lansing michigan Archives - Page 16 of 63

Guest Post: What Kinds of Retirement Benefits Should a Small Company Provide?

An easy way to obtain the best employees in your field is by offering workplace benefits. Retirement benefits are something that workers all want to have to ensure their financial stability in their older years. Here are some of the most common types of retirement benefits you should be offering employees at your small company.

MyRA

If you’re looking for simplicity, then MyRA is right up your alley. This is as simple a retirement account as you’ll find anywhere. MyRA provides Roth IRA accounts for employees. They contribute their after-tax income into their IRA account. There’s no matching on the employer’s end when it comes to funding a MyRA account. Your employees can contribute up to 5,500 dollars per year to this account or 6,500 dollars if they’re over the age of 50. Interest earned is based on the G fund of the government’s Thrift Savings Plan.

Simple 401k

A simple 401k plan is another popular choice of small businesses. Simple means that this is a Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees. It requires employers to contribute to their employees’ 401k accounts each year. As a good 401k advisor can tell you, employees are not required to contribute to their 401k account on an annual basis. The main difference between a simple 401k and a simple IRA is that the 401k plan can allow for loans while the IRA cannot.

SEP-IRAs

Simplified employee pension plans allow employers to contribute to an IRA for their employees without the hassle of filing paperwork with the government. Most optimal for sole proprietorships and partnerships, employers are required to provide the same contribution to every employee. Employers can contribute annually up to 25 percent of an employee’s net compensation. Employees can contribute up to 5,500 dollars per year or 6,500 dollars if they’re over the age of 50.

Simple IRA

The last retirement account we’re going to discuss is the simple IRA. Again, simple stands for Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees. This type of IRA account works for businesses that have 100 employees or less. Your employees can opt to contribute if they so choose, but they’re not required to. The employer is required to contribute on an annual basis for this type of account. Employees are allowed to contribute up to 12,500 dollars per year.

As a small business owner, planning your retirement and the retirement of your employees is a must. Many employees will turn down job offers due to a lack of proper retirement benefits. Be sure that you stick to offering one of the main benefit programs above so you don’t lose viable talent.

Brooke Chaplan is a freelance writer and blogger. She lives and works out of her home in Los Lunas, New Mexico. She loves the outdoors and spends most of her time hiking, biking, and gardening. For more information, contact Brooke via Facebook at facebook.com/brooke.chaplan or Twitter: @BrookeChaplan

Guest Post: Resources for Business: How to Manage Marketing Data

The appropriate management of marketing data ensures the future success of your business model. If your data gets lost or corrupted, you’ll have to start over from scratch. Here are some of the techniques that you should invest in to streamline the management process.

Enable Security Features

Software and hardware updates should be completed in a timely fashion. This is what protects your systems to data breaches and loses. Making security your top priority is more than just good customer service. If you manage sensitive customer information as a part of your marketing database, having this information stolen gives your company a bad reputation in the industry. You don’t want to have to inform your customers that their information was stolen when you could have prevented it.

Invest in Database Management

Database management can be a time consuming task if you don’t have the right tools in place to help you handle it. Using cloud managed services for cloud data and IT support gets you started down the right path. What this essentially does is takes those tasks off of your plate so that you can focus on the matters of running your business. Queries for information can be formulated for the specific needs of your business and eliminate lost productivity time.

Focus on Backups

Backups can occur in a variety of manners. Using cloud based software is becoming one of the more common ways to store your information offsite. This can be especially important if one of your systems crashes or introduces a virus into your whole network. Restoring from these backups takes out some of the risk that may be associated with doing business. Another reason for a backup is that you won’t lose data from your server platform.

Clear out Obsolete Files

When marketing files or profiles are no longer valid, clearing them out saves on the amount of data that you need to store. It also eliminates the chance of sending out old data to your customers. You won’t make the mistake of not being able to anticipate the needs of your customers if you’ve kept your marketing files up-to-date. Another aspect to this involves developing a user interface that’s intuitive so that your customers can update their own information in a reliable manner.

The importance of managing your data works to increase your chances of success in the business world. Use these strategies to keep performing at an optimal level when it comes to your marketing platform.

Bio: Rachelle Wilber is a freelance writer living in the San Diego, California area. She graduated from San Diego State University with her Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Media Studies. She tries to find an interest in all topics and themes, which prompts her writing. When she isn’t on her porch writing in the sun, you can find her shopping, at the beach, or at the gym. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook: @RachelleWilber; https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009221637700

Guest Post: 3 Threats Every Company Faces at Some Point

As if the normal challenges of running a successful business weren’t enough, it’s likely that your business will face certain major threats during the course of business that could bring your business to its knees. Fortunately, by understanding these threats in advance, you can adequately prepare for them to ensure you’re able to weather them successfully. Here are three threats that every company faces that you should look out and prepare for now.

IT Threats

Businesses of all sizes face IT threats of all kinds. As your business grows, it becomes a more attractive target to hackers who want to profit from the theft of your proprietary information. Unprepared, a successful hacking can suspend business operations and lead to lawsuits from customers who have their information stolen.

That’s why it’s crucial that you instruct your employees on proper protocol for safe web and email browsing. In addition, it’s important to invest in quality security tools for all aspects of your business’s IT exposure. This includes network security, individual workstation security, and database security, among other solutions.

Injury Threats

If your business has a physical location or sells a physical product, your business will likely face the threat of a customer lawsuit at some point. Whether it’s a lawsuit resulting from a trip and fall at your business’s storefront or a lawsuit resulting from damages resulting from a product you sell, litigation comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s important, then, that you do all you can to minimize any threats through the use of proper quality control.

