Although it may sometimes seem like all that anybody ever talks about these days is how to market your start up business online printed promotional materials still have a large role to play in business marketing. Here are a few of the ways a good printer can help your business grow:

Business Cards – Every business man or woman still needs to keep a supply of business cards with them wherever they go, just in case, for instance, they run into an interesting prospect in the line at Starbucks. You don’t need to spend a fortune on your business cards, there are plenty of reasonably priced options out there, but you do need to put a little thought into their design. Cram your business card full of too much information or garish graphics and most people will be confused and turned off. Too little information on the other hand is bad too. What should really be on your business card these days? Your name, that of your business and its address of course and then the telephone number and your business email address. You could also include your website and cell phone number but only if there is room without all those words jumbling together.

Letterhead – People do still write business letters so getting a nice company letterhead printed up is another must. Again, it should not be too busy or too twee (someone recently sent me a business proposal on a Garfield letterhead. Needless to say I took their missive about as seriously as I do those from Publishers Clearing House). If you want to create an even better impression with your letterhead have it printed on recycled paper. This of course shows that you are an environmentally conscious business which adds a more positive image to your company.

Giveaways – People like to get free stuff. Business branded giveaways are always a good marketing tool but make them useful. Magnets, pens, planners are all useful giveaways and inexpensive to have printed up. You can also think outside the box a little. I just received an usb flash drive (only a small one) from a business I work with and it struck me as a very impressive little freebie.

Foursquare is as still as yet underutilized online resource for small businesses and start ups, especially those who do most of their business at their physical location rather than via e commerce. Here then are a few tips for making the most of a Foursquare listing:

Using Foursquare as a Customer Loyalty Card – One of the neatest features about Foursquare is that allows your customers to “check in” each time they visit you. Some of the savviest and largest companies in the country (as well as the smallest) have made great use of this feature as a customer loyalty program (no more pesky plastic cards)

Why not offer your customers a freebie or a discount after x many check ins? Just make sure you state the rules of the promotion very clearly to avoid any unpleasant misunderstandings.

Organize an Online Treasure Hunt – This one can be an awful lot of fun as well as any easy way to increase foot traffic. In the “Tips” section of your Foursquare listing leave a daily clue to which the answer is a certain special of the day or discount. The customers who come in and guess the special, get the special, plus they are eligible to win a bigger prize at the end of the contest. No less than upscale shoe designer Jimmy Choo have put this tactic to amazingly good use.

Entice New Customers with Check In Freebies – For instance “show us your check in and coffee is on us” Everyone loves a freebie and this is a free quick and easy way to get the word out and draw in some new clientele.

Watch What People are Saying About You – Your customers may be talking about you on Foursquare and if you don’t monitor the conversation regularly you may live to regret it. Personally reply back to people who leave tips or make positive comments and thank them. Even more important though is to deal with any negative comments as quickly as possible and ensure that you concise, clear response is visible to all.

Google Adwords has now been around for quite a few years and as a moneymaker it is the search giant’s largest source of revenue ($20 billion in 2008) But is it a good investment for the startup business owner to make? The simple answer – maybe.

Essentially, the Google AdWords pay-per-click (PPC) advertising service allows you to create your own ads, after paying a $5 account set-up fee. These ads appear at the side of relevant searches as “sponsored links” and Google charges each time a person clicks on the ad and is directed to the advertiser’s website.

Google also has a bidding process that allows their advertisers to allocate funds to bid on a certain keyword or keywords that are particularly relevant to their business. It all sounds pretty straight forward and you can control how much you spend to the penny. However, making Google Adwords work for your startup business does involve investing time as well as money.

Keeping a close eye on your campaign stats is essential if you are going to get a decent return on your investment. Google’s tracking data is very extensive and really is your best friend here because it lets you see who your ads run up against, what searches they are appearing in, and whether you are really getting your money’s worth from those clicks.

PPC tends to work quite well on a local level. For instance people have got very used to the convenience of typing in say “plumber, mytown” and being presented with a quick, easy to navigate list of those available in the area. If your businesses name is not there you may very well be losing customers to your competition who are.

