I was sitting in a meeting the other day where the conversation was turning into how we contact with our customers. We then discussed how this has changed drastically in the past few years and how people need to start getting on board now before they will be completely left off the bus. Even though many people consider 2.0 to be extremely new, it is not. I think that if you look at the curve of the cycle of users, it has finally started to hit the majority. Social Media as well as other new forms of technology are tools that small business owners now use to reach their customers. It is a combination of these tools as well as some of the older ones that we utilize to let our customers know who we are and what we do.

The discussion started to change though, does the average person want to know how to use all of the forms of media, or do they just want to understand them? So many people ask the question what everything is, so they can just be informed of what is out there. It seems to me that many people who complain about some of the new forms of marketing are the ones who either don’t understand them and/or don’t use them to their advantage. I still commonly hear from business owners that the people who use these forms of technology are not their customers. I will disagree with you as more people are using this technology every day. The largest growth in users for people in viral media is people over the age of 65 and housewives. This combined with the large majority of people under the age of 30 and others who have found its benefits makes up a large body of users. Also, all of these people under the age of 30 will not always be below the age of 30. This new form of marketing is going to be a norm in the way we reach customers. Individual names of the companies that we use may change, but the general philosophy of what they do will not.

The only way to truly understand the new forms of media and marketing is to use them. Using them for one day is not going to do the trick either. Notice, I did not mention to definitely use them for your company. Try them out for yourself individually; you can start slow by just reading or participating in blogs or forums. The key to understanding is to be engaged in what is going on.

These forms are not going to replace all of the old things that business owners have done over the years, it will just enhance the process of reaching customers. Just think of what is going to come out next. Would you ever even of imagined that what we are doing now would ever be out there? What do you think is going to be the next big thing for small businesses in the form of technology?

Kyle Hensel is the Area Director of the Clayton State University SBDC in the Georgia SBDC Network. For more information, please go to www.georgiasbdc.org. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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!

Are you monitoring what others are saying about you on the Internet? If you are not, you really should start thinking about it. With all of the new technology on the Internet including social networks, blogs, Twitter and others, it is easy for individuals to write anything that they want to at any particular time. Unfortunately, this can come at a price for a business. For example, there were many people out shopping this past weekend and not every one of them was happy 100% of the time. Do you think it could be at least possible that one of them may have complained or vented on the Internet out of frustration? I think that is entirely possible as I have seen many instances of that first hand. Now seeing that most of the technology is viral based marketing, this could mean that 1 complaint could possibly be seen by thousands if not more people. What if this was your company that was being complained about? Is there a way that you can find out when people are talking about you on the Internet? If so, how much will it cost?

Well, there is such a thing for you to monitor yourself on the Internet, and it does not cost a thing. It is as simple as going to Google and setting for alerts. Every time your company, name, or the topic that you select is mentioned online, it will send you an email with a list of where it was mentioned. After you have the list, you can look through them to see what others are saying about you and your company. This may be a way to solve customer problems, or see something that your customers really like about your company.

You have a brand whether it is for your company or individually. You need to make sure that you protect your image online as well as offline. By signing up for Google Alerts, you can at least start monitoring what others are saying about you.

Kyle Hensel is the Area Director of the Clayton State University SBDC in the Georgia SBDC Network. For more information, please go to www.georgiasbdc.org. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Guest post by Ronan Keane
November 21, 2008

Since our new strategic relationship with the ASBDC in September, we’re excited to announce that MyBizHomepage.com has launched over 100 private label SBDC MyBizHomepage.com financial dashboard websites. SBDC Centers are invited to sign up for their free financial dashboard website here. Your MyBizHomepage.com website includes online financial tools for small businesses and SBDC centers.

SBDC centers should sign up for their free online financial dashboard tool at http://asbdc.mybizhomepage.com.

While many people are coming to know terms like SEO and SEM, Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing, respectively, we have forgotten about the tried and true art of Public Relations as an web communications medium. The web, in many ways, makes this much more easy than to do than in the traditional way. Getting articles from websites is much easier than searching newpapers and video on the web is a just as easy and costs next to nothing when compared to the high cost of getting something carried by television. With the emergence of Web 2.0, more and more sites let people add their own comments and exchange information to yield endless possibilities. Try guest blogging on popular or related blogs, starting Facebook, Myspace, or Hi-Five pages and then ask your family, friends and co-workers to add it. Write articles about yourself on online encyclopedias, like Wikipedia or go to forums and answer questions and link back to your site or answer questions on sites like Yahoo! Answers to create positive impressions about your organization.

