RESOURCE CENTRE

Your EnterQuest Bulletin - 27 October 2004

In this week's issue:

• 8 ideas to save cash while building your business
• a strategy for driving traffic to your website
• what's the law on unsolicited e-mails?
• do you need a privacy policy?
  

Weekly stir

8 ideas to save cash while building your business

One of the biggest challenges when running a new business is doing all the things you really want to do but not breaking the bank in the process. A familiar tale we've encountered with many a small business.

Here are 8 very quick but proven tips that anyone can usefully try out.

1) Get new sales by asking for referrals

No kidding. Have you ever thought about this? Every time you sell something to a customer, ask them for the name of someone they think would also be interested in your product or service. Or ask them to make a personal recommendation on your behalf. It's free and it works better than you might imagine if you try it often enough.

2) Do piggy-back marketing deals

Do you know anyone in a related but non-competing business to yours who has customers you'd like to sell to? Why not ask them to share the costs in a joint marketing campaign or sell each other's products for a share of the spoils?

3) Buy recycled and second hand stuff

Save on your spending when buying things like printer cartridges, paper or office equipment that is used but still usable or recycled. You'll save money and also help save the environment, so try visiting places like http://www.preloved.co.uk (for second hand office supplies) and http://www.itforcharities.co.uk/pcs.htm (for recycled PCs) and have a look at the possibilities.

4) Use free software

You won't believe how much free stuff is available out there. Before you commit to spending on mainstream business software, check out the variety of full-blown, freely available and more limited freeware that's on offer. Try visiting http://www.download.com, http://www.freeware-guide.com and http://www.shareware.com for more details.

5) Employ students

Every year there are thousands of students seeking anything from a few months to a whole year out on work experience as part of their degree or business diploma course, and many of them struggle to find a suitable placement, not even thinking of trying a small firm. Contact your local university business studies course leader, or the student placement officer, for details of students looking for work in your area. They are a cost-effective short-term staffing option, and will be keen to impress, but make sure you pay them a fair wage or allowance, and don't flout minimum wage regulations.

6) Build your own mailing lists

You can buy lists off the shelf. But legitimate and high quality, fully opt-in only lists ain't cheap, especially if you want to use them more than once. What we're saying is that if you come across very cheap lists, they could be dodgy and lead to you spamming, with you ending up in very hot water. So build your own lists over time from names and addresses you've personally collected from people who already buy your stuff or who have said they are interested in receiving your promotions. It'll take longer, be cheaper and infinitely more productive.

7) Try barter or contra-trading

The way this works is that you trade services with other businesses. In other words, you can swap goods or services of an agreed similar value with another business. There are barter clubs you can join to do this, for example at http://www.tbex.com and http://www.letslinkuk.net. Or you can simply try this with other businesses trading near you where you're happy to provide your service for something of value in return, saving cash in the process. This won't work for everything but is definitely worth a try.

8) Shop around when buying

OK, this sounds obvious, but many people just fail to do it. As a simple rule, whenever you're sourcing new stock or services for your business consider at least two, and ideally three, sources of supply. This will help you find the best prices for the quality level you're seeking, and will also make your suppliers more competitive in the process.

These are just a few practical suggestions that you can think about applying in your business. Give one or two of them a try and see if you can not only make some savings but also become a better wheeler and dealer in the process.

Most small businesses design their website with absolutely no plan for bringing visitors to it. Just because you've built a site, don't think that people will come flocking to it, no matter how well designed it is.

Your overall plan for promoting your website should include as many marketing strategies as possible, from submitting it to search engines to promoting it in your offline business activities, such as your stationery, invoices and press releases. But there's a specific strategy that can drive the people who are already visiting your site to recommend it to others, thus boosting your traffic with very little effort on your part.

So what's this strategy? It's viral marketing. Every website should have a viral marketing component. This means something that compels people to tell others about your site, either by word-of-mouth, or by providing them with an easy way to send a link to your site to friends. Tactics for doing this include the following:

• Give away a free e-book or article that contains links back to your site. Visitors can download the article and publish it on their own sites, provided it always links back to you.
• You could also write articles for other news sites in your sector, again ensuring you include links back to your own site.
• Install a tell-a-friend or send-this-page-to-a-friend script to give visitors to your site an effortless and instant way to pass on something interesting to friends and colleagues. Find tips and links on how to do this at http://www.busymarketing.com/tellafriend.shtml.
• Use existing communications networks to get your marketing message out - by posting comments and articles on weblogs and discussion forums in your field, and including links to your own site.
• Give stuff away. "Free" is an extremely powerful word, and by using your website to promote a free giveaway of a product or service for people who register their details with you online, you will generate interest in your business and encourage visitors to your site to tell people about it.

Meanwhile, you can get more tips on creating a viral marketing strategy by reading this article:
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm, or read a book by the acclaimed guru in this field, Unleasing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin

And for more marketing techniques and ideas, check out the UK Small Business Marketing Bible, which contains hundreds more tips and tactics for boosting your sales using proven marketing strategies that work no matter what product or service you sell.

