Beacons - The Future of Marketing

As a small business owner, it is important for you to stay up to date with the latest technology and innovations available to help you with your business.  Today, an emerging technology is the beacon.

Beacons are devices that allow business owners to push messages to customers cell phones when they come within a certain distance of the device. Messages are sent using the bluetooth technology in the customer's phone and messages can be placed onto beacons via the cloud.

One company that is pioneering beacon technology is Piper.  Piper is an app in the iTunes App Store that users can download for free and interact with beacons and also chat with nearby friends who also have the app downloaded. The company has partnered with McDonald's in Columbus, Ga and has placed beacons in all Columbus McDonald's locations. The beacons send out messages to customers in the drive thru and in the restaurant and push out special coupons that can be added to the Passbook app on the iPhone.

Make sure you watch out for beacons and companies like Piper in the coming years. Maybe as early as 2015, you will be able to use this technology in your own business and interact with your customers in a whole new way.

Blogging is Good for Business

After creating several profiles on social media platforms, often times, business owners overlook the benefits of blogging.  Here are three good reasons you should keep up with a blog.

1. Blogging is good for SEO

SEO is short for search engine optimization. It allows you to help your customers find you online. When you blog about different topics that your customers are interested in, your business will show up higher in search results when your customers use online search engines. By using Google Analytics, you can see what keywords your customers use when they go to your website and use those words as topics for your blog posts or you can blog about other things you would like web searchers to visit your website for.

2. Blogging makes you look like an expert

When you blog, you are sharing opinions, research, and information with people who want to consume your content. Blogging allows you to extend your influence. For example, if you owned a small pottery store in a small town in Alabama, you could write blogs about pottery and attract readers from across the world who like pottery. When blogging, make sure that you try not to post things that aren't true. You want to make readers realize that you are trustworthy and an expert when it comes to what you do. Then, when they are in the market to buy whatever you make or do, they will probably visit you first.

3. Blogging allows you to make your website appear up to date

One of the many ways your website is judged by consumers is looking at when it was last updated.  Constantly changing the content for a small company's website can involve a lot of work. Instead, you can link your blog posts to your website and give your customers something more "up to date" to read. A website that isn't updated regularly can cause customers to question whether or not the business is still open. A website that is kept up to date and links to a recent blog post lets the customer know that your business is alive and thriving!