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How to use broadband Internet, the Web and social media a primer for small businesses

Highspeed Internet Service for Oxford County residents and businesses

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Table of Contents

1  Executive summary ..................................................................................................... 4 

1.1  What is the Rural Oxford Connections (ROC) project ........................................ 4 

1.2  How to get connected ........................................................................................... 4 

1.3  Benefits of broadband access to the Internet ........................................................ 4 

2  What is the Rural Oxford Connections (ROC) project ............................................... 6 

3  How to get connected.................................................................................................. 7 

3.1  Five easy steps ...................................................................................................... 7 

4  How to use it ............................................................................................................... 9 

4.1  Brand identity ....................................................................................................... 9 

4.2  Web site home .................................................................................................... 10 

4.3  Web site design and navigation .......................................................................... 11 

4.4  Security ............................................................................................................... 12 

4.5  Payment .............................................................................................................. 12 

4.6  Marketing ........................................................................................................... 13 

4.6.1  Branding ...................................................................................................... 14 

4.6.2  Market research ........................................................................................... 14 

5  Supply chain.............................................................................................................. 16 

6  Advertising and promotion ....................................................................................... 17 

6.1  Viral advertising and social media ..................................................................... 17 

7  Cultivating and connecting with customers .............................................................. 19 

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8  Selling services and products .................................................................................... 20 

9  After-sales support .................................................................................................... 21 

10  Farm business uses and applications ......................................................................... 22 

10.1  Apps ................................................................................................................ 22 

11  Small business uses and applications ........................................................................ 24 

11.1  Apps ................................................................................................................ 25 

12  Endnotes .................................................................................................................... 27 

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1 Executive summary

The following is a summary of this report:

1.1 What is the Rural Oxford Connections (ROC) project

Is a $3 million broadband infrastructure project to deliver high-speed services to unserved and underserved rural farm businesses and other small businesses throughout the County of Oxford through the fall of 2011. The project is funded by the Province of Ontario, County of Oxford, and Execulink Telecom.

1.2 How to get connected

To get connected to the ROC broadband network, the best place to start is by visting www.ruraloxfordconnections.ca and the follow the step-by-step process. Those interested in subscribing will be redirected to Execulink’s Web page, http://www.execulink.ca/roc/order.php. If you don’t have access to the Internet, call Execulink at 519-424-9801.

1.3 Benefits of broadband access to the Internet and Web

Broadband access to the Internet enables small businesses and farm businesses to compete as follows:

11.. Supply chain – gain access to suppliers, financiers, insurers, research, and markets for your products and services.

22.. Advertising and promotion – market to your prospects and existing customers on around the world or across the street.

33.. Cultivating and connecting with customers – use the social media in conjunction with your Web presence to attract and retain customers by frequently engaging them in topics each of your care about.

44.. Selling services and products – the potential market online is many times greater than the market in your community, so the Web offers unique opportunity for sales growth.

55.. After-sales support – supporting your services and products is faster and easier online where you can reach customers at their convenience around the clock.

66.. Farm business uses and applications – there is a vast and continuously growing array of farm business applications available for use on your personal computer and smart phone, integrated together to make using applications easier and more accessible in the office or in the field.

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77.. Small business uses and applications – specialty and highly customizable small business applications abound giving small business people tools to compete for business like a larger enterprise.

For additional details on the project and how to use broadband access effectively for your small or farm business, please read on.

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2 What is the Rural Oxford Connections (ROC) project

On June 19, 2009 the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs announced that the County of Oxford is one of 14 municipalities selected to receive broadband funding from the Province’s Rural Connections Program. Rural Connections ... The Ontario Municipal Rural Broadband Partnership is a $30 million, four-year initiative designed to reduce broadband infrastructure gaps in underserved rural regions in southern Ontario.

The availability of the nearly $1 million as a one third contribution from the province enables the County to select an Internet Service Provider to build a more than $3 million in broadband network infrastructure to deliver high-speed services to unserved and underserved rural residents of the County. When completed all areas of the County will have a 75% or better chance of access to affordable broadband Internet. Through a competitive selection process, Execulink Telecom, Inc., has been chosen to build a high speed wireless network to service our businesses and residents.

