By Andrea Rowland

Now that you’ve decided to build a website for your small business (congratulations, BTW), there’s no room or reason for procrastination. Right now, your potential customers are on their smartphones, tablets and computers looking for products or services like yours. The facts don’t lie:

– At least 85 percent of today’s consumers use the Internet to find local products and services.
– More than one-third of U.S. smartphone owners use their phones to find store locations online.
– And people used their phones, tablets and desktops to shop online to the tune of more than $70 billion in 2013.

Most likely, your competitors are already online. You’re losing out if you’re not.

Of course you’re busy. You’re probably answering phones and taking orders and shipping product and buying supplies and cutting checks and doing all the other stuff entrepreneurs do to get their big ideas off the ground. Without a lunch break. Maybe even without a paycheck. I’ll wager that’s because you’re committed to making your small business succeed, whatever it takes.  (more…)

Constant Contact has long been an advocate for permission-based marketing. We know that it is the best route to developing the long-lasting customer relationships that small businesses work so hard to achieve —the relationships that can drive customer engagement, and encourage repeat sales and valuable word-of-mouth for your business.

Over the summer, this topic was brought to the fore in the world of email marketing, as Canada began enforcing a new Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).The legislation requires all those that market to Canada with commercial electronic messages (email, some forms of social media, etc.) regardless of where in the world they are located, to adhere to the some of the strictest anti-spam regulations in the world or risk serious penalties: up to $1 million for individuals and up to $10 million for businesses. (Note: Visit Constant Contact’s CASL Resource Center if you’d like to learn more.)

Even if CASL doesn’t affect your business, it serves as an essential reminder of how important it is to get your customers’ permission before adding them to your email marketing list. Along with helping you develop stronger ties to your customers, permission-based email has better open rates, less spam reports, and is generally more effective.  (more…)

I’m a lucky guy. For work, I get to talk to hundreds of entrepreneurs and people who help small business owners. I’ve talked to piano teachers, wedding photographers, and roller-derby merchants. I’ve talked to bloggers, designers, and musicians. I even talked to a guy building a castle for his business in New England. Stone by stone. See what I mean? Inspirational, creative stuff.

A lot of them have one thing in common: they know they should be online, but something is keeping them back.

What is it? Is it too technical? Is it like learning a new language? Maybe. In a lot of cases, it’s all of the stuff they think they need to worry about that holds them back: cloud-based computing, HTML, WordPress,Twitter, A/B split testing, analytics, metadata, SEO, image resolution.

Listen, getting online is a lot like learning anything else. No one pulls out Rachmaninoff when they first start learning to play the piano. They learn Chopsticks. They learn Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. They start small, get good, and then go bigger. Getting online is the same. There are three initial steps that you can complete in a couple of hours, and once you’re done, you’ll have something cool to put on your new business cards.  (more…)