Daily Biz Solutions

Guest Post By Janna Benitez, Vistaprint

 

With the holiday season fast approaching, small business owners are sure to see the number of hats they wear grow. Not only is there planning holiday sales, staffing and company holiday parties, but there is also gift buying and events with family and friends. With this whirlwind of happenings, it is easy to overlook a vital aspect of the business – the customers. While holiday sales will help drive them to you for holiday purchases, this is also a time to thank them for being loyal customers. Sending a small token of your appreciation to your customers will go a long way in building up customer loyalty.   No matter what your budget, here are five solutions to extend a perfect thank you to your patrons during the holidays.

 

·         Holiday Cards – Perhaps the easiest and most cost-effective way to let your customers know that you are thinking of them over the holidays is with a holiday card. No matter what your budget is, there are countless solutions both in stores and online that can get out your season’s greetings. A great way to add a truly personal touch is to personally sign or add a note to each card. If you want to reinforce your brand image, you can also create a card with a wintry image of your business or include your logo to the front or inside of the card. Holiday cards also offer the ability to insert a coupon to help drive additional traffic to your business.

·         Re-usable Bags – It seems that everyone is ditching paper and plastic bags to jump on the green wagon.  This trend offers a number of unique benefits during the holiday season. The first is giving a gift that gives back, instead of simply giving the bags to your customers; you can charge a nominal fee and donate the proceeds to charity.  Even if you decide to give the bags away, you will gain brand recognition whenever you bag is used whether it’s in your store, a competitor’s shop or just around town. Not only will your customers gain a useful gift, but you’ll gain countless views of your brand.

·         Calendars – With the holiday season falling in the last month of the year, there is one gift that all of your customers can use – a calendar. Creating a custom calendar for your business is not only timely, but it also allows you to add key dates, sales and coupons into each month. To add a personal touch you can also customize pictures to correspond with certain months of the year, like a little league team that you sponsor, toy drive, etc. These images give a glimpse into what your business is all about and gives the connotation that you are more of a friend than just another business.

·         Wearables – Everyone loves free shirts and other wearables. For the customer it’s something that they can wear around, and for the business it’s a moving billboard that can be seen by countless potential customers around town. Depending on your customer base and your budget, you can mix and match items like hats, T-shirts, sweatshirts or simply stick to the one that fit your business.

·         Mugs – Perhaps the most utilized item in any kitchen cabinet is a coffee mug. Giving a branded mug to your customers will keep your company on the tip of their lips. If they happen to be looking to remodel or add an addition to their home, there’s no better way to grab their attention than with a cup of Joe. To add a little spice and holiday cheer, you can fill them with candy or other goodies before delivering.

No matter what choice you choose, make sure to take time to thank those who support you all year long. Any gesture no matter how small will go a long way in customer retention especially in this economy.

 

About the Author

Janna Benitez is a senior product marketing specialist at Vistaprint, the company that provides high-impact personalized products and services for small businesses and the home. For more gift-giving or holiday options check out www.vistaprint.com.

 

By Steve Adams

It seems like the pundits are always predicting the end of this or that. Remember when eCommerce first became popular and they said there would be no more brick and mortar stores? Last time I looked, the retail malls by me were busier than ever. Or how home theater systems and video on demand would put the local multiplex out of business? Nice job on that prediction too.
Then there was the demise of the fax. The “wise ones” said that with e-mail on every computer, faxing as a means of communication would become nothing but a distant memory. They really missed the boat on that one, since according to analyst organization IDC the market for faxes is $80 billion and growing – as are the number of pages transmitted each year. Both are far higher than in faxing’s supposed heyday in the mid-1980s.
Of course, some things should go away as progress delivers better ways of doing them. Surround sound has made theater movies much more interactive than when all the sound came from behind the screen. And Internet fax services have made sending and receiving faxes much more efficient.
If you haven’t made the move yet, following are seven signs that you might want to retire that old fax machine or fax server and replace it with an Internet fax service.

1. There are so many faxed pages on your floor that the U.S. Olympic Committee has asked if they can use your office to train the Alpine skiing team. High-volume faxing, like the type that is performed in real estate, insurance, construction, and other industries, can use up a lot of paper. Documents often wind up on the floor when no one is keeping an eye on the machine. Internet fax services allow all faxes to be delivered directly to your PC, laptop, PDA, or other device, eliminating the need to sort faxes after delivery.
2. You hear the fax machine ringing constantly – even when you’re not at the office. While it’s not quite as bad as hearing voices in your head, phantom ringing can still be annoying. Internet fax services use the Internet instead of phone lines to connect you with the outside world, putting an end to the endless ringing of fax machines.
3. Everyone in the office seems to know the most intimate details about your latest business proposal, medical condition, divorce, traffic accident, etc. And why shouldn’t they, when Madge the Office Gossip is also Madge the person in charge of delivering faxes when they come in. She can’t help reading them before dropping them off, which gives her an extra special glimpse into everyone’s business and personal lives. Internet fax services offer far greater privacy by going directly into your e-mail account or remaining on a secure server. If Madge wants to learn the intimate details of your life, she’s going to have to get them the old-fashioned way – by putting a glass against the wall in the next office or hiding under your desk.
4. That important fax you were waiting for comes in looking like some psychologist’s ink blot test. Unless you were actually waiting for an ink blot test to arrive, getting a fax that’s dark and filled with splotches where words and pictures are supposed to be can cause you to lose hours or even days on a job. Internet fax services not only deliver faxes cleaner (by not losing a generation in transmission); as electronic documents they often can be lightened or otherwise adjusted to make them more readable – and usable.
5. You find yourself playing “name that tune” with the phone tones while sending the same fax to multiple recipients. Sending faxes one at a time to multiple recipients can be very boring and time consuming. Internet fax services allow you to send to an unlimited number of recipients at once, the same way you would send multiple e-mails. It may not be as much fun as playing “name that tune,” but it’s a lot more efficient.
6. You can recite the 12-step instructions on how to scan a page into the document management system by heart, despite the fact that you can’t remember what you had for lunch. Electronic document management (EDM) is being required by many organizations to meet Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, or even internal corporate governance initiatives. Faxes that come in via paper have to be entered into the system somehow – usually by being scanned and converted to electronic form by someone who has more important things to do than scan documents. Faxes sent through Internet fax services are already in electronic form, so they can generally be uploaded as-is. Better services offer conversion to a choice of formats to work better with your EDM system.
7. You find out your local phone company has named you “customer of the year.” That can only mean one thing – you’re spending way too much on telecom costs. Internet fax services use the Internet connection you already have instead of special phone lines, allowing you to realize significant savings on monthly service charges and maintenance. That also means mobile workers can log in and send/receive faxes anywhere they can get an Internet connection, not just at the office, saving both time and money.