Jarrett Byrom is the Web & Marketing Coordinator for the SBDCNet.org; He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Not a day goes by that I do not hear a complaint either about working with younger generations, or trying to reach them. The millennials as they are called are a section of “Generation Y” that are currently in the early stages of our workforce or about to leave school. So many people talk about how they do not have an attention span, they use cell phones alot and they play on the Internet more than they should. We need to face it, this is a brand new form of generation that we have not seen before. So many companies have talked about how their customers are not in this generation so they do not need to know how to reach them. One thing to keep in mind though, these customers are getting older and will soon be part of your customer base. There are also many people, not just millennials who are embracing the new forms of marketing and technology.

So what are all of these forms of new promotion? With all of the new forms of technology, there are many new ways to reach customers. It all depends on who your market really is. One of the keys is to be creative and to diversify where and how you are sending it. With the use of smart phones, restaurants are even marketing themselves with the use of GPS and how long the wait is at the restaurant. Social Networks, blogs, smart phones, internet connected televisions and social media are ways that companies are now reaching their markets. The world is now connected online more than ever before. According to the Harvard Business Review’s Working Knowledge Blog, of the 6.5 billion people in the world, about 1.5 billion have Internet access, more than 300 million have broadband access to the home, and 3 billion have cell phones, a growing number of which offer Internet access. The interesting thing about mobile technology is that many people never let it get more than a couple of feet away from them. I am one of those people.

I am not telling you to go out tomorrow and use social media and wireless technology to reach everyone out there; I just think that every business owner should start trying it. It is definitely here to stay and people are using it. The number of users is also growing every day. Soon it will just not be to reach the millennials, it may be close to everyone.

If you need assistance implementing new strategies into your marketing mix, contact your local SBDC office. They will be more than happy to help your business grow to the next level.

Kyle Hensel is the Area Director of of the Clayton State University SBDC in the Georgia SBDC Network.

by Jimmie Wilkins, SBDC director, Oregon

There have been volumes written on e-mail etiquette (Google “e-mail etiquette” if you want more and more and more), and I would hazard a guess that you could write your own book.

I wanted to share a few tips, thanks to Chemeketa Vice President Liz Goulard, Chemeketa Dean, Ron Bassett-Smith and an original author unknown, that we received at a recent meeting. Some of them drew an “of course” from me. Others caused me to blush and rethink some of my own practices. Some helped me see that we don’t all have the same expectations. Still, each one caused me to seriously review this critical tool and its impact on my ability to communicate with colleagues, clients and family.

Don’t use “Reply to All” as your default response. How critical is it that I’m included in your response? Consider sending the originator an e-mail that says “I didn’t need to see this.” It’s sort of like sending junk mail back to the place it came from.

Proof your communication before sending to avoid needing to send it again, missing attachments, or having to send another e-mail to clarify something ambiguous.

Don’t bother to write back to me to say “got it” or “thank you.” I will assume you got it and that you are appreciative unless I hear from you. (This is a hard one for me still!)

Think about whether this communication is best done via e-mail or by phone or in person. If we’re e-mailing more than three times about the same topic, it’s time to walk over and see me. Most communication experts agree that communication is 55 percent nonverbal, 38 percent tone and only 7 percent actual words.

Don’t overuse the high priority flag.

Keep e-mails to one screen and one subject whenever possible.

Use separate paragraphs, bulleted phrases and numbered lists to make your text easier to read.

Don’t respond in anger. Save a draft and review it later or ask another person to look at it before sending. Conflict is seldom, if ever, resolved through e-mail.

Use CC’s sparingly, only when you’re sure the recipient really needs or wants to know.

Please avoid sending chain letters or other junk from the Internet. I get enough of that at home.

Be thoughtful about sending on communications that you have received from listservs. It helps if you provide some analysis of the information or a summary so that I don’t have to try to guess why you forwarded it to me.

Copyright 2008 - Jimmie Wilkins

Special post to the SBDC National Blog by Christine Adolf of Brownbook.net

Whenever we are looking for a new product or service, we generally ask our friends and family for recommendations. We trust that our social network will give us their honest opinion and that they are not being paid to endorse a certain product or service. Consumers place a higher level of trust in word of mouth marketing than they do in other promotional activities such as ads because they don’t see it as a marketing activity, but as a recommendation from a personal connection they trust.

With the internet enabling word of mouth to travel faster, farther and to a greater number of people it is crucial that small businesses understand the importance of creating positive buzz for their business online. How can small businesses use word of mouth marketing to reach potential customers? There are several things small businesses can do to leverage the voice of their satisfied customers online. Here are a few things you can do to engage customers and utilize in word of mouth marketing online.

