Crowdfunding is the collection of money from backers—the “crowd.” There’s been many recent crowdfunding success stories, including that of Julep Beauty who used social media to get crowdfunding from its customers.
Jim Zarroli of NPR wrote an interesting article about small business use of crowdfunding to raise capital. Entrepreneur Andy Krafsur funded his company Spira Footwear through the contributions of family and friends. Today, the difficult economy has made borrowing from friends and family impossible. In order to grow his business, he used a crowdfunding website that helped his cash flow tremendously.
There’s no reason your small business can’t leverage the same results. Learn more about crowdfunding and if it could work for you.
We also have this week’s outstanding small business tips, strategies and advice to share with you.
Starting a Business:
- It’s not easy to raise money for your startup. Soliciting investors is challenging and requires a knock-out pitch. Here’s a pitch formula that has helped startup founders raise millions.
Employees:
- I never thought I’d find great employee management advice on a “dairy herd” website, but by golly, I have! Dairy management consultant Tom Wall discussed people management at a recent Dairy Calf and Heifer Association annual conference. Here are Wall’s five key principles to successful people management.
Content Marketing:
- Let’s face it, content creation and social distribution is time consuming. In the course of a busy work day, this necessary customer engagement tool often falls to the wayside. What is there was an easier way to reach specific demographics audiences on blogs and social networks? There’s new software on the market called Buzzstarter which enables your brand to create content marketing and social campaigns and broadcast them to a wide range of distribution sites. You can optimize the campaigns using the real-time, advanced analytics included.
- There’s a lot that goes into a winning content marketing plan. A good understanding of your content goals, identifying your target market, integrating with social media, implementing SEO best practices, and having a diversified content portfolio. If you are struggling with how to plan for and create successful content marketing, check out these 5 tips to leverage the power of content marketing.
Email Marketing:
- You are using email marketing, but how do you know it’s effective? Email marketing is an affordable marketing tool that, if done well, converts prospects into buyers and buyers into repeat customers. Here are four essential metrics to find out if what you’re email marketing campaign is working. There’s also four hacks for succeeding at each.
Social Media:
- Can social media boost your bottom line? There’s more to Facebook and Twitter than sharing inspiration quotes and pictures of your feisty cat. You can harness the power of social media to improve your financial situation. Find the best deals at stores. Increase your salary through clever personal branding tricks. Learn how social media can give your wallet a real boost.
Ecommerce:
- Domestic retailers continue to control the largest share of online sales at 74 percent. Online shopping is here to stay. If your business fails to adopt an e-commerce strategy, you could lose revenue to more forward-thinking competitors. If you’re an e-commerce startup, or a seasoned veteran, it’s vital that you choose a new e-commerce platform that’s Fort Knox secure, scalable and high performing. Read these five things every retailer should look for when choosing an e-commerce platform.
Technology:
- Technology can be scary for some business owners. It can seem like a confusing and overwhelming issue when there’s so many other important things that need to get done. . Technology could be the difference between success and failure. Entrepreneurs and startups need to put real thought into how technology can help build their business. It should be affordable and easy to use, providing the scalability and flexibility that small businesses require. An inventor, mother and entrepreneur shares how a cloud-based telephone system and cloud technology helps her business thrive.
Are you a business owner with advice to share? Have you used one of the tips listed in our roundups? I’d enjoy hearing about your experience. Connect with me on Google+ so that I can share your information and link on the Roundup. See you next week!