Before you make the investment in Google Adwords though consider if your target audience is even going to be looking for you in this way. For example, if you offer a product or invention that is relatively new to market will potential consumers even know to search for it? For these folks a good promotional campaign, both online and off will probably reap bigger benefits.

How involved should your start up business start up business be on Facebook? It’s a question that many entrepreneurs are asking these days. Is the time and effort involved in building a fan page and then updating it on a regular basis really worth it or does a good Google Ad words campaign still make more sense? While opinion is still somewhat divided there is one thing that is not in doubt –Facebook is huge and is growing every day. Here are a few rather astonishing facts about Facebook you may not have heard:

·Although Google still outranks in terms of the number of unique visitors it receives per day Facebook gets more actual page views than any other website in the world.

·With its 400 million plus (and counting) registered users if Facebook was a country in terms of population it would bethe third largest on the planet.

·It took the Internet as a whole five years to reach its first 50 million users. It took Facebook just two.

·4.5 billion (yes billion) updates are posted to Facebookon a weekly basis.

·Facebook delivers twice the amount of upstream traffic to news and media sites than Google does.

·100 million people have utilized FacebookConnect to share information with other websites. According to recent researchconsumers are 200% more likely to join or sign up to your website if they can use Facebook Connect to do so.

·33% of Facebook members are fans of “brands”. That’sa whopping 132 million people. Their primary reason for ‘liking” companies?Access to special offers and Facebook only deals.

·Facebook’s primary founder, Mark Zuckerburg, began Facebook in his Harvard dorm room (he later dropped out) in 2004. In 2010 he is one of the world’s youngest billionaires, with personal wealth of US$4billion. He’s 26 and still a bit geeky looking. If Facebook is nothing else it should be a little beacon of hope for struggling start up business owners everywhere.

Getting a good Facebook page together for your startup business does indeed take a bit of effort. However, if you look at the facts and figures presented above they do present a compelling case for taking the time to do so. Whether you do it yourself or outsource to one of the growing number of social media management companies that are springing up Facebook is a big part of the future of search, internet marketing (even for offline businesses) and life in general and if you aren’t on there yet, you need to get there soon.

One of the biggest problems a startup business man faces is actually getting paid for the products or services you provide. Large companies have problems with accounts receivables so that small businesses do should not come as a big surprise. But just how do you get people to pay up and better still pay up on time? Some pointers

Make the Invoices Clear – Ensure that the invoices you send are clear and contain all the information they should. People like to see what exactly they are paying for and not being able to do so may be the perfect excuse to ignore the debt for a while.

Be Firm but Polite – If an invoice is overdue your startup business cannot afford to ignore the issue. Make your collection phone calls between 930am-1130am (the best time to catch people at their desks) and make a firm but polite inquiry about the payment status on the invoice you are owed. Never be rude or abusive. You might feel like this sometimes, but it won’t help you get paid

Get a Firm Commitment – When making collections phone callsdo not allow yourself to be fobbed off with excuses (I’ll check and get back to you, the check’s in the mail etc.) Your objective here is to hang up with a commitment for payment right now, but if you can’t get that, then get a commitment for payment on a subsequent day.

Make it clear that you are serious by repeating it back to the customer; like ‘OK, so you will mail me your check for $xxx this Wednesday,the 21st, and I’ll receive it on Thursday the 22nd. Is that right?’ Then immediately email or fax the customer with a quick note stating ‘I confirm your commitment to mail us your check for $xxx this Wednesday, the 21st, to be received by us on Thursday the 22nd.’

Outsource – Collections and accounts receivable can be very,very tricky for the startup business. If unpaid invoices are becoming a problem for you act early and hire an outside collections firm

Getting tough with clients about payment can be hard for a startup business owner who might be tempted to let a client slide on payment for a while for fear that they will lose the business altogether. There are a number of good, affordable companies who specialize in small business accounts receivables specialize in small business accounts receivables and for a modest fee can help make sure that you get the money you are owed.