The total approved budget for the project is $2,965,000 which is subject to finalization prior to commencement of the procurement phase of the project, therefore actual dollar amounts and allocations shown below may vary. The cash contribution by the OMAFRA is one-third up to a maximum of $988,333. The County of Oxford has committed in-kind attachment and collocation assets valued at a maximum of $665,000.

Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) have been partners to previous County of Oxford broadband projects, including those funded by OMAFRA, which have successfully extended the availability of open access networks to provide high speed local access service to government and near-government organizations on a point-to-point basis. This new project further extends broadband to nearly all smalls businesses in the County.

Once completed, this network infrastructure will be wholly-owned and operated by Execulink. However, this network will be openly accessible to any ISP wishing to provide reliable service to residents and small business through this infrastructure. According to OMAFRA, “open access means that other telecommunications service providers must be accorded access to the local access infrastructure facilities funded under the Rural Connections Broadband Program in order to offer a competitive service.”

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3 How to get connected

To get connected to the ROC broadband nework, the best place to start is by visting www.ruraloxfordconnections.ca and the follow the step-by-step process. Those interested in subscribing will be redirected to Execulink’s Web page, http://www.execulink.ca/roc/order.php. If you don’t have access to the Internet, call Execulink at 519-424-9801.

A customer installation, from the initial request for service to the final testing of the installation takes about 30-days as shown in Table 1. When a service request call is received at Execulink's support centre from a customer, the responding customer support agent records the new customer’s key information (including his/her address), outlines whether service is available in the customer’s area, and informs the customer of service and installation charges and billing options.

Once the customer agrees to proceed, a date and time is scheduled for the installation, whereupon an Execulink technician travels to the subscriber’s premises and performs a site survey, immediately followed by the equipment installation and testing. In some cases, the site survey may be conducted during a separate visit prior to the installation visit, but usually the two visits are combined into one for maximum efficiency.

During the ROC network contructions phase, Execulink will provide the subscriber equipment and installation of the equipment for Free.

Below are the steps and approximate time frame to get connected:

3.1 Five easy steps

Table 1 Steps to getting connected to ROC broadband network

Steps Days 1. Execulink meets with the customer to understand their networking

requirements and help the customer select a service plan that meets their performance and budget needs.

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2. Execulink completes a radio frequency survey and line of site analysis to determine availability of service.

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Steps Days 3. If service is available, the customer signs a contract for service at the

term and service type that they require 3

4. Execulink installs and tests the service 20

5. Execulink confirms with the customer that service is working and ready use

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Total elapsed time in days 30

Note: during the life of the project phase, if the broadband Intenret service availability as expected is delayed for any reason Execulink will provide the customer with free dial-up service until such time as the broadband service is available.

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4 How to use it

The following describes the steps a small business may follow to establish themselves on the Web:

Your business may be small but the Web lets you appear big. Whatever product or service your business offers, the Web levels the playing field and lets you compete with bigger businesses, reaching customers around the world who can conveniently buy from you 24 hours a day.

But in the competitive world of the Web, growing your business and increasing your profits online requires some careful planning, just like it does for a traditional bricks-and-mortar business. For every successful electronic commerce (e-commerce) businesses, there are dozens that fail by not addressing basic risks and pitfalls along the way. So to take full advantage of the e-commerce opportunity, small businesses need to base their Web business on a solid business footing and seek advice and support from qualified Web hosting companies, using every tool of the Web at your fingertips today and keeping abreast of innovations as they come online.

Identify clear marketing goals for your site, such as generating leads, building a database of potential customers' names and e-mail addresses, or putting a product catalog online are examples of fundamental elements of a successful small business on the Web. Quantify your objectives, such as achieving a traffic and sales target. Then, develop a set of strategies to achieve your objectives that include budget and timing. Finally, describe how you will measure success such as average sale per customer or profit percentage.

4.1 Brand identity

Establish your identity. The right Web address or domain name or universal resource locator (URL), can make the difference between a memorable e-commerce identity and getting lost in the online crowd. This is your online brand.

Once you have a brand name, you may check the availability of the address at one of many domain name search services, such as domain.com. Once you've decided on your Web identity, the next step is to determine if it is available and then register it with a domain name registrar. Registering is easy and inexpensive, so registration should be done as soon as you've decided on your domain name to make sure you get the name you want. Many businesses register a number of variations, just in case they want to use them later or to avoid the risk of competitors obtaining similar names. You also may want to register common misspellings so that all customers who incorrectly type your address still find their way to your site instead of receiving an error message. E-commerce businesses most often register a name with .com as the domain name suffix (the letters

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after the dot; also called a top-level domain, or TLD), but often also register their names with .net (for network) or .ca (for Canada).

