(Part 2 of 2)

Mike

A: Last week, I wrote about how critical it is today to have, not just an online presence, but a professional, robust, powerful Internet presence; how you need to embrace social networking, and  how your website is as “important today as a business card was in the last century” (Rod Kurtz, Inc. Magazine)

This week, I would like to drill down a little bit into maybe my favorite e-marketing tool – e-mail marketing. There are all sorts of ways to use email to grow your business, but for my money, the bread-and-butter, best ways are e-newsletters, and actual emails.

But don’t just take my word for it. When it comes to email marketing, there may be no more knowledgeable a source than Gail Goodman, the dynamic CEO of Constant Contact, one of the top email marketing companies in the world.

Goodman started running Constant Contact in 1999 and has since grown it into a business with more than 250,000 customers. She was named the Best Entrepreneur in the 2007 Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and her company came in at Number 16 on Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top 50 fastest-growing women-led companies.

So when I recently spoke with Goodman about why email marketing is so effective, she was, not surprisingly, a source of great ideas. To start with, she says, the essential power of email marketing is that it “facilitates repeat sales and word of mouth referrals while also keeping you visible. It is also very affordable and stretches your marketing dollar.”

Think about it. People forward emails. That is a form of word-of-mouth advertising. The same is true for e-newsletters. As such, email marketing both helps with customer retention as well as customer acquisition. And that it takes little more than some sweat equity makes it quite attractive in this economy.

Goodman says that today, e-mail becomes even more important since it allows you to forge a connection with customers, and that can make the difference between someone being a one-shot and a repeat customer.

For maximum effectiveness, Goodman advises that your email correspondence be all about them, not you. Of course you can and should use email to announce a sale or some other special, but to be truly successful, the savvy email marketer will use email to connect with their customers.

Says Goodman, “Don’t use email or e-newsletters to always ask for an order, instead, use it to help your customers. If you own a restaurant, for example, send out a recipe or a coupon.” The important thing, she notes, is that you use your email to stay in, well, if constant contact, then at least regular contact.

This leads to her other important point, namely, that not only must you get permission (”It is not like direct mail where you can just send mail to anyone”), but that in fact “permission is perishable.”

When someone opts-in for your e-newsletter or otherwise gives you their e-mail address, Goodman says that “it is, of course, not permission for daily emails, and it is also not permission to wait a year. Use that permission wisely.”

If you do that, if you create and grow a list of customers and their e-mail addresses, and then use that list to stay in touch by making your correspondence about them, and thereby forge a connection with them, then you will be well on your way to becoming a master e-marketer.

Today’s Tip: One of my favorite business shows is MSNBC’s Your Business, on Sunday mornings (and not because I am an occasional guest.) The show is full of great ideas, insights, and real world strategies. Aside from hosting the show, the multi-talented host JJ Ramberg is also small business owner herself. It is fun to watch and I always learn something new. Steve says check it out.

(Part 1 of 2)

Mike

A: I couldn’t agree with you more. Did you know that more than half of all small businesses in this country do not even have a website? (Maybe the only thing worse than no website is having a bad one, since instead of leaving no impression, you leave a bad one instead.)

Not having a great website, not having a robust Internet presence, and not marketing and selling online constitutes business malpractice in the 21^st Century.

Beefing up your online presence is like getting in shape. What you must do today is flex your digital muscles.

Here’s how:

1. Build website muscles. As I said, the only thing worse than no website is having a bad one.

We all know what those look like, don’t we? It’s the site where the homepage scrolls on for about five minutes, where the graphics are jarring and ugly, it has too much copy and slow loading graphics, and it says “© 2004″ at the bottom. In short, the bad site looks like, not only did your teenage daughter build it for you, but no one has attended to it in several years.

What a mistake.

To me, there are two exceptionally great things about the Internet, from a small business perspective:

• It allows you access to markets you otherwise could never reach, and
• It allows you to look every bit a big and professional as the Big Boys.

So where do you get that great website? There are no shortage of online options.

Example: Last week, my brother (who is no Webhead) had to build a site for one of his marketing clients. So he surfed over to Microsoft Office Live (Microsoft is a company I do some work with, btw), and built his client an elegant, great looking site – for free.  With a simple point and click graphic interface, and pre-loaded templates, here is but one way that anyone can get and grow online easily and affordably.

The important thing is that you take advantage of such tools. Beefing up your Web muscles will make your business less wimpy.

2. Find some “workout” partners: Going to the gym is a social activity, and in that vein, the more friends who support your efforts to get in digital shape, the better you will do.

The Web is a social medium, so it behooves you to take advantage of everything that it offers. Doing so will help you create advocates, find new customers, locate strategic partners, and drive increased sales.

