There isn't much glory to running a small business. Day after day, you market, sell, hire, fire, economize, mentor, purchase, envision, order, organize, plan, and pay the bills. And nobody notices. Or you win some totally jokey award that doesn't really mean anything, and nobody notices. read more...

If you're a retailer who sells online, and you'd like to give your sales a free, end-of-season boost, you might want to join in on the second annual Free Shipping Day.  

Created last December on a whim by Luke Knowles of free-shipping coupon site FreeShipping.org, Free Shipping Day was designed to help retailers on the last day when virtual shops can guarantee delivery before Christmas. Apparently, online shopping starts to decline around Dec. 12, as customers get nervous about whether packages will arrive, and Knowles thought this might help keep the online sales going. read more...

I'm always fascinated by companies that present potentially disruptive new ways of communicating that could transform how we reach out to customers and find clients. This week, I've collected three interesting startups that are combining existing communication forms to create new modes for reaching out. They may not all be quite ready to use yet, but consider these concepts brain food to expand your idea of what is possible.

The U.S. Postal Service may want to watch out for Zumbox--it's providing a way for companies (and everybody, ultimately) to send formatted PDF mail direct to customers' computers, saving the postage stamps. The company's technology enables them to create a computer inbox--or Zumbox--for every street address in America. So companies don't need to know customers' e-mail addresses--with a street address (and the customer's permission) the company can electronically deliver their mail. Besides saving on postage, this will also allow companies to send interactive, multimedia mail with clickable links, videos, you name it. read more...

A new study from IBM forecasts mind-bending changes for the ad world. "The next 5 years will hold more change for the advertising industry than the previous 50 did," the study proclaims. read more...

Ordinarily, I blog for Entrepreneur about news of interest to small business owners--that is, news other sources have reported. But today I want to report some news I've found on my own, over many years of reporting on this sector. If you've ever wanted to get your company noticed by the media, this news should be of interest.

Small business, your website sucks. And I'll give you five reasons why. read more...

Social media isn't just the massive sites that are discussed endlessly--Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn. In some industries, powerful industry-specific sites--known as industry verticals--are being created to help industry players connect with each other and with customers.

An example is LocalDirt.com, a new portal that connects farmers with customers nearby. The site debuted at the Fall 2009 DEMO technology conference in San Diego last week, pitching its concept to conference producers along with 70 other tech firms. Local Dirt won a DEMOgod award, given out at the event to exceptional companies, and was also picked by innovation and venture-capital newsmag VentureBeat as one of the 10 best companies at DEMO. read more...

Feeling shorthanded these days? Wondering if your business is truly meeting your customers' needs? If you answered yes to either of those questions, have you asked all your customers to help you?

Increasingly, companies big and small are doing just that. It's called crowdsourcing--enlisting the help of a large group of people to do company work or shape the company agenda, rather than delegating tasks to an employee or two, or perhaps an ad agency.

The growth of social media has enabled crowdsourcing, making it easy for companies to connect with huge mobs of customers. A couple of the key benefits: saving money and making customers feel more connected to your company.

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New resources keep popping up on this wonderful internet of ours, and occasionally, I'm going to take the time on my Wednesday blog posts to share some.

This week, I've got three great resources for business owners--two will help you learn how to be successful, and one's about improving your e-mail communications.

First off, the Small Business Administration has hit YouTube with a series of helpful videos. Their Delivering Success series covers all the business basics, including financing, marketing, hiring, and planning. There's also videos on doing a "business reality check," as well as top success tips. If you've been wanting some basic business advice, you're out of excuses--here's some help that's free and as easy as watching TV. read more...

If you're a business owner who sells to other businesses, a new study commissioned by Google of small-to-medium business owners' search habits should be eye-opening. To sum up: For many, the Web isn't a place to look for information, it's the only place.

Google's director of business-to-business and local markets, Sam Sebastian, shared some of the findings with me this morning. The study of more than 400 American purchase decisionmakers at SMBs conducted in March by Slack Barshinger asked business owners about their Internet habits. Among the findings: 93 percent of respondents said they use the Web to find work-related information, compared with 76 percent using trade publications and 69 percent using newspapers. More than half are online at least weekly, trying to solve a specific business problem. Twenty percent of SMBs use the Internet daily to try to resolve issues. read more...

We've all received e-mail promotions with a "forward this message to a friend" call-to-action, but hardly any of us ever does. According to Richard Evans, Senior Product Marketing Manager at email marketing automation firm Silverpop, "social e-mail" has the potential to be the new viral, but only if you tap into the right resources.

Richard spoke yesterday afternoon at the Lift Summit in Atlanta--a two-day conference presented by OfficeArrow and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Interactive Media Initiative, where real-world examples of social commerce strategies and tactics were on display--about social media integration into e-mail marketing. While Evans' message was simple--as use of social networks/media continues to gain mass adoption, integrating e-mail marketing and social media through social sharing links should be a "must include" feature in marketers' e-mail programs--it's one that's often overlooked by entrepreneurs and marketing professionals alike.

Evans and I sat down after his presentation to discuss his presentation and Silverpop's new benchmark study on social e-mail, "E-mails Gone Viral: Measuring 'Share-to-Social' Performance" in more detail. Here are three key takeaways when considering how to make your email marketing campaigns shareworthy: read more...