A brand is the personality that identifies a product, service or company (name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them) and how it relates to key constituencies: customers, prospects, media, and general public or netizensi.

Make it memorable. Amazon.com is much catchier than booksonline.com.

Another approach is to use a simple, descriptive, and logical name for your business. "Flowers.com" works perfectly for a florist. And if you are setting up an online presence for an established business, keep the name of your site the same as the name of your business.

Keep it short. The best domain names are those that customers can remember and type into their browsers after seeing or hearing them only once, so complicated strings of words like onlinecdstore.com don't work as well as a simple phrase like, cdnow.com.

See more on “branding” below in “Marketing” section.

4.2 Web site home

Your Web site is a series of files that reside on a computer called a Web server, connected to the Internet. For customers to visit your site, they must actually connect to that Web server via the Internet and view the files. Web servers and the Internet connections that link them to visitors must be fast and reliable to quickly respond to all the visitors’ requests to view your site, which will occur with increasing frequency as your Web site traffic builds.

Find the right online home. For brick-and-mortar stores, location is everything. Your Web site or e-commerce business needs the right home, too. Purchase and set up your own Web server, or find a home for your site with the right Internet Service Provider or Web host, such as Execulink. The right host is a company that has a track record for providing highly available hosting services around-the-clock.

Shared hosting is an arrangement in which your site is housed on the same host server with several other Web sites. This is an economical solution for smaller sites. Paying the host for your own dedicated server, a solution used by larger and busier sites, provides faster access and ensures that your site will be accessible to visitors 100 percent of the time (instead of sharing Web server speed and power with other sites).

Smaller sites may need only 500 Megabytes – 1 Gigabyte of Web site storage space, while busier e-commerce sites may need at least multiple Gigabytes GB of space on their

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own dedicated Web server. As your site traffic and functional requirements grows, your ISP should be able to scale the server capacity and functionality.

4.3 Web site design and navigation

Build a useful Web presence. With the right content and tools, creating a Web site is easier than ever. By following some basic guidelines it will help make your site easy and quick for visitors to navigate. Or select a Web designer that can put your site together and provide the content management system needed to maintain and update it, such as Execulink. The more attractive, functional, and easy to use the Web site the more sales will result.

Plan the structure of your site, focusing on making it easy for customers to learn what they need to know, make a purchase decision, and then buy quickly. Create a site map or wireframe that outlines every page on your site from the home page down and how customers get from one page to the next. There a several software applications to help, such a Microsoft Visio and Adobe Fireworks. Use tools, such as Google Analytics, that quantitatively measure site activity-where customers are clicking, how often, and whether they end up purchasing-and then compare the results with your goals. Managing and organizing the content from day-one, and as your Web site grows is critical. Content Management Systems (CMS) are widely available to do just that, such as DotNetNuke.

Make it easy for customers to explore your site. As you build your site, try to minimize the number of clicks it takes the customer to go from your home page to actually being able to click "buy" and checkout. Four to six is a useful rule of thumb. Make sure links make sense, so customers know what to click to find what they're looking for.

Keep things simple. Don't fill up your site with graphics, animations, and other visual bells and whistles, unless of course that is what you are offering. Stick to the same basic color palette and fonts your company uses in other communications, like your logo, brochures, and signage as consistency yields breakthrough of your brand. Ensure that images and graphics serve to enhance, not distract from, your marketing goals. Make sure your text is easy to read.

Keep Web page download times short. Test pages to make sure they're not too overloaded with graphics that slow load times and minimize the size of your images when possible. Most visitors will leave if a page takes more than a few seconds to load, a problem which costs e-commerce businesses millions in lost potential revenue each year.

Some common elements of a successful Web site are:

Late breaking news and feature stories about your product or service and you’re your product and service category. Strive to add value by providing content your customers and prospects need, rather merely trying to sell them something.