There are several ways to do this:

Get social: It’s not called “social media” for no reason. Sites like Facebook and Twitter enable you to connect with other small business owners and potential customers.

I have a pal in San Francisco who has created many significant and lucrative business deals via LinkedIn. He will have some project he is working on and will need to tap some business for sales or partnering or whatever. He has found that he almost always is able to get to the right person in those companies through his LinkedIn connections.

Be Web 2.0 friendly: This era of the Internet, the Web 2.0 era, is distinguished by interactivity; people want to do more than just read about your business on your site. They expect to some level of interaction. So that is what you must give them.

That means different things, from forums and videos to blogs, comments, and podcasts. Making and posting a video, for example, explaining who you are and what you do is not difficult.

Help people find you: Your site also needs to be search engine optimized (SEO). SEO will allow your site to be found by people who share your interests, who are looking for what it is you sell. Having keywords sprinkled throughout your site will, like Jerry Maguire, help them help you.

The point is, the more professional, social, and interactive your site, the more you will be able to grow your business, easily and affordably, and thus allow you to get in Webtastic shape.

(Next week – using email to grow your business)

Today’s Tip: Warrilow and Co. is looking for the next Small Business Marketer of the Year. If you or someone you know has created a marketing campaign that created superior results, you could win an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas, and, even better, inclusion in various social networking sites. Apply here.

You can either do this via calling health insurance providers in your local area, or for more options use a search engine like Google to find online providers. An excellent resource to use is Health Insurance Info , which offers details on what health insurance plans are available in your particular state. Additionally, it also informs you of potential high-risk industries, as well as the providers that specialize in different areas.

Other options available to you include the Small Business Service Bureau , or SBSB, which not only offers advice on health insurance cover for the self-employed, but also general business tips for running your own business. Having a site that combines all this information onto one dedicated portal can make running your business a lot easier.

Perhaps one of the best websites for dedicated advice on where to arrange your self-employed health insurance is eHealth Insurance . Here you can compare up to 70 health insurance providers, with policies to suit your particular needs. If there’s any drawback to this site, though, it’s that it doesn’t cover all US states – if your business is in Rhode Island, North Dakota, Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont, you won’t be able to take out insurance.

Additionally, the policies are only for one person – so, if you’re running a business yourself you’ll be fine, but if you employ people they won’t be covered. You can get round this by only employing sub-contractors, who would then have to take care of their own health plans and taxes, etc.

If you’re unsure, the best option is to speak to your local Chamber of Commerce. These can advise what options are available in your state, and you may even be able to receive self-employed health insurance cover via a Municipal Employees Health Insurance Program. Although traditionally for employed workers, some states will allow this to cover small business owners as well, so make sure you find out if it’s applicable where your business is.

It is important to know that while seeking the help of professionals is advisable, you always want to make sure to do your own research and check for deductions on your own. Make sure that if there is any ambiguity in an IRS regulation that you check with a tax professional or with the IRS before you take a questionable deduction. No matter how great the deduction may be it is not worth getting audited over.

A great place to start is at IRS.gov where there are several publications written in a readable style to help you learn what expenses are considered tax deductible for the self employed. Form 1518, IRS Tax Calendar for Small Businesses and Self-Employed and form 535, Business Expenses, are two excellent informative publications to help you get started learning about deductions.

Making sure you follow the IRS instructions is very important and you need to be aware there are several keys that can lead to your getting audited. Claiming your house as a deduction is the number one alert to the IRS that can lead to an audit. That is not to say that you cannot deduct the correct portion of your house, just make sure that you do it within the guidelines of what the IRS allows.

Travel is another area you want to be very careful about when deducting as a business expense. The IRS has very specific guidelines regarding what is considered business travel and what traveling expenses are eligible for deductions according to the regulations.

Supplies and equipment for your business are deductible and health insurance also may be deducted. If only one member of your family is self employed be aware that you may only be eligible to deduct the self-employed family member’s healthcare costs. If the other family member is eligible for benefits through their employer then you cannot claim the cost of those benefits as a deduction.

Clothing can be deductible but only if it is usable for the business purpose exclusively. If you have a coat that can be worn when you aren’t working then it would not be considered deductible. If however, it is something like a specific fire proof jacket is needed and it isn’t possible or pragmatic to wear it when you aren’t working then that fireproof jacket would be considered tax deductible.

Studying the forms and guides provided by the IRS is a great place to start but also include a visit to your CPA who can take what you have learned and apply their knowledge and experience to maximize your deductions for the upcoming year’s tax liability you face as a self-employed business person.