One of the biggest problems facing small businesses is poor planning. As unlike larger corporations who can afford to waste money testing ideas choosing the wrong idea for a small business can be disastrous and possibly lead to them going out of business. Instead they should focus on ideas which have begin shown time and again to be profitable. Research has shown the 5 most profitable small business ideas to be local marketing, Cragslist, online marketing, optimizing a website for the search engines and keep your customers happy. Some of these things you might have a rough idea about while others will make you go huh but by the time you’ve finished reading you’ll be familiar with them and ready to use them in your business.

Read the rest of this entry

By Jeff Cornwall

The media and consumers are moving into the digital world at a dizzying pace.

For the media, this means offering their content in digital form, whether that content originally was in print, on TV or on the radio. All media outlets, especially local media, need to get better at monetizing the digital expressions of their core properties. (Translation: They need to make money online.) Marketers who depend on those local media need to grasp this concept.

Read the rest of this entry