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An easy to follow menu of headings, consistently presented on each Web page An overview of your company, its products and services, and their applications. Complete product or service descriptions, including features, key benefits, pricing, product specifications, and other information, for each product or service Shopping cart ecommerce as appropriate, that accepts credit cards and other payment gateway services such as PayPal. Shipping information and calculation if applicable. Customer support contact information and methods Testimonials, case studies, or success stories so customers can see how similar individuals or organizations have worked with you Links to other sites and resources, such as your Facebook and Twitter presences. Take as much care building and maintaining your social media sites as you do your Web presence, as they are keys to engaging and growing your target market. See more about “Viral advertising and social media” below. A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) that anticipates and addresses customers' common issues, updated frequently based on customer feedback

4.4 Security

Let customers know they can trust you. In the anonymous world of the Internet, customers will communicate private information, like credit card numbers or phone numbers, to your e-commerce site only if they're sure your site is legitimate and the information they send you is protected. Make sure your site is secure and that your customers know it.

The security of the credit card numbers and other personal information customers send you should be a top concern. Your ISP or Web host can protect your site with a secure socket layer (SSL)ii server ID. As your host, Execulink can provide the security you need.

4.5 Payment

Make it easy for customers to pay you. You can set up your site so customers can pay by simply keying in a credit card number through your hosting company or ISP or by paying through a payment gateway service like PayPal. By offering customers a variety of payment options and payment terms you increase the number of customers who will buy from you.

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4.6 Marketing

Let the world know about your site. A memorable domain name, a great-looking design, and top-notch presentation of your products or services can make your site successful only if customers know about it.

Promoting your site properly is critical to driving traffic to it. This may be accomplished in a variety of ways, such as participating in online forums or setting up your own forum about your business category and linking to other category relevant Web sites. Of increasing importance is setting up and maintaining social media presences such as Facebook and Twitter to complement your Web presence, which will also cause your site to be noticed by the search engines such as a Google. These social media apps are ideal tools for engaging and dialoguing with prospects, customers, and fans.

The key is to reach your potential customers along many different stages of the purchase cycle through multi-faceted yet targeted communications. Search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) are techniques you can employ to have your Web site show up at the top of organic search lists by your potential customers. In other words, when key words related to your market category or your Web site name are entered into search engines your site appears at or near the top of the list of links provided by the search engine also known as “organic” search results.. The farther up the listing your Web site appears the more visitors you will have to your Web site. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Other forms of SEM use search site advertising space. Banner ads on specific relevant or vertical Web sites and search engine sites, and outbound e-mail marketing are examples of paid advertising methods for driving traffic to your Web site. For your advertising spend, the Web site or publication will provide traffic or click-through reports so you can see how efficiently your advertising dollars are working.

All of these search engines and types give your Web site visibility and will build traffic to the site.

Also, reciprocal links between your Web site and category relevant Web sites will drive traffic directly from these sites to your site. As well as traffic flow between your site and others will help move up your site on the search engine lists as these traffic patterns are criteria for assigning priority by the search engines . The search engines deploy spiders and crawlers as a means of providing up-to-date data about Web pages and create copies of all the visited pages for later processing by a search engine that will index the downloaded pages to provide fast searches. The more Web sites that link to your Web site and the more Web sites that mention your Web site, the more likely the spiders and crawlers will reference it, which will move your Web site up the key word search lists. Nurturing this process requires ongoing commitment by the small business.

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4 . 6 . 1 B R A N D I N G

As you are developing your product and service and researching your potential market, keep in the following axioms of effective brand marketingiii:

Leadership – be first in the market – FedEx, McDonalds, IBM, Honda. If you are first in the market you will own the category. Category – nobody remembers the number two in the market category. The first person to fly across the Atlantic – Charles Lindburg, the second, Bert Hinkler. New category – if a brand already owns the category you want to enter, look for a new category you can own. We don’t remember the second man to cross the Atlantic but we do remember the first woman, Emilia Erhart. And of course, we don’t remember the second woman, Louise Gadett. Mind share – you build your share of market by building you share of mind with the consumer. All successful brands have top-of-mind awareness with the market – Apple, Google, Honda, FedEx, Hertz. Perception – use the social media and all other forms of communications to tap into the perception that “everybody knows” your product or service is the best. Everybody knows that Apple makes the best designed products, everybody knows the best search engine is Google. Focus – your marketing or brand around a word, be known for something. Own that word – Crest owns ‘cavities’, Pepsi owns ‘youth’. Exclusivity – own an attribute – two brands can’t own the same the word. Mercedes owns ‘engineering’, while Volvo owns ‘safety’. Ladder – own the top position on the brand ladder in the mind of the consumer - #1 = twice the market share of #2, #2 has twice the market share of #3 Duality – at the end of the day, two brands will dominate a category, be #1, Coke/Pepsi, Bud/Miller, Hertz/Avis. Opposite – If you can’t own the category and you can find a new one, then be opposite of the brand leader. Everybody knows Hertz is the number one car rental company, so Avis is number two because we try harder. Sacrifice – be known for SOMETHING. Trying to be all things to all people is a path to anonymity. Stick with it, be consistent and repeat it. FedEx is “over night.”

