Articles tagged ‘SMEs’

The future – January 2010 – is bright!

Posted by Bian Salins

19th October 2009 in Announcements

If you missed Amy’s post last week, today sees the launch of Small Business Week 2009. Apart from being a fantastic forum packed with advice and help for SMEs, it’s a real look into how small businesses are thriving in the economy.
The week launched with a big bang (or should we say boom?) at the BT Tower this morning because as the 2009 Business Pulse report (the UK’s largest survey of small and medium sized businesses this year) revealed, it seems small businesses all over the UK are feeling pretty optimistic about the future.

For example, the poll showed that 75% of small businesses believe the economy will see an upturn in 2010, with 35% predicting an improvement by January 2010. In spite of the challenges of the current economic environment, 61% are confident about their business prospects for the coming year and 45% say their business operates for the better as a result of the downturn.

For us personally, one the best things to come out from the poll were the fact that “Word of mouth plays a crucial role in business survival, with small firms looking to peers, friends or family for advice. For example, 47% of respondents have approached peers and 32% choose friends and family before their banks (29%).”

The whole point of BT Tradespace to begin with is to take the power offline word of mouth has online. And now with the new BT Tradespace soon to come, there’ll be even more opportunities to build and manage your reputation online. If you haven’t been reading your emails – check it now to see how you can help or visit our ‘Get ready site’ for more info. And, if you still need convincing, don’t take it from us – even Lord Digby Jones has given us the thumbs up in the video below!

On the other hand, you can also visit the Small Business Week 2009 find out more about what’s happening. There’s a host of events, roundtable discussions, web seminars and advice clinics taking place throughout the week so don’t miss it!

What do you think of the results? Is your business looking up for 2010? Leave a comment and let us know!

Tags: BT Tradespace, Lord Digby Jones, Small Business Week, small businesses, SMEs
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Internet ad spend overtakes TV

Posted by Bian Salins

1st October 2009 in Announcements

Have you heard the news? No, not the one about BT Tradespace changing (although that one is important) but the ground breaking news that online advertising expenditure has grown 4.6% in 2009 and is overtaking TV for the first time ever! (Source: Internet Advertising Bureau)

Yes it’s official. The web is now the most influential medium! The IAB announced that online advertising not only weathered the recession early 2009, ad expenditure online is up £82m to record market share of 23.5%.

What’s interesting about these stats (and why it should matter to you) is the fact that it shows – one, the shift in the value advertisers are seeing and getting from the online channel and two, the reality that the returns on investment are proving to be far greater from the web.

The web has always proven itself to be the most cost-effective way for a small business to market and promote itself but now, it could be the medium that is showing the best returns.

One fact that stood out from the research is that “paid-for search has continued to grow, proving itself a mainstay of marketing budgets. As the purest form of direct response advertising, search is proving recession-friendly and equates to 59.8% of all online advertising expenditure.”

I, for one, am not surprised by this. In my recent article on PPC (Pay Per Click) uncovered, I talked about how 90% of all online journey’s begin with search. Search is the way to be found.

Not so long ago, we launched our own search marketing product BT SearchSmart because we, ourselves anticipated the trend that consumers are now putting their faith in what they see online and what their peers online are saying.

In fact, according to research from Quidco, 62% of shoppers consult online communities before making a purchase making the objectives of being found and building reputation online key for any small business.

…And BT Tradespace aims to help you do both.

It’s not just the fact that you are able to have a good mix of content (blog posts, video, pictures, etc) that’s easily updated on your Tradespace but, as you’ll find out, with the new BT Tradespace, there’s plenty more opportunity to drive search traffic to your site and build your reputation. The long term aim for us is, we give you the tools to do it yourself or if you want, we offer you the services you need to get you to that ultimate goal of being on page one!
If there were two things to take away from these new figures it’s this -

Search is the way forward – so the more opportunity you have to drive your traffic via search, the better the returns in the long term.

Online spend is not wasted. If advertisers weren’t seeing the returns, we wouldn’t be seeing a 4.6% growth in investment. It shows that online is the hottest new channel to be on. The good news is – it’s cost effective, it’s accessible (to one and all), and when it comes to free services like BT Tradespace? It doesn’t get any better.

What do you think of the new figures? Has online advertising worked better for you? Leave a comment and let us know!

Also read:
PPC uncovered
Search Marketing made easy with BT SearchSmart

Tags: advertising, BT Tradespace, online, Online ad spend, Online advertising, Pay Per Click, PPC, Search marketing, SMEs
Posted in: Announcements | Comments Off

Bing and your business

Posted by Amy Cutbill

31st July 2009 in Tradespace gossip

Bing is the new search service launched by Microsoft several months ago. But as a small business, what does that mean for you? This post will take a quick look at Bing and your business.

You might have read that Yahoo and Microsoft have made a deal: Yahoo will step aside in the search business in favour of Bing. Yahoo will power the adverts. Obviously, Google dominates search but a combined effort from Microsoft and Yahoo means that there is at last a credible challenger to the giant Google.

