Conner's Blog » Business

7 Ideas for a Business Blog

Conner — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:43:04 +0000

Connect your employees with your customers.
- The best thing about being a customer of a small business is getting to know the employees. You can use a blog to accomplish this. Let them write posts about their work day, give advice related to your business, or show off a recent success. You can let them write as much as they want and moderate and post the best content.
- You may be lucky and have employees that are excited to write If you don’t though you can still get great content. Pay your employees or reward them with gift cards for every post that is published. Remember you control the publishing so they don’t just post stuff to just earn the incentive.
Let it go out as a newsletter
- Many of your customers probably aren’t web savvy. RSS and blogs are probably not something they are familiar with. It’s trivial to setup a system that emails your latest posts to a list of permissive users. Let them sign upand send it out at a pace they are comfortable with.
Don’t advertise
- The worst thing you can do is turn your blog into a advertising mechanism. If it’s well done it should be an advertisement in itself without being an advertisement. Don’t promote your specials, “exciting new products”, or write other forms of sensationalism. Your blog should be an attempt to leave the old ways of marketing behind. So what should you write about. Consider these options: how you choose a new product that fills your customers needs, the solution to a common problem your customers have, useful news from your industry, profiles of your employees or even your customers.
Don’t force it on anyone
- This is a form of permissive marketing, it is not to be sold like a used car. Put up a sign somewhere in your store that your customers can see, don’t have your sales people promote it. The best marketing is spread by your customers.
Don’t feel forced into the standard blog format
- You don’t need to write daily. You don’t need to allow comments, In fact, I would hesitate to allow them as an irate customers is more likely to comment then a content customer. If you do allow comments, only allow customers to comment; having a sign up code on your receipts or invoices is a perfect way to accomplish this.
Do not let your marketing department or public relations department write your blog.
- Most marketers will kill any chance it has of being fun. Gimmicks, marketing slang, and PR spin is death to the personality your blog should develop. Ask an employee to edit posts, but let your writers be themselves. Marketing and PR will not let your employees passion for their jobs get through
Don’t let someone like me design your blog.
- Hire a real designer and make sure your site looks professional. If you can’t afford a designer find a template that is clean and can be customized to let your companies image take center stage.

eBay Q2 Profits Up 22 Percent

Conner — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:22:33 +0000

InternetNews Realtime IT News - eBay Q2 Profits Up 22 Percent.

Not really that shocking when you think about it. It is similiar to the reason baseball game attendence going up during tough economic times. You can stretch your dollar further on Ebay which is what nearly everyone is doing these dayys.

10 Things I’ve Learned Working for an Insurance Company

Conner — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:06:30 +0000

Most people are unaware of what coverage they actually have.
There is very little insurance companies can do when they suspect fraud.
Adjusters want to pay and close your claim as quickly as you do.
If you are going to experience a total loss on a vehicle, do it when it’s 2-3 years old, otherwise you will feel like you have been shorted. (you’ll still feel shorted, but much less so)
No one has enough medical coverage.
Medical billing systems are incredibly inefficient.
Privacy regulations cost everyone a lot more money and time than you would imagine.
Wear your seatbelt.
Don’t ride a motorcycle without very good health insurance.
Many insurance companies usually pay out around 1 dollar for every dollar they take in on premiums.

Happy Customers

Conner — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:46:12 +0000

Via TechDirt,

Why do you think CBS continues to pull in high ratings? I would bet having happy customers who don’t feel like criminals might have something to do with it. Of course having great shows is a plus.

We will teach you not to proofread

Conner — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 21:08:04 +0000

You have to love this sign, which was posted in the window of what was previously Globe College. They recently changed their name to Globe University and built a new building. This was the map they posted at their old location to direct you to the new location.

It is difficult to see due to my camera phone’s poor resolution, but they misspelled one of the major roads in Woodbury, Radio Drive, as Rasio Drive. Click for a Google map of the area. Somehow I don’t see this inspiring confidence in students researching the college.