4 . 6 . 2 M A R K E T R E S E A R C H

The Internet is an ideal source of market information on your product or service category and the potential customers you may wish to reach. Market research may be used for

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understanding who your customers are, what they want, need, or believe, how they purchase and why they purchase. Finding out who your competitors are, how they do business is a mouse click away. This information can be discovered by conducting your own online surveys and accessing secondary research published on the Web. In the process of researching your market, you will learn how to use the Web, what works, and what doesn’t.

4 . 6 . 2 . 1 . 1 M a r k e t i n t e l l i g e n c e

Through market information one can know the prices of the different products or services in the market, as well as the supply and demand situation. Information about the markets can be obtained from different online sources through search engines and wikis. Also, the process of researching your market will provide you with insights into how the effective search resources and content providers use the Web which you can exploit in your own Web site.

4 . 6 . 2 . 1 . 2 M a r k e t s e g m e n t a t i o n

Market segmentation is the division of the total market of potential customers into subgroups with similar profiles. It is widely used technique for understanding a larger market by breaking it down to its smaller parts, based on profiles of geographic differences, personality differences, demographic differences, shopping and buying patterns, use of product or service differences, and difference in media habits.

4 . 6 . 2 . 1 . 3 M a r k e t t r e n d s

Market trends are the upward or downward movements of a market, during a period of time. The market size is more difficult to estimate if one is starting with something completely new. In this case, you will have to derive the figures from the number of potential customers, or customer segments.

Besides information about the target market, one also needs information about one's competitors, customers, products, or services. Put together profiles of your online competitors and carefully examine how they are marketing their services or products. Contact your competitors as if you were a customer or prospect to request more information and to see how effectively they respond and engage you. Try buying one of their products or services and see how the process works and how you are treated throughout the buy-cycle and after-sale service. Learn from the best and learn what to avoid from the rest.

Market research is used for discovering what people want, need, or believe. It can also involve discovering how they act. Once that research is completed, it can be used to determine how to market your product. Look at how your competitors are addressing the market and consider the gaps in their marketing or segments of the markets that not being served. Explore how you can fill those gaps most effectively.

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5 Supply chain

Most small businesses need suppliers of services and/or products from third party suppliers. Indeed, the advent of today’s Internet makes these suppliers and tools available to you from virtually anywhere in the world. For example, legal and accounting services, ISP and hosting services, shipping and logistics services, payment and settlement services, software, and distribution and sales services. The Internet is an excellent resource for researching and selecting suppliers to support your Web presence or support your traditionally marketed business. A good place to start when considering suppliers is to look into the suppliers of the market leaders and other competitors in your category and to associations and cooperatives for your market category.

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6 Advertising and promotion

Increasingly, Internet or Web-based media are overtaking many of the “traditional” mediums of television, radio and newspaper because of a shift toward consumer's usage of the Internet for work and home uses. In the last three quarters of 2009 mobile and Internet advertising grew by 18.1% and 9.2% respectively. Older media advertising saw declines: −10.1% (TV), −11.7% (radio), −14.8% (magazines) and −18.7% (newspapers) according to AC Nielsen Media Measurement Services

Another significant trend regarding future of advertising is the growing importance of the niche market using targeted communications. Also brought about by the Internet, advertisers do have an increasing ability to reach specific audiences and individuals. In the past, the most efficient way to deliver a message was to blanket the largest mass market audience possible. However, usage tracking, customer profiles and the growing popularity of niche content brought about by everything from blogs to social networking sites, provide advertisers with audiences that are smaller but much better defined, leading to ads that are more relevant to viewers and more effective for companies’ marketing products or services.

6.1 Viral advert ising and social media

Wikipedia defines viral marketing advertising, as marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness, induce trial, and stimulate sales through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of virus or computer viruses. Viral advertising can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive games, apps, images, or text messages.