Legal tip

What's the law on unsolicited marketing e-mails?

Let's suppose you've bought a list of e-mail addresses from another business. The list is made up of people who have previously bought something from that business. Which of the following statements is legally correct?

a) You can send promotional e-mails to people on the list, provided they have opted in to receive marketing messages.
b) You can send promotional e-mails to people on the list whether or not they've opted in to receive marketing messages, provided that you give them the option to opt out of receiving any more.
c) You can only send promotional e-mails to people on the list who have specifically opted in to receive marketing from third-party businesses.

The answer, you may be surprised to learn, is c. Even when you've bought a list of names of people that have opted to receive marketing e-mails, you must make certain that they have specifically agreed to receive promotional messages from third parties.

A recent case underlines how important it is to be careful when buying mailing lists. A UK company which bought a mailing list - and specifically asked for the list only to include opt-in names so that they could stay within the rules when they sent out their e-mails - was still investigated and found to be breaching the law. Why? Because they hadn't checked what the people on the list had actually opted in to receive.

The people on the list had, in fact, agreed only to receive e-mails from the business they originally dealt with, not from a third party. So the complaints started arriving at the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the body which administers and adjudicates on the Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (otherwise known as the CAP Code). Even though the company in question had acted in good faith, they were still legally responsible for ensuring they did not send unsolicited e-mails to the people on the list.

The moral of the story is that that businesses need to be more diligent about where they're getting information from and what sort of information it is. The ASA sheds some light on the Cap Code at www.asa.org.uk/asa/codes and the Direct Marketing Association offers a guide to constructing the perfect e-mail.

Do you need a privacy policy?

If you have a business website, and if you "collect information" from your visitors, you are legally required to have a privacy policy on the website under the Data Protection Act 1998.

"Collecting information" can mean anything from asking visitors to register and leave their name and address, to allowing your website to leave persistent cookies on a visitor's computer. Anything, in fact, which will allow a website operator to pick up identifiable information about visitors can by law be defined as collecting information.

There are three basic principles you need to follow if you collect information:

1. You must provide your business name on the site if you run it yourself, or the name of the organisation hosting the website for you.

2. You need to tell people what you're going to do with the information you collect, and ideally give them an option to opt out.

3. You must tell visitors anything else relevant to make sure your information collection is fair and lawful.

And of course, you need to do all this before you start collecting the information. You don't necessarily have to bung all these details into a single privacy policy, but most website operators find it easier that way.

With this in mind, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has developed a handy privacy policy generator on their website. This takes you through a series of questions about your website and then suggests a standard policy template for your site.

There's more on website privacy in general in this guide to your responsibilities, published by the UK Information Commissioner.

And for an excellent source of factsheets, FAQs and legal scenarios, check out our Red Tape BUSTER.

Each week we provide you with summaries of some popular or emerging business ideas in the UK.

Here is this week's idea:

• Fanclub Organiser

Just one word

Regularly improving your vocabulary is not just about learning a new word and its meaning. It will improve your general knowledge and make you feel and act smarter in all sorts of personal and business situations.

Do you know what an Internet 'cookie' is?

a. a piece of software designed to stop spyware infiltrating your computer
b. a piece of information sent by a web server to a web browser
c. a sequence of typed characters that creates an image or body part
d. a web page that allows pop-up advertisements when you view it

Did you know?

Tips on choosing a business name

According to Royal Mail, new business owners are less likely than they once were to use their family name as a business name. Instead, new businesses are choosing informative names that reflect what they do or make, and are also more inclined to use a factual or humorous word or phrase in their names. If you're stumped by the prospect of choosing a name for your business, Royal Mail has published several tips that might help you.

A summary of Royal Mail's business names survey, and the tips, are online at: http://www.royalmailgroup.com/news/expandarticle.asp?id=1369&brand=royal_mail

Online forums directory

This week's marketing tip explains how viral marketing can be used to promote your business website. More small businesses are cottoning on to the use of online forums, communities and weblogs as a way to do this - by making regular, interesting posts on these forums and blogs, and providing a link back to your website, you're promoting yourself with very little effort.

To give you some ideas, here's a directory of online forums on a huge array of topics:
http://www.small-business-software.net/forum-directory.htm

This hugely popular site showcases examples of the worst websites around, in terms of bad design, poor content, crap usability and zero accessibility. A new example of shocking design is published every day - the 'Daily Sucker' - and the site also recommends tools for fixing your own web design problems, and posts articles covering relevant topics.

Check out the best of the worst at:
http://www.websitesthatsuck.com

The IQ Boot Camp, 1-12 November, London and Dublin

If you're involved with designing a website or promoting your business online, the IQ Boot Camp could be for you. Although it sounds like an event for people hoping to get into MENSA, it's actually a series of ten practical one-day workshops covering topics like making your website more accessible, writing good content for the web and constructing e-newsletters.

Find out more and register for a workshop at:
http://www.iqcontent.com/solutions/boot_home.htm