U.S. Postal Service to aid small business marketing efforts

While today's small business may be adopting social media and online business promotion technologies at a more rapid rate - often at the expense of traditional print techniques - the United States Postal Service has launched a new effort to show entrepreneurs that direct mail should still be a part of their marketing mix.

The USPS is hosting more than 1,300 "Grow Your Business" days across the country to introduce its new program, called Every Door Direct Mail, Post & Parcel reports.

The program was devised after receiving feedback from small business owners who said that certain permit and mailing fees as well as mailing list requirements were proving to be financial barriers to companies that wanted to use direct mail services such as saturation mailing.

And already, the program appears to be popular. Despite only being open for registration since last week, approximately 500 small businesses have already signed up, David Mastevich, manager of catalogs, periodicals and saturation mail for the USPS, told the source.

"We're getting very, very good stories from businesses across the country, that this is fitting with exactly what they are looking for," he added.

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Google's online marketing services 'top brand'

Search engine marketing providers may be interested in the results of a new survey that has found Google is the most respected brand in the UK.
The search engine and multimedia firm topped the TNS Corporate Reputation Index 2010, which assessed companies on factors including their favourability, trustworthiness and quality.
Other technology brands also placed highly in the poll, with Apple and Sony coming in third and fourth positions respectively.
Seven out of ten people thought Google's service quality was 'excellent' or 'very good, while Microsoft was also in the top ten for this category.
Head of stakeholder management at TNS Gemma Hicks said: "We are seeing high reputation scores being driven mostly by a strong reaction to company success, proving that people are a lot more rational in their assessment of reputation."
Recently it was stated by Econsultancy's senior research analyst Jake Hird that Google's popularity is such that it would take major negative changes to drive people away from the service.
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Taking Care of Business Taxes

What did people who run small businesses do before tax software came along? Thankfully, the days of dumping boxes full of receipts on an accountant's desk are long gone. Today,.as the owner-operator of a small business, you have more options than ever for filing tax returns, including versions of popular desktop packages--H&R Block, TaxAct, and TurboTax--specifically geared toward individuals with small-business income.
Of course, small businesses come in many sizes and configurations. If you've filed papers to set up your business as a formal entity--a partnership, an LLC (limited liability company), an S corporation, a nonprofit, or a trust--then you'll have to file separate federal (and probably state) tax returns for that entity, in addition to your personal 1040. But if you haven't, the feds consider your business to be a sole proprietorship, and you can deal with it, taxwise, through Schedule C on your personal return.
For this review, we examined the desktop versions of H&R Block at Home Premium, Intuit TurboTax Home & Business, and 2nd Story Software TaxAct Deluxe, paying special attention to Schedule C and related features. Why desktop software? It's true that Web-based versions of these programs and Web-only competitors such as Complete Tax (which underwent a major overhaul this year) are gaining in popularity, but many businesspeople are still reluctant to entrust sensitive financial data to the cloud--and to depend on Internet connections to access it.
Note that as usual, tax software vendors play numbers games by promoting inexpensive federal returns and then charging heavily for state returns and state e-filing services. Since the vast majority of states impose income taxes, most people will wind up paying a lot more than the low advertised price for the federal software.
This year, TurboTax remains the best and the priciest package of the bunch, while H&R Block's software provides a somewhat less expensive alternative with less detailed but still solid help. TaxAct, by far the least costly of the group, offers significantly fewer features; if you expect to have a lot of tax questions, you're probably better off paying more for a competitor.

Everyday Marketing: What is the Goal of Marketing?

Personally, I believe the goal of marketing is to make your name known to everyone. Certainly if you are a small local business, everyone in your local area should know who you are, where you are and do business with you. I hope that makes sense.
So how do you get to that place? It’s simple! Advertise.
Advertising gets your message out to the masses, and it’s more affordable than you think. If people in your area have a favorite newspaper, advertise in it. If people in your area have a favorite restaurant, advertise on their placemats. If people in your area have a favorite website, radio station or television channel, advertise on them.
You need to create top-of mind-awareness. Because we’re the flawed humans that we are, we need reminders. People forget things, especially in the busy times we live in. And trust me, the older people get, the more they forget.
You should also collect as much information from your customers as possible. Ask them for their name, mailing address, phone number, email address and cell phone number. You need this information in the instance you want to send them a direct mail piece, email or text message.
Speaking of mobile marketing, you’re going to see that industry explode very quickly.

Back to business: Cairo is bustling again

CAIRO: Life began to return to the streets of Cairo on Sunday as banks and shops opened after nine days and the army stepped up its presence around Tahrir Square, epicentre of anti-regime protests.