• Use Social Networking Sites

  While it is easy to become overwhelmed by the number of different social networks out there today, they provide a huge opportunity for small businesses to create free buzz online. It is not necessary to join every social networking site, but popular and easy to use sites such as Facebook, Flickr and YouTube can help you to interact with your customers and spark a conversation online about your product or service.

• List your business in online directories

  It goes without saying that in order for people to buy what you are selling, whether a product or service, they need to know it exists. Online business directories are a great way to have an online presence and to provide potential customers with your contact information and a description of your business. At Brownbook.net, you can list your business for free and increase awareness of your company whether it is a restaurant or a dog walking service.

• Listen to your customers and respond when appropriate

  There are many tools available that facilitate tracking what your customers are saying on the internet about you and your industry. Google Alerts is one of my favorites because it is easy to use and allows you to track mentions of your company and related keywords from both websites and blogs. One of the simplest and most important things you can do is listen because you will gain valuable insight that will help you better serve your customers.

• Solicit customer feedback online

  If your company has a website, make it easy for customers to provide their feedback, preferably in a public forum such as a company blog. Even if you do not have a website or blog for your business, urge customers to write reviews on third party websites. While you might worry that negative comments will surface, you get the opportunity to transform an unhappy customer into an advocate for your business.

Creating and encouraging word of mouth marketing online can accelerate business growth and create awareness of your company in an internet age, even if your company does not have its own online presence in the form of a website or blog. According to a global Nielsen survey of 26,486 Internet users in 47 markets, consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising among 78% of the study’s respondents. (Nielsen, “Word-of-Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool”) Clearly, word of mouth marketing is an important marketing tool for small businesses.

Durham – The New Hampshire Small Business Development Center (NH SBDC), an outreach
program of the UNH Whittemore School of Business and Economics, launched Friday at the
Executive Council Chambers at the NH State House in Concord its new, online program for NH
business owners: e-Learning for Entrepreneurs, OnLine, AnyTime, found at
www.nhsbdc.org.

Thanks to underwriting by premiere sponsors Citizens Bank Foundation, NH Department of
Environmental Services and Public Service of New Hampshire, as well as Daniel Webster
College and TD Banknorth, e-Learning for Entrepreneurs’ twenty-one 3-hour courses in
business management, finance and marketing are offered at no cost and are available 24/7. New
and experienced business owners may take a course in one sitting, or over time, depending on
their schedules. During six months of beta testing, over 500 courses were taken by entrepreneurs
in 125 rural and urban NH communities. Course titles include: Crafting Your Business Plan,
Accounting 101, Creating Buzz: Small Business Marketing, and Finding and Attracting
Investors.

“NH SBDC is continually looking for ways to help New Hampshire businesses be sustainable,”
remarks Mary Collins, NH SBDC State Director. “e-Learning for Entrepreneurs utilizes
today’s technology to provide knowledge, tools, and resources for the state’s business owners. In
this uncertain economy it is even more important that businesses statewide have access 24/7 to
management tools that will help strengthen their firms. ”
“We more than doubled our outreach to NH business owners during our e-Learning for
Entrepreneurs beta test,” states Heidi Edwards Dunn, NH SBDC’s Educational Program
Coordinator. “We believe that www.nhsbdc.org’s e-Learning for Entrepreneurs will be an
invaluable resource for NH entrepreneurs, and I encourage them to watch for future additions to
the program.”

The NH Small Business Development Center provides confidential business management
consulting and educational programs to New Hampshire’s small businesses. The NH SBDC is
the only NH agency that has full-time certified business advisors providing one-on-one, longterm,
management consulting to small businesses. NH SBDC is a cooperative venture with the
U.S. Small Business Administration, the State of New Hampshire (DRED), the University
System of New Hampshire, and the private sector. For more info on NH SBDC, visit
www.nhsbdc.org.

Audio is probably the cheapest way to use multimedia for your SBDC. The only real need is a headset with a microphone, which many of us already have in our possesion due to Skype and other voice over internet protocal (VOIP) programs. If not, they can be picked up between fifteen and fifty dollars at any store that sells electronics. Unlike Skype, if you are making audio recordings for a website or podcast you will need to edit them. There is free software that can do this admirably, most of them even allow you to do separate tracks and merge them into one. Thus, you can add background music or have several different people in several different locations record different parts and merge them into a single continous file. Of all the ones I have used Audacity is by far my favorite. It works on PCs & Macs and allows you to both edit & record in the same window, which makes it easy to learn, but there are many others options.

Once finished, the audio file is as easy to add to a website as an image or document or you can host it outside of your website, using sites like Odeo or Audiofarm, and link back to it.

Here are a few SBDCs using podcasting already.

Georgia SBDC - Raritan Valley Community College SBDC (NJ)