Surfing around the internet or hanging out the local library you come across a lot of information and advice about starting up your own business. Much of it is well worth the read as you can learn an awful lot basically for nothing and any startup business owner knows that they need all the help they can get.

There is a certain amount of bad information as well. Much of it comes from people trying to sell you something while some of it is just reputationof misguided beliefs that have been around for decades. Here are the top three myths about starting your own business and an explanation of the reality behind them:

#1: “Starting my own business will let me control my own schedule and work whenever I like” – Anybody who is already running a startup or fledgling small business knows what a huge myth this is (actually, let’s be frank, it’s a big fat lie) Those infomercials and internet landing pages you have seen that promise you can make millions while you sleep or jet off to exotic destinations while your business runs itself are the biggest works of fiction in the world.

Starting your own business is tough. Prepare for the inevitable fourteen hours days that most startup business owners have to work. There will actually be a complete lack of relaxing vacations, you’ll be lucky if you can manage a day at the local park (and if you do make it there you will be checking your cellphone every five minutes to make sure that the reception is still good,lest you miss a vital business call.) Hopefully it will all be worth it in the end.

#2 “I don’t need to worry about loans, I can get grants to start my business” – If you can, we’d love to know where, we’ll be applying too. Grants for certain people (usually minorities)do exist but they are ridiculously hard to get and usually do not go to unproven one man (or woman) bands. You will need to seek out sources of loan funding to start up your new business and yes, you will have to eventually pay that money back.

#3” My products/servicesare so great that they will sell themselves” – Don’t kid yourself. Every new product or service has to be marketed and marketed correctly. One of the top reasons why small businesses fail is lack of having a niche target market. Do not make the mistake of trying to sell to anyone that you think has money. Take the time to develop a customer profile. Who is likely to be interested in your company and what it has to offer? Where do they live, work and shop and how best to reach them? Marketing is a huge part of the success or failure of any startup concern and you have to be prepared to put in the time to do it right.

Finding the funds to get your start up business off the ground is one of the – if not the – biggest challenge faced by the want-to-be entrepreneur.Credit is still tight as the economy is not bouncing back the way it was supposed to, so it might be tempting for someone to think about dipping into their retirement fund or 401K to get the money they need. But is that really worth the gamble?

It all sounds very easy in theory .By rolling your retirement fund into your start up business you pay no income taxes or early withdrawal penalties, avoid debt and have money available immediately to rent a space, pay a franchise fee, hire employees, buy equipment and pay yourself a salary, all of it legal thanks to certain sections of the tax code.

For some startups this indeed does work very well. Accordingto FRANdata, which is an independent market research firm, over 4,000 new businesses were born in this way in 2009 alone, everything from fast food franchises to flower shops.

However, this route to business independence is not as easy as the brokers who advocate it make it sound. There is of course the obvious danger – that you are putting your nest egg on the line, a big gamble in itself– but you also have to agree to pay the rollover plan provider an annual fee for the entire life of your business. Some say that you will also potentially face extra scrutiny from the IRS, as although few rollover plans have been questioned until now, the IRS has indicated that it may indeed begin looking at them more closely.

Right now though although some financial experts believe they are operating in a gray area, working with a company offering a retirement rollover plan like this is legal and above board. They can work, businesses have been started and become highly profitable, enabling their owners to build an even larger nest egg than they had before.

In the end it all comes down to the biggest risk a startup business owner has to face – will this business succeed?And as we all know, no one can answer that question with certainty when they set up shop.

As a follow up of sorts to the last post it is just as important that you understand how your current customers and clients think and behave as it is the prospects you are chasing to help grow your start up business. The old 80/20 rule holds true for the majority of startup businesses –that is that 80% of your business will come from 20% of your customer base so keeping those people happy is essential.

What do you need to know about your customers? A few tips:

What their name is– Knowing what a client or customer’s name is without having to be reintroduced makes them feel special, and if you can achieve that you are well on your way to forming a lasting business relationship.