Viral marketing uses a number of Internet and Web tools to reach prospective users, decision-makers, and influencers of your product or service:

Internet search engines & blogs Target marketing Web services

Social media interconnectivity Industry specific organization contributions

Search Engine Optimization Customer participation and polling services

Mobile smart phone integration

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Viral advertising is very cost effective because it is very focused on the most interested potential and existing customers and because the word is spread from one user to another. Combining the viral advertising with content and apps users need, the conversion rates from prospective customer to paying customer can be much faster.

The importance of viral marketing and advertising cannot be overstated at this point, as these statistics support:

Two thirds of the world’s Internet population now visit a social network or blog site weeklyiv 220+ million people visit the top 25 social networks each monthv Facebook alone has 500+ million active users, 50% of their active users log on to Facebook in any given day, average user has 130 friends, people spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebookvi Twitter, according to comScore in January 2010 showed that nearly 75 million users had Twitter accounts, representing a 1,100% growth in a year.vii Time spent on social media sites now exceeds time spent emailing.viii Recent polls reflect that about 90% of people forward news, events, and vendor specific information to people in their network.ix About 60% of adults polled state that they use their cell phone to remain connected with their social network.x

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7 Cultivating and connecting with customers

Connecting with prospects and customers through social media enables companies to engage on one-to-one and one-to-many basis to develop a stronger relationship with users, unlike any other media. By engaging with individuals through social media a company gains an additional channel for customer support, a means to gain customer and competitive insight, and a method of managing their brand reputation online. Key factors that ensure the successful use of social media for engagement are, the relevance of the content or apps to the customer, the value the content and apps provides the customer and proactiveness and responsiveness of the company to customers. A strong social media foundation serves as a platform from which a company can centralize its information and direct customers on its recent developments via other communication channels.

The most popular social media platforms today are below, but new ones are emerging daily:

Facebook.com YouTube.com

LinkedIn.com Twitter.com

MySpace.com Reddit.com

Delicious.com

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8 Selling services and products

A payment gateway is an e-commerce application that application service providers (ASPs) offer that authorizes payments for e-businesses. It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in most retail outlets. Payment gateways protect credit card details by encrypting sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information is passed securely between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant and the payment processor.

Shopping-cart software allows online shopping customers to accumulate a list of items for purchase. Upon checkout, the software calculates a total for the order, including shipping and handling (i.e. postage and packing) charges and the associated taxes, as applicable.

PayPal is the world's most popular "middleman service" for online purchasing. Today over 220 million Internet users prefer to use PayPal to send money to each other via email and some 95% of eBay's purchases go through PayPal.

All online financial transaction brokers, such as PayPal, let people send money to each other's email addresses. At no time will either party see the other's credit card or bank information. Similar to an escrow service, transaction brokers acts as the middleman holder of money. The only requirements to set up you business with a payment broker are a valid email address, valid URL, and a valid credit card or bank account.

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9 After-sales support

After-sales support involves contacting customers after transactions are completed to check on their satisfaction and to determine if there are additional sales opportunities. Most businesses overlook this step and lose repeat sales and referral opportunities.

For many companies, this part of the sales and service process is about being responsive to customers when they contact them, but when practiced effectively involves outbound contact to the customer for follow-up. If company representatives engage with customers, they have a higher likelihood for repeat business and referrals. In almost every industry, building a strong business depends on repeat sales and referrals. The rule of thumb is that existing customers and their referrals generate 60 or 80 percent of a company’s new business. As such, email, texting and social media are ideal tools for following up after the sale and can actually lead to turning your customers into evangelists for your brand if you use the tools well.

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10 Farm business uses and applications

According to a report called, “eBusiness in Agriculture,” conducted by IPSOS Forward Researchxi, farmers as a group are keeping pace with their Internet usage as much as urban folks. The biggest single factor identified as the catalyst for farmers increased Internet activity has been the rapid expansion of high-speed service, like the ROC project in rural areas.

Some relevant findings of the survey in the report about farmers’ use of the Internet are:

More than 53 per cent read a blog More than 53 per cent watch streaming video Some 33 per cent visit social networks – chat rooms More than 55 per cent reported purchasing products online in the last 12 months About 82 per cent use the internet to view their financial statements Farmers spend on average more than 8.5 hours a week on the Internet

Some of the conclusions reached by researchers are that the Internet is the mainstream tool for commercial farmers and e-mail is the most cost effective way for suppliers and or advertisers to reach them. Farmers are also looking for ways to electronically interact with their chosen suppliers providing convenience for them in online business transactions and using Web-based tools to manage their businesses.