As demonstrators staged a 13th day of protests against Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, banks began to reopen, and streets that have been nearly devoid of traffic filled up with vehicles, causing traffic jams.
"Thank God. Over the past 10 days I was hardly earning enough to pay for petrol and my shisha (water pipe)," said a taxi driver.

Workers at a McDonald's outlet scrubbed down front windows that had been whitewashed after the outbreak of demonstrations and the sudden absence of police, which triggered a wave of looting. "We'll open in half an hour," said an employee as others hurriedly mopped the floor.

Traffic jams returned to the traditionally crowded streets of Cairo, a city of around 20 million people, and the air was once again full of the sounds of car horns as people went back to work.

Police, who disappeared from Cairo's streets after violent clashes with demonstrators, had also returned, manning street corners and traffic circles. With their return, the so-called popular committees that have been standing guard in residential neighbourhoods to protect against looters had been noticeably reduced in areas toured by reporters.

Banks reopened across the city, and Egyptians queued to access their accounts. The central bank has limited daily personal cash withdrawals to 50,000 Egyptian pounds or $10,000. Some 150 people queued outside an HSBC branch in Giza.

The Fifth Shift in Business Technology

At the IBM Lotusphere conference on Monday in Orlando, IBM Collaboration Solutions General Manager Alistair Rennie described major shifts in how technology has transformed business over the decades: the Mainframe, Departmental computing, the PC, and the Internet. To this he added Social Business as the next major shift. Each of these have had a tremendous impact not only in computing, but more so for how businesses organize and execute their business operations. Each of the prior technologies has been so transformative and necessary that we cannot imagine our lives without them.
Mr. Rennie described shifts like these as “really rare.” What is more “as rare as these shifts are, the early predictions about [their impact] are usually underappreciated.” He showed a number of infamous mis-reads of technology shifts:
- Thomas Watson of IBM Chairman in 1943 before the mainframe age: “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
- Kenneth Olsen, Digital Equipment Corp. Chairman & CEO in 1977, about the PC: “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.”

Business leaders see need for 'inclusive' Davos

Business leaders rounded off this year's World Economic Forum on Sunday with a call - and in some cases a pledge - to make sure the poor benefit more from any global economic revival.
Executives at the annual meeting of the global elite in Davos, Switzerland, said growth needs to be "inclusive" or the world will experience more of the unrest seen recently in Tunisia and Egypt.
Chanda Kochhar, chief executive of India's ICICI bank, said the challenge was "can we create enough basic facilities" such as schools, roads and housing to ensure growth really benefits everyone.
Jacob Wallenberg, who sits on the board of The Coca-Cola Co, said his company was working to ensure safe water supplies to communities where it operates. Coca-Cola has in the past been accused of exploiting wells for its softdrinks production at the expense of the local population.
Non-governmental groups have been lobbying business leaders in Davos to be more responsible or face greater regulation.
"The time for voluntary standards for businesses in relation to meeting human rights obligations is over," the head of Amnesty International, Salil Shetty, told The Associated Press earlier in the week.
"We now need to have mandatory standards," he said, adding that business leaders risk reaping the same grass roots anger as politicians if they don't become better corporate citizens. "It might not look practical, but don't wait for what happened in Tunisia to happen to you."
China Ocean Shipping's CEO Wei Jiafu said food price rises could eventually force up the cost of other commodities and lead to politically risky inflation around the world.
Wallenberg, of Coca-Cola, told the few leaders who remained for Sunday's closing sessions that the time for deliberating about the state of the world was over.

Business Highlights

The government-appointed panel investigating the roots of the financial crisis says the meltdown occurred because government officials and Wall Street executives ignored warning signs and failed to manage risks.
The crisis could have been avoided, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission determined in a final report released Thursday that was only supported by Democrats on the panel. Instead the country fell into the deepest recession since the 1930s and millions of people lost their jobs, the congressionally appointed panel concluded.
The Bush and Clinton administrations, the current and previous Federal Reserve chairmen, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner all bear some responsibility for allowing the crisis to happen, the panel said.
It also criticized bankers who got rich by creating trillions of dollars in risky investments. The deals grew so complex that bank executives and regulators did not understand them, the report found, and banks discouraged aggressive oversight of their activities, saying the government's interference would stifle financial innovation.
P&G, Colgate profit squeeze means prices to rise
CINCINNATI (AP) - Shoppers can expect some higher prices as the makers of toothpaste, soap and other everyday household products see their profit margins pinched by rising ingredient costs.