Steve Adams is Vice President of Marketing for MyFax (www.myfax.com), a provider of Internet faxing services for individual home users, small businesses, and large corporations. MyFax has won a number of awards in head-to-head competitions for ease of use, reliability, and best overall value. He can be reached at [email protected]

Internet fax technology saves paper and is more energy efficient.

It may seem like a small step, but businesses that switch from traditional faxing to Internet faxing can actually have a big impact on helping save the environment.

“There is a domino effect involved,” says Joseph Nour, CEO of Protus IP Solutions, the provider of MyFax, one of the leading Internet fax services available internationally. “Internet faxing reduces the amount of paper a business uses. The ability to work with less paper not only helps conserve trees, it reduces the burden on paper mills, meaning less carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere.”

Electrical power creates carbon dioxide, which scientists say is the leading cause of global warming. The U.S. Department of Energy ranks paper production second to petroleum in energy use among major industries, meaning enabling the mills to use less electricity is a big boost to the environment.

Opting for an Internet faxing service is one way to reduce both paper and power in the office. Energy Star, a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy, considers fax machines among the most “energy-intensive” type of business equipment because these machines often use electricity around the clock waiting for faxes that may be sent at any hour.
Because Internet faxing is a digitally centric technology, it allows users to send and receive documents via e-mail. That means there are no fax machines or fax servers taking up valuable space, constantly using electricity and creating carbon dioxide. Instead, with an Internet fax service like MyFax, the computer where someone receives the email fax does not need to be on to accept the transmission; it only needs to be running when someone is actually working on the computer.

There are other environmental issues that make Internet faxing a socially responsible technology to adopt as well. Dangerous bleaching chemicals such as chlorine, sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide are used as whitening agents to make fax paper. Fax machines also require ink cartridges, which ultimately take up precious landfill space unless they are recycled.

Earlier this year, Technology Marketing Corporation’s (TMC) Communications Solutions Magazine awarded MyFax the 2006 Product of the Year Award. TMC President and Group Editor-in-Chief of Communications Solutions Rich Tehrani said , “MyFax has proven they are committed to quality and excellence in solutions that benefit the customer experience as well as ROI for the companies that use them.”
And, in a review of Internet fax services, PC Magazine rates MyFax the best value for price of industry competitors. MyFax is available for only $10 USD per month or $110 USD per year. This price includes 100 outbound pages and 200 inbound pages per month. Volume pricing is also available.
With energy costs continuing to rise, that’s a bonus for business and a boon for the environment.

About MyFax
MyFax is the fastest growing Internet fax service used by individuals, small, medium and large businesses to send and receive faxes using existing email accounts or the web. MyFax offers services in North America, Europe and the UK to industries recognized among the fastest growing adopters of internet fax including finance, insurance, real estate, healthcare, transportation and government. More than 10,000 new customers subscribe to MyFax each month. Additional information is available at www.myfax.com.

Trademarks referenced in this news release are the property of their respective owners.

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For more information, please contact:

Sue Rutherford, Protus IP Solutions Inc.
613 -733-0000 x 519 or [email protected]

Tracy Shryer, Tech Image
847-279-0022 x230 or [email protected]

If you are looking for a way to market your product, look no further than the pens that you have stacked in your office. Giving away promotional pens is a cost effective marketing option that reaps great results. Pens are cheap, you can stock a large number of them and they can be distributed easily. They are also very effective at marketing your products as hundreds of people are sure to see the printing on their barrels that show your company logo.

Choosing a good type of promotional pens is definitely very important. You want your pens to be of high quality so that every time you give one away, you can be sure that it will write. Then, you will also want a pen with a sizable enough barrel that will allow you to print a logo or the name of your company.

One good pen to use for your promotional pen campaign is the Bic Solis Y113. These pens certainly have a lot of brand mileage behind them. They are generally trustworthy and they write well, so you can be assured that the “quality” will not be compromised. The Bic Solis also has a sizable enough printing area which should fit your design as long as you do not overfill it. The pen itself is also quite functional. It features a twist action retractable ballpoint and it has its own built in stylus. The person you give this pen to will surely appreciate the quality of the pen as well.

Tina Rinaudo is one of the leading lights in the UK promotional pens industry. Tina is a key member of YesGifts, the UK’s fastest growing online promotional items resource specialising in promotional pens, mugs, mouse mats, umbrellas, conference items and much more.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tina_Rinaudo

Trying to get a handle on the complex world of small business taxes? There are plenty of good resources available, both online and offline, for free and not-so-free.

I’m assuming you want to postpone spending any money on a topic you may prefer not to touch with a ten-foot pole let alone a ten-dollar bill. So let’s review some of the least expensive tax resources available. Is free a good price for you?
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