What you have donefor them Before – If you keep track of what your customers have purchased in the past, or the services your client has requested, you will have a good idea what they might buy or need again. You will also not have to waste time trying to sell them something they have no interest in.

How often they buy– Customers or clients who are only use your business occasionally are certainly better targets for an aggressive marketing campaign than your regulars but do not neglect your loyal customers either. Send out an informative monthly newsletter or a money saving coupon, they will appreciate it.

How Much they spend– If you try to sell a product or service to a customer that by their past purchases you should have realized is out of their price range chances are they will be embarrassed and/or offended enough to consider going elsewhere.

What they think aboutyour business – Getting feedback from your customers- especially the regular ones – is essential. Send out customer feedback cards, have a feedback form on your website or even pick up the phone to make a few friendly “how are you doing” calls once in a while.

It is of course not reasonable for you to keep all this information in your head (although some people can) so set up an accurate and comprehensive data base on your customers that makes it easy for you to retrieve the information quickly – your customers or clients will really appreciate it.

Many startup businesses in various different niches fail or succeed based on whether they can appeal (and sell to) their target demographic. In order to gain (and keep) customers it is vital that the startup business owner knows all about them before he or she even makes a sales pitch of any kind.Here is a short run down of the essential things you need to know about your potential customers in order to make them real ones:

Age Group – If you know that you are targeting a specific age group all the marketing that you do must be geared appropriately. That means cultural references, slang (within reason) and the locations you pitch at, on or offline all have to be age appropriate.

Location – Cultural norms and sensibilities tend to differ from area to area. The sales pitch you give to a New Yorker may have to be very different to the one you make to rural Midwesterner, even if you think they would both enjoy your product or service. Taking the time to learn about the areas you are hoping to sell in is very important.

Gender – Even though equal opportunity is here to stay men and women are still very different creatures and the way you make your sales pitch to the different genders should probably not be the same.

Marital Status –Attitudes about everything change once people get married or enter into a serious relationship. Make a pitch that is too family related to a single guy or gal and you will probably lose the sale right away – this is not the point in their life where they are that interested in such things.

What Keeps them Awake– Any marketing or advertising expert will tell you that fear is a great marketing tool. If you take the time to figure out how your product or service can appear to soothe a customers’ fear or concern it is half sold already.

For a handful of startup business owners, delegation comes easily and naturally. For the vast majority though, the idea of letting someone get their hands on any part of their new business baby is a terrifying one.

However, if you want your start up business to flourish and grow there quickly comes a time when you are just simply going to have to let someone else shoulder some of the burden. Here are some tips for delegating without driving yourself to despair:

Pick the Best People– This means giving work to people who actually deliver, not to those who are the least busy, or to those who are the cheapest. Check references and testimonials before you hire anyone, don’t just fall for some website hype.

Trust the People you Delegate to – And along with that trust you have to be willing to let the person you are delegating the task to bring a little of themselves to the table. The work still has to be done well of course but demanding that it’s “my way or the highway” is simply not on.

Give Clear Instructions – You are busy of course, but simply giving the person you are delegating to a two minute briefing and then expecting everything to work outthe way you want it to is simply unrealistic. The key is striking a balance between giving such minute instruction that you offend someone because they feel like you are treating them like an idiot and not explaining enough for them to get a grasp of what you really do expect from them.

Set up a Good Follow Up System – Establish specific deadlines at the beginning of each project but also get a system in place for reporting milestones along the way. This will save you having to send those “hey how are you doing?” emails every other day.

Give Credit Where Credit is Due – This is the really hard part for some start up business owners. An example? A woman who was running a fledgling, but promising virtual assistance business began delegating most of the tasks to others, but claimed all of the credit for herself. The end result? When the clients found out although they were happy with the work anyway they felt she was being dishonest and the woman also lost her best employees because they felt cheated and unappreciated.

Yes, it’s your business, but by giving credit to others when it is due you will inspire loyalty and provide real satisfaction for work done meaning that the chances are that these people will happily follow you and your business to the ends of the Earth if that’s what it takes to succeed and people like that are priceless.