10.1 Apps

Below are examples of Web applications currently being used by farmers every day to manage their businesses:

Remember the Milk – $25/year – Remember the Milk has nothing to do with dairy or cows. It is an electronic “To-Do list,” a very advanced Web based application that synchs to your smart phone and your personal computer to keep track of tasks and prioritize them. Evernote – Free or $45/year for the premium version – Evernote is a multi-platform note-taking program. You can use it on your desktop, on the Web, or on the phone. Farmers use Evernote to keep track of important pieces of information like tractor and equipment maintenance and parts numbers. Farmers typically input data on the desktop application then access the information from their phone while in the field. Also, the voice note feature on the phone is handy when farmers are driving in the fields or working in the barn to leave notes for later

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retrieval. The files may be synched files between the desktop computers and phone. Bubble – Free – Bubble is a bubble level. One example of using app is to level the tool bar on a John Deere 1700 Corn Planter. The app needs to be calibrated the level when first downloaded by setting with a regular level. Target Date (lite) – Free – Target Date is a simple program that calculates time between two dates. It also will tell you a date in the future or past by simply typing in a number. For example one can ask it what will be the date be in 100 days from now or how many days are there between now and Dec 25. Farmer’s use this to figure out planting and harvest dates. Ultra Chron (lite) – Free – This is a stopwatch and count-down timer. Farmer’s use this app to calibrate spray equipment. Weather Bug Widget – Free – Weather Bug is a weather Website. The app provides details about the weather, such as wind speed & direction, barometric pressure, real time radar maps, forecasts and severe weather alerts. There is nothing as important to farmers as good weather intelligence. Calendar Pad – Free – This is app extends the functionality of the default calendars in MS Outlook and other calendar programs for Blackberry, Apple, and Android. Calendar pad provides multiple views of appointments and deadlines, and it makes it easier to add entries into the calendar on the fly or in the tractor. The Calendar Pad is synched with your desktop PC. Real Calc – Free – Real Calc is the only calculator that does on the fly unit conversions. For example farmers use this app when they want to know the number of acres for any given pass of the seed planter. One can enter (L) 1280ft x (W) 20 = 25600 sq ft. Then hold the conversion button and click SQFT then Acres. It will then return the number .587 acres back to the calculator where a farmer can then multiply by number of passes to get the total area. GPS Measure – Free – This is app measures distance using the GPS in the phone and Google Maps. Farmers use this tool to measure fields, check distance traveled for water, measure corrals and shades on the dairy, for example. My Maps Editor by Google – Free – This app allows users to access “My Maps” in Google maps. Google maps may be used to mark and keep track of field data. This app enables access to that information from a smartphone in the field as well.

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11 Small business uses and applications

Digitization has been a boon for small businesses as now a handful of people can provide services and products that previouly took armies of staff to produce. Digitization combined with the Internet enables small businesses to sell their products and services anywhere in the world where before accesibility to markets was limited by distance. This combination presents enormous opportunities and challenges for small business, as doing more with less always means the small business person wears more hats than their predecessors. Fortunately, the virtual world of the Internet enables small businesses to tap into larger pools of labour and expertise that are remote and smart apps that make decision-making quicker and more reliable. The need for bricks and mortar investments and overheads is also significantly reduced because of the World Wide Web.

The most imporant challenge for small business is to find new customers and to maintain relationships with existing customers. Small businesses typically find themselves strapped for time and while the virtual marketplace of the Internet represents a much larger potential market, reaching your target segment requires sophisticated use of the technology. So, mastering this new paradigm of business techniques and tools represents a significant learning curve.

Some of the business building techniques for small business include market research, market segementation, and target marketing through networking, word of mouth, customer referrals, email, texting, social network apps, and Web sites, as well as traditional media including, television, radio, outdoor, and print. Successful small businesses learn how to identify and reach their intended targets, and use these varioius media to drive prospects to their Web sites and build sales.

