SmallBusinessNewz

Where Are Small Businesses Spending Their Marketing Budgets?

Microsoft is sharing some survey results from BIA/Kelsey about small businesses. The results were presented at the ILM West conference in San Francisco. The main takeaways are as follows:

Does Groupon Negatively Affect How People View Your Small Business?

Daily deals, with Groupon and LivingSocial as the two main players, are a topic of much debate among those associated with the model.  Since their popularity exploded over the last year or so, some have questioned whether or not using the service actually benefits the business.Of course, the daily deals model allows businesses to offer their services or merchandise for a discounted price.  The theory is that businesses will reap the long-term benefits from participating in the deal, because in the short-term they almost always lose money. 

Over One-Third of American Adults Now Own a Smartphone

It should come as no surprise to anyone that more people are browsing the web from their phones than ever before.  For the past few years, not only have more people decided that smartphones should play an integral part of their daily lives, but those smartphones have gotten better, faster, stronger.The Pew Internet & American Life Project has just released a new study that shows more Americans now own smartphones than have college degrees. 

Report: 25,000 New Small Business Jobs in May

Intuit, the maker of such financial software as Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax, has released its monthly Small Business Employment Index report for May. The report is based on aggregate and anonymous online employment data from about 50,000 small business employers, each with less than 20 employees, which use Intuit's Online Payroll software.

Is Print Marketing Still in Your Mix?

FedEx Office released the results from its annual Signs of the Times national small business survey, finding that small business owners are "eager to lead the charge" out of the recession. According to the results, about three quarters (72%) say they'll be the driving force behind the U.S. economic recovery this year. 51% said their own businesses have already or will fully recover by the end of the year.

Family Can Put Strain on Business Decision-Making

Is your business a family business? Are you considering going into business with family members? If your answer to either of these questions is yes, you may be interested in some newly revealed findings from a study conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by MassMutual.

Tips for Successful Small Business Social Media Endeavors

A new poll from Employers Holdings found that half of small businesses believe a social media presence is important, but only 16% actually utilize it. The poll revealed that although there are nearly five million small businesses leveraging social media, that figure only accounts for 16% of the 29.7 million small businesses in the United States based on figures from the Small Business Administration.    Some findings from the poll:

Behaviorally Targeted Ads Twice as Effective?

An interesting report was released by the National Advertising Initiative (NAI) this week, which concluded that behaviorally-targeted ads are more than twice as valuable, and twice as effective as non-targeted online ads. Last year, behaviorally targeted ads secured an average of 2.68 times as much revenue per ad as non-targeted "run of network" ads, based on data from 12 major ad networks. The weighted average cost per thousand ad impressions (CPM) for behaviorally targeted ads was $4.12, as opposed to $1.98 for run-of-network ads.

Is Small Business Employment on the Way Up?

Intuit, the software vendor responsible for such popular financial software like Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax, has released its monthly report, the Small Business Employment Index. The main finding of this month's report is that small businesses are showing signs of an economic rebound. The findings were based on data from businesses with fewer than 20 employees (87% of the total US private employer base).

Prioritizing IT Can Lead to Increased Revenue

Microsoft has released some research that suggests a direct correlation between IT usage and business growth for small and midsize businesses. According to the company's findings, businesses using hosted services have better financial performance.