Almost every business has it’s own email list, which is one of it’s most valuable assets.  But an important question to ask regarding your business is how effect is your email list?  Over the years, marketers have had to get very creative to engage their audience enough to get them to submit their email addresses.  To build your email list, use the below ideas:

1. Provide information: users like receiving relevant articles, to do lists, effective tips, and useful resources that will help enhance their knowledge.
2. Interactive tools: everyone needs an easy to access calculator or template, why not be the one to provide it?  Before you know it, users will come to you for additional resources.
3. Deals: With the economy on it’s way to recovery, many users are still looking for deals.  Offer exclusive deals only to your email subscribers.

After you engage a user long enough to collect their email address, send them constant and relevant information and newsletters.  Before you know it, the user will have build a relationship with your business.

For many mom-and-pop shops with no ad budget, Twitter has become their sole means of marketing.  It is far easier to set up and update a Twitter account than to maintain a web page.  Twitter is a way for small business owners to talk directly to customers in a way that they were able to do only in person before, this helps to shorten the emotional distance between businesses and their customers.

Twitter is the digital manifestation of word of mouth, allowing users to broadcast messages of up to 140 characters in length, and the culture of the service encourages people to spread news to friends in their own network.

Twitter is not just for businesses that want to lure customers but it can help find both suppliers and customers nationwide.  It can give a small business national presence in a way only large marketing and advertising budgets have allowed in the past.  Twitter is also a great place for information.  For example you can learn business tax tips from an accountant, marketing tips from a consultant in Tennessee and start-up tips from the founder of several tech companies.

Click here to create your free Twitter account today and start connecting!

Google is the number one search engine in the US with a market share of 65.0%. Yahoo has 19.6% and Microsoft has 8.4% of the market share. Since Yahoo and Microsoft don’t have even 25% of the market share, many advertisers were not willing to work with them. The solution, Microhoo! CNN states, “This deal is really about scale,” said Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz on a conference call. “By combining the … technology of both companies, we can create a real, viable alternative for advertisers.”

What does this mean to small business owners? Additional medium to effectivey advertiser and reach your customers.

In 2007, before the recession started, Congress signed a legislation that increased the minimum wage to $5.85, followed by another increase in 2008 to $6.55, and now the final hike to $7.25. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis says, “Between 3 million and 5 million people will be affected by the minimum wage rise from $6.55 per hour to $7.25 per hour”

If you are a small business owner, how does this affect you during this recession? According to “Robert Mayfield, who owns five Dairy Queen restaurants in central Texas, ‘don’t expect any increased spending to offset the added salary expenses.’”

To check exactly how much the minimum wage increased in your state, click here.