spend hours on the phone canceling and replacing all your cards. Lemon Wallet allows you to scan and digitize all the information on your credit cards for easy retrieval on your phone. Merchants can then scan the image on your phone to download your card information for your purchases. Lemon Wallet also keeps your credit card balance handy and allows you to store your receipts digitally so you aren’t in danger of losing track of expense receipts. Lemon Wallet works on all mobile devices.
Google+Web.com Small Business Toolkit: SpringTern (Student Freelancers for Hire)
January 22nd, 2013 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichTalented students need real-world experience, and your business needs help on a project, but you don’t have the money to hire freelancers. SpringTern wants to help put you and the talent together. SpringTern connects small and midsized businesses with students to do volunteer work projects. Projects are generally short-term and part-time (most on the site are under 100 hours) and can be done remotely, so there is no need to find space for the student in your office. SpringTern has facilitated over 20,000 hours of work experience since its launch and received positive reviews from student and business users alike. It only costs $45 to list your project on the site.
Google+What Marketing Strategies Are You Spending on in 2013?
January 22nd, 2013 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichBy Maria Valdez Haubrich
How does your small business’s marketing budget for 2013 compare to that of your competitors? A new survey by StrongMail has some insights. Overall, businesses are bullish on marketing for 2013, with a total of 89 percent saying they will either increase or maintain their level of marketing spending in the coming year. (Some 45 percent will increase their marketing budgets and 44 percent will keep them the same.)
Email marketing, social media and mobile marketing will be the main focus of investment this year. More than half (55.5 percent) of marketing executives report plans to spend more on email marketing campaigns in 2013; 51.8 percent say they will spend more on social media; 42.8 percent say they will increase spending on mobile marketing; and 39.8 percent will boost spending on search marketing.
Two-thirds of the companies in the survey report they will spend more on mobile marketing programs such as mobile apps (39 percent) and SMS alerts (21 percent). Overall, mobile marketing spending will increase by 11 percent compared to 2012.
When it comes to social media, where are marketers putting most of their efforts? Facebook dominates, with 60 percent of businesses saying Facebook is the most valuable social media channel for them. Twitter and YouTube ranked second and third, respectively. Google and Pinterest were somewhere in the middle, cited by 31 percent of marketers, while Yelp, Instagram and LinkedIn brought up the rear.
Email is a strong area of growth for marketers, who plan to use it for a variety of purposes this year. While at one point some experts were predicting that social media would make email obsolete, marketers are figuring out email’s value in growing their social media presence and customer engagement. That’s reflected in the 46 percent who say they will spend more on emails to drive growth to their social media channels, such as Facebook or Twitter. In addition, 38.8 percent will spend more on promotional emails, and 34.7 percent will spend more on email newsletters.
Where aren’t marketers spending? Direct mail, trade show participation and traditional advertising will take the biggest hits. Some 37.4 percent report they plan to cut spending on direct mail, 33.6 percent will cut back on trade show spending and 23 percent will decrease spending on advertising in 2013.
You can view a PDF of the full survey results here.
Image by Flickr user Jay Freshuk (Creative Commons)
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