Tag Archives: distribution

Distribution Methods Affect Bottom Line

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Selecting effective distribution channels is one of the most important decisions you will have to make as a small business owner.  Unlike pricing and packaging, which tend to be flexible choices, “the distribution and sales decisions, once made, are much more difficult to change.”  While your company may have products that would appeal to many different channels of distribution, when resources are limited, it is best to select a single or limited number of channels. In a recent post in BizFilings.com, the most crucial qualities to consider when selecting a distribution channel are discussed.  Some of these conditions include looking into the financial risks and commitment involved as well as the costs of entry compared to the competition.

Read more of this blog post, Distribution Methods Affect Bottom Line via BizFilings.com.

-Julia LaSalvia, Lexity 

Why Should Small Businesses Embrace e-Marketing?

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In a recent post by Jonathan Blomquist, the importance of online advertising is discussed. Online advertising has completely changed the way companies reach out to their customers.  According to Blomquist, “no longer do massive media agencies control the flow of information, generate awareness, and produce ads for struggling start-ups or thriving corporations.”  Anyone has the ability to reach an international audience and speak to them directly. This has dramatic implications for nearly every facet of operations: marketing strategies, product development, pricing strategies, advertising promotions, distribution channels, and specialized customer targeting are all affected. In the post, Blomquist advises businesses to embrace e-marketing and gives techniques to expand your business’ potential reach.

Read more of Jonathan Blomquist’s blog,  Why Should Small Businesses Embrace e-Marketing? via business2community.com

-Julia LaSalvia, Lexity 

 

 

Place (Sales and Distribution)

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What does “place”refer to in a small business marketing model? If you need to learn that it means how your product or service reaches your customer, then this article from smallbusinessnotes.com is just for you! “Place” refers not only to how your make your sales, but also to your distribution system. This insightful article about a very practical side of running a business—product distribution—points out several questions to ask yourself about your sales approach, cycle length, product delivery capacity and more.

See all the questions to ask yourself in this article Place (Sales and Distribution) via www.smallbusinessnotes.com

 

Distribution Methods Affect Bottom Line

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 Want to know how your choice of product distribution methods will effect your revenue? Read this useful article from Business Owner’s Toolkit to see what different distribution channels are available, the up-and-downsides of each and what to consider when making the one business decision that, along with sales decisions, is harder to change once made.  “Whether retail, wholesale or business-to-consumer, choosing the right distribution method to complement your product or service can be a boon to your bottom line.” Complete with compelling case studies, cost evaluation and a guide to evaluating your competition, bizfilings.com’s article is a must-read for any budding small business owner.

See the whole article entitled Distribution Methods Affect Bottom Line via www.bizfilings.com.

-Michelle Crawford, Lexity

Landing Overseas Distribution With Limited Resources

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Distribution

Savvy small business owners sometimes have to make tough decisions when faced with product distribution challenges. In her advice article entitled “Landing Overseas Distribution With Limited Resources” author Karen E. Klein helps a small business decide what to do when faced with “increased demand but scarce financial resources.” Its important to look at new opportunities with an eye toward measuring the risk-vs-reward. Factors like shipping and inventory costs can make or break different distribution deals that come your way, but with smart negotiations you may be able to take advantage of the opportunity without putting your business in peril.

Read all of Karen E. Klein’s highly useful article here: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-11/landing-overseas-distribution-with-limited-resources via www.businessweek.com

-Michelle Crawford, Lexity

Stanford’s Entrepreneurship Corner: Drew Houston, Dropbox

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Distribution

What is your distribution strategy? If you have only thought of traditional methods such as PR, AdWords and SEO for your startup so far, Dropbox Co-Founder Drew Houston gives some points to consider on the success of some of the “guerilla-style” successes the company had in their efforts to grow their user base in this interesting video from Stanford’s Entrepreneurship Corner. Hear how a “linkbait” video they made in their first year with viral video file names solved their distribution problem overnight!

