Category: Recommendations

Inc.com: Everyone likes presents on their birthday — including your customers. Creating a “birthday club” could ensure that you have many happy returning customers.
Birthday Connections, a new service launched by Moving Targets, a Perkasie, Pa.-based direct-mail marketing company, allows small-business owners to create and send birthday offers based on specific demographics and geographic areas.
Such birthday programs are ideal for restaurants, nail salons, and other types of retail businesses that have limited ad budgets and not enough time or expertise for new marketing campaigns. Birthday Connections works with business owners to define a range of people they want to reach. Using Moving Target’s database technology, Birthday Connections can compile a mailing list for customers in a certain ZIP code, age range, gender, or even income bracket.
Business owners then create the terms of their offer — whether it be a free dessert or a 25 percent discount during the month of the customer’s birthday — and then choose the format for delivery, either a birthday card or a letter. Companies can also choose to use a pre-designed card or have Birthday Connections create a custom one for them with their company logo.
Birthday Connections then mails the offers around the month of each resident’s birthday. Based on market testing results, Birthday Connections will help business owners create the best offer for their company.
Looking for a New Way to Woo Customers? Try Birthday Presents [Inc.com]

Business Opportunities Blog: Despite many work places banning the use of sites such as Facebook and MySpace, online networking sites offer opportunities to interact with other businesses and customers without the constraints of cost or location.
Sites such as www.linkedin.com and www.konnects.com offer online networking specifically for the professional and commercial sectors* and can sometimes be more effective than traditional methods of networking such as trade shows, business clubs and breakfast meetings.
Social networking allows users to talk directly to new contacts and send people straight to their website. On some sites it is even possible for businesses to make money through selling subscriptions to their networks.
Social Networking Sites Good for Small Business [Business Opportunities Blog]

Businesspundit: It is tough to find good business partners. Starting a company takes a special type of person, and there aren’t many people out there that want to work on something outside of the normal 9-5 workday, let alone do it for free for awhile. On top of all that, you still have to find people that have similar values, interests, and work styles in order for your startup to succeed. I’ve been through quite a few partners over the years – not because they were bad, just because we were a bad fit. A few months ago a company launched that aimed to ease that process – Partnerup.com.
Partnerup is a fast and effective way to find people like you, looking for the same things. For finding business partners, it is much more efficient than offline networking. So if you are looking for someone to join you as you change the world, check out the site. It could save you a lot of time and trouble.
The Fastest Way to Find Good Business Partners [Businesspundit]

Small Business Trends Radio: Sometimes it can be hard to determine which of the many small business podcasts will provide what you need. So much audio, so little time.
So we have taken the guesswork out of it for you. We narrowed it down to 100 informative podcasts for small business owners and entrepreneurs.
Most of the following podcasts specifically target a small business audience. Others have a broader business focus. All, however, are relevant to business owners and entrepreneurs. Explore and listen, and see what you think of this list.
100 Small Business Audio Podcasts [Small Business Trends Radio]

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Lyro: Lyro is a service that helps people expand their individual-level professional identity on the Internet. In today’s global economy, it is more important than ever that each of us is discoverable online. Using technology, innovation, and user-driven features, it is the mission of Lyro to empower our customers through the formation and marketing of their personal-level professional brand, resulting in improved visibility and broader opportunities.
We provides an open, fully searchable, and user-driven tool for professional branding on the web. Some time back we had a thought – more of a question really. Why isn’t basic business contact information internet searchable and controllable at the individual level? As we looked at the marketplace, nowhere could we find a truly “open” product that made this information accessible online and also put control of the information in the hands of the individual. As we played around with new ways of displaying people’s basic contact information, the simple concept of an online business card emerged. After a little research, we realized that no one else was providing open, easily accessible online business cards. Although a web-based business card concept was novel, we questioned whether an online business by itself would be compelling enough to grow in popularity with millions of users. That more we talked with our customer base, the more we realized that they desired a product whose features were entirely driven by fellow users.
Lyro – http://www.lyro.com