March 19, 2009 10:44 AM ET

Tim Berry

Quietly, outside the headlines about bonuses and bailouts, the smarter entrepreneurs among us head to their local SBDC. There, they find classes on starting a business, classes on running a business, classes on business planning, tips, introductions…and sometimes just a touch of real-world experience, when it’s badly needed.

SBDC stands for Small Business Development Center. There are about 1,000 of them across the United States. To find an SBDC near you, you can use the map at bplans.com or the umbrella organization website at asbdc-us.org.

Here are some of the things SBDCs do for small business:

Lots of classes, like starting your business, running your business, planning your business, setting up the accounting, doing the marketing. These are almost always smaller group classes, and most of them are at night so that real business people working real businesses can afford to attend. They are generally very—amazingly—cheap, like $50, $100, $200 or so for a 10-week class.
Counseling, one-on-one, on small-business issues with somebody who has experience in the field.
Good advice on books, software, tools.
Introductions to other local businesses.
Help with developing a business plan and finding local investors for a new business.
There’s been a lot of publicity about the Small Business Administration lately, and I’m glad. The SBA performs vital functions related to making business loans available to small businesses and start-ups. But there’s not enough said about the SBDC programs, which are helping real businesses survive the recession, grow, and create new jobs.

Tim Berry is president and founder of Palo Alto Software, founder of bplans.com, and a co f ounder of Borland International. He teaches starting a business at the University of Oregon. He is author of books and software including Business Plan Pro, published by Palo Alto Software, and The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan, published by Entrepreneur Press. He has a Stanford M.B.A. degree and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. He blogs at Planning Startup Stories and Up and Running.

Video marketing campaigns have previously been dominated by large global businesses that have huge marketing budgets. But now, thanks to the Internet, small businesses can also benefit from the power of video to reach their customers and drive their brand recognition. Interacting and engaging with customers through the use of online video is an important part of social media marketing or the Web 2.0 phenomenon and this article examines why it should be adopted by all business of any size. It gives examples of a handful of different video sharing opportunities including You Tube, Brownbook.net, My Space and blip.tv and suggests how you may like to use the channel of video to communicate directly with your customers.

Why online video is vital to your marketing strategy•

To demonstrate and show off what your product or service is – Brownbook.net does exactly this with a video showing its users how to use their DIY website creator service http://blog.brownbook.net/2008/12/17/web-site-creator-demo/

• To provide information and explain things about your business:
Hobby Box used its listing on Brownbook to add an informative video http://www.brownbook.net/business/2234317/the-hobby-box
PatientsLikeMe uploaded a video of them speaking at a conference onto blip.tv - http://where.blip.tv/#976819

• To show the personality behind the company, what the company is all about and how you want your brand to be recognised. Miamism uses Brownbook.net’s video uploading feature to give a great insight into their business http://www.brownbook.net/business/31014168/miamismcom—miami-beach-real-estate-resource

• To demonstrate your knowledge and expertise such as financial planner Andrew Horowitz did on Business Week http://feedroom.businessweek.com/index.jsp?fr_story=36a57b3b6982001f5af806073a86811a604be482

• To offer added value services to customers. This wedding planner produced an online video wedding planning guide and put it on My Space http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=28696203&searchid=897faf39-3848-4cca-a2fb-9506a217cb2b

• To create or upload an online advert, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1jywlZG74o

• Videos can give the customers a new shopping experience where the shop is brought directly to them at their convenience. Visual representation is highly effective in assisting us with our purchasing decisions as it makes the business more tangible and provides us with the information we need to form perceptions about the company

• Google seems to like videos and thus ranks them highly. Furthermore, according to Google, “America streams over 10.1 billion videos online” per month and “76% of US internet users view video online”

• Online videos do not require huge marketing budgets as with the advent of mobile, internet and camera technology most people have the ability to produce a video and then upload it to the net

• Use videos to spread word of mouth - Sarah Warren, Head of Marketing from Brownbook says “Business should encourage their customers to give them video testimonials, it’s very powerful to have a real customer telling others about the great service they got from you.

