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Finding the Perfect Payment Gateway
With billions of general purpose payment card transactions every year around the world—which The Nilson Report estimates will expand to 515.42 billion by 2024—choosing a secure, flexible payment gateway is crucial for retailers. As transaction numbers increase, black hat hackers see dollar signs everywhere from small eCommerce sites to major brick-and-mortar businesses. Manipulating the payment…
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The Secret to Effective Call-To-Action Buttons
The CTA (call to action) is the last step of your blog post, web page, newsletter or landing page. It may not seem as important as the body of the article or even the headline, but it is your final chance to get your readers to take the action that you want them to. Consider…
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21 Tools To Help You Quit Wasting Time On Social Media
You can’t go anywhere these days without hearing all about social media. Whether it’s tools (Facebook newsfeeds, Instagram Ads or Twitter’s top-trending hashtags) or experts (Hubspot, KISSmetrics or CoSchedule), businesses small and large are making use of these great advertising and communication channels. But if you read any blogs or newsletters on this subject, it…
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How Customer Complaints Could Actually Benefit Your Small Business
Most business owners fear customer complaints because all they see is the negative. But complaints can actually be a great opportunity to see your business from the customer’s point of view, alert you to problem areas or weaknesses, and fix them—which results in a positive reputation, excellent word-of-mouth marketing, and growth for your business. Keep…
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How To Build Your Email List and Why Email is Critical for Success
E-mail is a powerful relationship-building tool for B2C marketers. Research from Infusionsoft shows that Word-of-mouth marketing, which garnered 62 percent of the vote, is the most effective marketing tool. But you can’t always control WOM, so email marketing was voted as the second most effective marketing tool for small businesses. But how and why do…
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10 Things Small Businesses Should Know About 1099 Forms
The IRS is not known for making things easy. For small business owners especially, tax time is generally filled with frustration, uncertainty, and probably a few extra hours at your kickboxing class. Here are the answers to 10 of the most common questions that many small businesses have when it comes to 1099 forms. Which…
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What is Open Source?
The concept behind open source software was born in the 1980s and grounded in the belief that collaboration enhances function and that constant improvements are more important than strict propriety control. This type of software is created and shared by programmers to continually improve its code. Richard Stallman initiated the first project to develop a free…
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How to Identify and Market to your Target Audience
Even if you’re not a huge baseball fan, the famous line from Field of Dreams, “if you build it, they will come,” has become an encouraging motto about determination, perseverance, and being open to whatever surprises the universe has in store for you. A good marketing plan can follow this formula. By “building” your target…
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How To Keep Your Data Safe and Secure in the Cloud
Cloud computing is becoming more popular with every passing day. So popular, in fact, that Gartner—one of the world’s leading technology research and advisory firms—predicts that cloud computing will make up the majority of IT budgets as early as 2016. “The Cloud” is a metaphor for the Internet, so cloud computing simply means Internet-based computing.…
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Competitive Analysis 101
Whether you’re a startup or well established company, getting to know your competition can provide valuable information for your business plan. Creating a competitive analysis takes time and patience, but results in you knowing the marketplace inside and out and learning a lot about your own business too. Show both investors and clients the value…