Have you seen Bing? Check it out: www.bing.com. Aside from the jazzy graphics it’s pretty much like Google. The related searches on the left hand side of search results are a nice touch and I’d say it’s fresher and more engaging to look at than Google. But is it any good?

Look up your own business and website and make up your own mind. I’ve noticed that traffic coming to my own blog and website from Bing has been growing steadily and you might have seen the same.

Ben Potter, Sales and Marketing Director at Leapfrogg Digital Marketing doesn’t think that Bing offers much of a challenge in the short term because “Google is too engrained in our daily lives.” But the good news is that optimising your website or Tradespace for Bing is the same as optimising your Site for Google. “Bing aims to present information to its users in a range of formats,” says Ben. “Marketers must consider how they can better utilise images, video and other types of digital content to engage their audience. Therefore marketers need to create great quality content in a range of formats, optimise it properly and promote it across social networks and other relevant channels. Content, in particular, remains king.”

I decided to test Ben’s theory. And for a whole day I counted how many times I used search and forced myself to use Bing instead. I did 24 searches and my reflex was use Google every time. The Bing results were fine but it felt uncomfortable using something new. Google is completely engrained in most people’s web life and that’s a massive mountain for Bing to climb.

Tags: Bing, Google, search, SMEs
Posted in: Tradespace gossip | 2 Comments »

What the 2009 Budget means to SMEs

Posted by Bian Salins

24th April 2009 in Tradespace gossip

Ever since he revealed it, I’ve been reading how the Chancellor’s much awaited budget received a luke-warm response from small and medium sized businesses.
With Darling’s revelation that Britain’s national debt will double to around £1.2 trillion in the coming years and the 50% tax for people earning over £150,000 a year – it doesn’t give businesses the hope they really need when facing the recession.
Plus, according to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) the Chancellor’s budget largely ignored the small businesses that are “at the heart of job creation and economic recovery”.
I’ve picked out some of the highlights from the 2009 Budget below but would love to hear what you think. How does it affect you as a business? Is there something the government is missing out on?
Let me know by posting a comment back!

Budget 2009 – highlights

- Loss-making companies can reclaim tax paid on profits made in past three years.
- Extension of the current scheme to allow businesses to defer tax bills.
- Support for companies’ cash flow, with a top-up trade credit insurance scheme to match private sector trade credit insurance provision.
- Main capital allowance rate doubled to 40% to encourage firms to bring forward investment.
- Good news for emerging technologies and regionally important sectors who will get financial support by way of the £750 million investment.
- Housing Market – the stamp duty holiday on homes under £175,000 continues for the rest of the year.
- Construction – £500m extra support for housing industry; £100 million of this for local authorities to build energy-efficient housing.
- Enhanced tax relief to support investment of £50bn this year, including £10bn to support the communications sector and extend the broadband network.
- And £405 million new funding for low-carbon technology projects, perhaps providing a boost to high-tech start-ups who are ethical and green.

Tags: Budget 2009, credit insurance, ethical, green business, SMEs, tax
Posted in: Tradespace gossip | 1 Comment »

Partner blog: Are you a victim of the ‘Credit Curve’ ?

Posted by Bian Salins

18th March 2009 in Announcements

New research has shown that SMEs are being hit the hardest as the market for business credit contracts. The so-called ‘credit curve’, shows that the cost of servicing debt trebles for businesses expanding from a turnover of £250,001-£500,000 to £500,001-£1,000,000 and now access to credit is restricted and expensive, business owners will be increasingly cautious about expanding their business.
Businesses with an operating expenditure of £50,000-£100,000 typically devote 3.6% of total expenditure to servicing debt, compared to 1.8% for businesses with a turnover of £251,000-£500,000.
If small businesses are deterred from expanding by fears of dramatically increasing their debt burden, it will inevitably put a further brake on economic growth. Even if businesses do wish to expand they are increasingly finding that access to credit is restricted and the costs of borrowing are rising dramatically.
With loans increasingly hard to come by concerns are rising that small business owners are turning to high interest credit cards in their place. The punitive interest rates offered by most credit cards make this a risky proposition for SME business owners and managers.
Advice from industry experts state that firms already committed to growing their enterprises will need to ensure they are as lean and efficient as possible if they are to survive. With cash flow the key to survival for these businesses they should use every means such as utilising credit referencing services to reduce their exposure to risk and ensure they have sufficient reserves to meet credit payments.
Do you want to improve your access to credit? If so, why not take advantage of our 15% discount on credit checks? At just £8.50 per report – we reckon it’s a bargain!

Tags: credit, credit checks, creditsafe, debts, loans, SMEs
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The future – January 2010 – is bright!

Internet ad spend overtakes TV

Bing and your business

What the 2009 Budget means to SMEs

Budget 2009 – highlights

Partner blog: Are you a victim of the ‘Credit Curve’ ?

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