Watch the video at Stanford’s Entrepreneurship Corner: Drew Houston, Dropbox via ecorner.stanford.edu

-Michelle Crawford, Lexity

Case Study: Using Contests To Build Links

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Regardless of how much you know about SEO (search engine optimization), it’s helpful to know that contest marketing can help improve the distribution of your site content — through the influx of back links, that is. In the case of a client, Debra—for LinkSpiel—praises the positive benefits of contest marketing for businesses who are entrenched in highly specific and highly populated markets (specifically where massive amounts of content can be found). She says, “[A] contest and the principle behind it will work for any industry, as long as you target a specific group and understand what motivates them. If you’re looking for a new twist or a fresh link building idea, consider hosting a contest. Everyone’s a winner if you do.”

But, how do you go about creating a contest?

To find out, check out Debra’s article, Case Study: Using Contests To Build Links.

-Christopher Lin, Lexity

LinkedIn is the Best Social Network for Improving SEO

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Short and sweet, being shared on LinkedIn improves the distribution of your site content. As Pam Dyer (Pamorama) notes, “According to an article on the SEOmoz blog, Zarrella compiled a database of 25,000+ URLs that had been shared at least once on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The URLs were all at least one month old and had a minimum of one incoming link. The study found that, while Facebook and Twitter users share the most links to content, the number of links directed at that content is higher per share via LinkedIn.” With these facts in hand, it’s important to recognize that your business should already have a LinkedIn page. If not, go ahead and set one up. As you begin to think about your SEO (search engine optimization) strategy, prioritize sharing content through LinkedIn while never forgetting to also share content across Twitter, Facebook and of course, Google+. 

To read more about LinkedIn and how it can help your distribution, head over to Dyer’s article, LinkedIn is the Best Social Network for Improving SEO. 

-Christopher Lin, Lexity

How to Optimize Content When You Don’t Know Jack about SEO

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This post’s intended for the small business owners who are just beginning to master the art of SEO (search engine optimization)—and for those who may not even know where to begin. As opposed to giving you a laundry list of things to do to improve the distribution of your site content, it’s the most important to just know where to start.

The main goal underlying SEO is to have your site “found” by users entering a specific search query. Here’s an example: say, you sell flowers. In terms of SEO, the main objective, then, is to be “found” by users who type the phrase “sells flowers” into a search engine. Sounds easy enough. But, it gets a little more complicated when others sell flowers online as well. To filter the thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of online flower shops, then, search engines rank each website based on its relevance to the search query at hand — i.e. how relevant is your store to the query, “sells flowers.” How do they do this? They crawl your site for relevant keywords and content. No matter how fancy your site looks, the written word (keywords) dominates the realms of search engine rankings.

So, say you want to increase traffic to your site based on the relative popularity of a specific keyword (or set of keywords). How do you determine how popular some keywords are, as opposed to others? ”You can consult the free Google Adwords Keyword Tool to get some insights. Type in a potential keyword and the site tells you how many people are searching for it in a given month and how much competition there is, based on advertising spend for sponsored links” (Kevin Cain, Content Marketing Institute). In a very simple explanation, using relevant keywords matched with their popularity can (but doesn’t always) improve the distribution of your site content across search engine results pages.

To learn more about SEO and how to improve the distribution of your site, read Kevin Cain’s knowledgeable article, How to Optimize Content When You Don’t Know Jack about SEO.

-Christopher Lin, Lexity

11 Things You Didn’t Know About Yelp

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Aside from using high ranking keywords in your content or adding rich snippets* to your site, great distribution of your site content (and thus, great SEO) can come from great customer service. Regardless of whether or not you understand how search engine optimization works—after all, it can sometimes sound like a foreign language!—higher rankings across search engines oftentimes result from better reviews. And better reviews on sites like Yelp come from better customer service. Todd Wasserman (Mashable) says, ”Yelp’s research has found that a customer whose review praises “customer service” is more than five times as likely to give a 5-star review than a 1-star review. Similarly, nearly 70% of those who trash a business’ customer service wind up giving a 1-star review.” And those “stars” can greatly affect whether or not your site rises to the top of a search engine results page (SERP). Instead of fretting over cracking the mysteries of SEO and search engine rankings, focusing your energies on delivering great customer service can deliver even more promising results. 

You don’t need to be a technological genius to improve the distribution of your site on search engines like Google or Bing. First things first, you just need to be friendly!

To read more about Yelp and how it can affect the distribution of your site content, head over to Todd Wasserman’s article for Mashable, 11 Things You Didn’t Know About Yelp.

-Christopher Lin, Lexity

*Note: Don’t worry if you don’t know what “rich snippets” mean.