Businesses listed on Brownbook can not only upload their own videos but they can also direct their customers to their listing and ask them for a video review. And lastly, businesses can get in touch with professional organisations and experts to ask them to review their products and services using video like here http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=46822858”A business may chose to produce any number of the styles of videos mentioned above to engage potential and existing customers in order to ultimately generate more sales.
These online videos are part of the creation and development of an alternative online world in which consumers and businesses buy and sell.
Brownbook, You Tube, My Space, blip.tv, are examples of just some of the places where you can upload videos or photos to market your business. Marc Lyne, CEO from Brownbook.net said: “We have made some tweaks and added some new features to the latest version of Brownbook, but the video and photo facilities are already proving to be popular with users.

Video gives small businesses a cost-effective and powerful way to reach the widest possible audience. It enables you to personalize your messages and reach a large, global audience. So, get filming.

Guest post by Christine Adolf of Brownbook.net

Customer testimonials are one of the most effective marketing tools for small businesses both off and online. Using customer testimonials in your company’s marketing collateral will provide potential customers with a viewpoint other than yours or your employees. If you have a website for your company, providing a page of positive testimonials can show would-be customers why they should choose to do business with your company over your competitors’. You can also ask satisfied customers to write reviews and testimonials in other online media such as review websites, where prospective customers will be able to find you when they search for your company, product or service online.

While customer reviews of your business or product are a great marketing tool, many people view them skeptically if they appear manufactured or unauthentic. Instead of reviews that are simply compliments, ask customers to give specific examples of why their experience in doing business with you was so positive.

Another thing you can do to enhance a customer testimonial is to provide multimedia along with the review. Posting photos or videos illustrating the business interaction will put a human face on the business and will make the review stand out.

Using the internet to showcase customer testimonials is a cost effective alternative and a great complement to producing offline materials. Asking customers to send an e-mail to their friends, share a link on their Facebook profile or post a picture to Twitter (Twitpic) for all their friends and acquaintances to see is an immediate customer testimonial that reaches a vast amount of potential customers.

When speaking with customers either in person, by phone or through e-mail, ask for their approval in utilizing any positive feedback they provide for future use. You can also go a step further and ask them to tell their friends, write an online review or pass out promotional materials branded with your company’s logo.

Harnessing a positive customer experience with your product, service and business in general has the ability to turn the satisfied customer into an evangelist for your business. Happy customers are often the ideal marketers a company can have, as they are genuine, enthusiastic and free!

Guest post by Ronan Keane

No business is an island in the online ocean. There are other businesses that sell complimentary (but not competing) products or services, bloggers who write about your industry and distribution channels that stretch across the globe. Big businesses are constantly negotiating and entering into partnership agreements and small businesses can reap the same benefits. Making connections with online partners can help you grow your small business whether you’re a one person entrepreneur or a fifity person company.

Give Me Four Reasons

Starting up a web partnership doesn’t happen instantaneously, but there are plenty of compelling reasons why you should invest the time into researching and building online partnerships for small businesses.

1. 1. Reach more customers: This is the big one. Advertising online is often a tricky affair that seems more like experimental art than science. You can take some of the uncertainty out of reaching new customers by partnering with businesses or bloggers that already attract visitors that would be interested in your offerings. For example, if you sell high end gourmet foods, you might look to partner with a well known food blogger or an online retail store that sells specialty cooking equipment.
2. 2. Save money: Two pocketbooks are more powerful than one. Splitting out the costs of a cross-promotional internet marketing campaign is beneficial to both partners. There’s more to this than just linking to each other or sharing the price of advertising. Leverage each business’s existing connections to reach potential customers and clients that would normally cost you a lot of advertising dollars to access.
3. 3. Expand your borders: The internet is a global phenomenon. When you’re ready to reach across borders, web partnerships can help you get a foothold in new markets. Look for partners that are well established in other countries or in specific local markets. For example, if you provide web-based data backup services that would be a good fit for internet users in Europe, look to partner with an internet services provider or computer retailer in the UK.
4. 4. Reach the media: A partnership agreement is a great way to meet the press. A joint announcement stating the businesses involved and the purpose of the partnership is an occasion to put out a press release and have your marketing teams follow up with key media people. This is even stronger if you can tie it into a current theme like marketing through online videos or using new web technologies to power your partnership.

Upcoming: We’ll look deeper into web partnerships, cover the types of web partnerships you can consider and get into tips and resources for starting a web partnership.

About the Author:
Ronan Keane is Chief Marketing Officer of MyBizHomepage, Inc. www.MyBizHomepage.com is the only free web-based financial service that includes MyBizDashboard, a new, secure easy-to-use online financial dashboard designed specifically for entrepreneurs and small businesses. The service has two private label partner programs available.