Many small business owners find Internet marketing to be the most effective and affordable core business building technique. SEM on Google AdWords and Yahoo! or SEO for organic search marketing are two popular options of getting small business products or services in front of motivated Web searchers. Linking and advertising on niche and industry vertical Web sites can also be effective, but with the “long tail” of the Internet, it can be time intensive to advertise on enough Web sites to garner an effective reach right marketplace of users.

Creating a distinctive business Web site has become table-stakes for small business. Fortuntely, there are many do-it-yourself programs now available for beginners, many of them free or low cost, such as WordPress, Joomla and Squarespace.

It is critically important today that small businesses use social media to gain additional exposure and engage prospects and users. Social media must be integrated with all marketing platforms, most particularly the small business Web site. Many small business owners use Facebook and Twitter as a way to reach out to their loyal customers to give

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them news about specials of the day or special coupons or contests, generate repeat business, and spread word mouth. The relational nature of social media, along with its immediacy and 24-hour presence lend intimacy to the relationship small businesses can have with their customers, while making it more efficient for them to communicate with greater numbers. Facebook and Twitter ads are also a very cost-effective way for small businesses to reach a targeted audience with a very specific message. Small busnesses need to appreciate that the time commitment required to maintain current and effective social media communications is very great.

In addition to the social networking sites, blogs have become a highly effective way for small businesses to position themselves as experts on issues that are important to their customers. This can be done with a proprietary blog and/or by using a backlink strategy wherein the marketer comments on other blogs and leaves a link to the small business' own Web site. This later approach requires the small business to show restraint on promoting their business’ and emphasize providing useful information as a way to demonstrate value to their fellow bloggers.

A solid public relations strategy that utilizes speaking engagements, press releases, feature stories, events and sponsorships can also be a very cost-effective way to build a loyal following for a small business. This content may be repurposed on small Web sites, social media, and blogs and these media can be used to drive attendance at the events.

11.1 Apps

Below are examples of Web applications currently being used by small business persons every day to manage their businesses:

Google apps – under $50 – a powerful and inexpensive suite of small business applications including Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs. Shoeboxed – $10 – keeps track of your expenses. Also, using your smartphone, capture images of receipts, organize them, and store them online. Minibooks – $10 – helps keep track of time you work on projects for billing and project management purposes. FreshBooks lite – $10 – connects to Minibooks and will enable client billing for your time on the fly, and track several projects simultaneously. When your smartphone is turned off Freshbooks continues to track your time. Microsoft office suite – about $800 – word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, database and project management on the desktop or smartphone. Smartphone apps may be synched with desktop. Openoffice suite – free – word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, database and project management on the desktop.

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Contracter, Freelancer, Small Business Tax Calculator – free – tax planning apps available for the desktop and smartphone. By typing in your hourly or weekly rate, this free calculator will tell you what your monthly rate is, how much of it you’ll owe in taxes and how much you get to take home. Quickbooks Desktop Data – $1.00 – connect to all your Quickbooks accounts and transactions on your smartphone and desktop. The applications will synch. LinkedIn – free – manage your business contacts with this desktop and smartphone application which may be synched. Salesforce Mobile -- $10 – to fully use this app, you’ll need a Salesforce.com account. Manage your customer accounts and initiate phone calls and emails. SurePayroll – free – keeps track of payroll. Pay employees, enter payroll hours, approve and run your payroll with just one click. This app also keeps track of payroll deadlines and helps submit payroll forms to the government. Needs a SurePayroll.com account.

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12 Endnotes

i Netizens - A Netizen (a portmanteau of Internet and citizen) or cybercitizen is a person actively involved in online communities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netizen

ii SSL - Transport Layer Security (TLS) and its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), are cryptographic protocols that provide security for communications over networks such as the Internet. TLS and SSL encrypt the segments of network connections at the Application Layer to ensure secure end-to-end transit at the Transport Layer. TLS is also the name of a working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force,[1] but in this article TLS refers to the protocol, not the working group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Sockets_Layer

iii The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_22_Immutable_Laws_of_Marketing

iv http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/social-networking-new-global-footprint/

v http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/22/facebook-now-nearly-twice-the-size-of-myspace-worldwide/

vi http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

vii http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/02/22/twitter-statistics-full-picture/

viii http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i3a9dedf59710f3d571f3cd3443a1a54c

ix http://mashable.com/2010/03/01/social-networks-source-news/

x http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1654/wireless-internet-users-cell-phone-mobile-data-applications

xi http://www.forwardresearch.com/