When it comes to a physical location, you must do all you can to encourage your employees to report and correct any slip, trip, or fall hazards as soon as they see them. When it comes to physical products, proper testing is vital before shipping a particular product to your customers. Ultimately, though, adequate business insurance is the best protection against threats in this area. Without insurance, the assets of your business itself, and even your personal assets could be at risk if a lawsuit should occur.

Lack of Demand

There are plenty of variables that can cause a lack of demand for your business’s products or services. Whether it’s a localized or national recession, changing customer tastes, the appearance of a viable competitor, or a range of other issues, a lack of demand can cause an insurmountable disruption that results in the closure of your business. To help mitigate this risk, you should do your due diligence as a business owner to constantly be aware of changing market conditions.

This includes reading business reports from the region and the nation, understanding current consumer tastes and trends, and seeking how to differentiate and diversify your business to protect it from competitors. Though these steps don’t guarantee success, they certainly help provide confidence when you face rough waters.

Press Ahead

Every business is bound to experience ups and downs over its lifetime. When your business is in a slump, then, it’s important to step back and work to get the big picture. This will help alleviate concerns you have about current struggles by placing them in the context of the long-term success of your business. When you take on the right mindset regarding the struggles your business faces, you’ll be better prepared to take on these struggles successfully.

Anica is a professional content and copywriter from San Francisco, California. She loves dogs, the ocean, and anything outdoor-related. She was raised in a big family, so she’s used to putting things to a vote. Also, cartwheels are her specialty. You can connect with Anica here.

New Video: Child and Family Charities – Thank You Devin!

This year at their fundraising breakfast, Child and Family Charities honored Devin, the Angel House therapy dog, for his 8 years of service. This is his story.

For more about Child and Family Charities: https://www.childandfamily.org/

Guest Post: Up Your Marketing Game: 4 Ways to Make Your Business Stand out from the Rest

As a business owner, you have probably come across the disheartening statistics around the high business failure rates. There are plenty of reasons why businesses fail with the lack of ideas to beat the competition, topping the list. Standing out from the rest in the same industry is vital to your firm’s success. Unfortunately, even though most people understand that concept, far too many business owners fail to put it into practice. So, here are four hacks that will make your firm stand out.

Provide Unique and Extraordinary Services and Products

“What makes your business different?” You will need to back up your answer with tangible evidence either through how you provide your services or the uniqueness of your product. Clients have to mark you from the rest of the market, and it’s only possible when you offer something unique. For instance, custom fit jogging shoes has become a norm today. But how do you deliver the service? Perhaps include activities such as watching the client walk or run, advise them professionally and get down to business.

Address Customer Complains and Suggestions

If you want to bring more customers in and retain initial clients, you have to alleviate their pain and give them what they deserve. But you can’t do this if you do not listen to what your clients want. Consider asking them for feedback after purchases and services. Address sensible pain points that they might have brought forward and also apply suggestions that could work for your business. You might also try explaining to them why their tips cannot work at the moment for your business. Engage them to create that business-clientele relationship.

Narrow Your Niche

You cannot specialize in everything. This is a straightforward rule that most businesses ignore. Pick your strongholds and focus on delivering the best. Adapt a unique model that other companies don’t offer, recruit the best experts in the industry, and your target market will get your attention. You could bring in a marketing agency to help you reach your specific target market. Always remember, when your business tries to serve everyone, you end up serving no one.

Build an Excellent and Attractive Company Culture

An attractive company culture not only helps you attract and retain top talent, but it’s also proven to be a powerful marketing tool. You want to build a firm that potential employees are fighting to be part of or perhaps one that people are excited to go on Monday mornings.

These four great ways are an excellent place to start. They should give you more inspiration to stand out rather than fitting it.

Emma Sturgis

Emma is a freelance writer based out of Boston, MA. She writes most often on health and education. When not writing, she enjoys reading and watching film noir. Say hi on Twitter @EmmaSturgis2

New Video: A Fahrenheit Massage Story

Kristin is not your normal massage therapist. Her ability to know where your pain is and to focus on that area is an art. Also, her knowledge of how your body is responding to that pain and what to do between trips to see her. She is based in Lansing, MI and you can schedule some time with her on her website.

For more information: https://www.fahrenheitmassage.com

Guest Post: 5 Ways to Growth Hack Your Business and Make It Thrive

Even though it’s become a buzzword in corporate and marketing circles, growth hacking is not without its merit. These quick and low-cost methods of marketing can have a huge impact on growth, especially for smaller businesses. Below we offer a guide on how to take these less travelled paths and use them to stand out from the crowd.

What Is Growth Hacking?

Growth hacking itself isn’t all that easy to define. Essentially, it means using a number of marketing techniques and design choices in order to quickly generate sales. All this is done with only one goal in mind: growth.

The process itself is pretty straightforward: first, you run any of the number of analytics tools that will help you determine which pages or sections of your website generate the most traffic. You then focus on one of these areas and run a brief experiment trying to convert that traffic into sales.

This could mean anything, from redesigning your contact page to adding social media buttons or testimonials. As long as the change you made is quick, easy to implement, and results in the growth of one or more metrics, it’s considered a success.

If you are a small or mid-size business owner, hacking growth has the potential to take your business to the next level. All it requires is thinking outside the box and not being afraid to experiment. In the end, you can end up achieving great results with minimum time and money spent.

Below are five examples of growth hacking you can try out right now.

Focus on Quality Content

Simply having a blog section on your website will do wonders for the growth of your business. This is due to the fact that content marketing costs much less than traditional marketing, while generating as much as three times more leads.

Aside from this, posting regularly on your blog lets your visitors know you are an expert in your field. This, in turn, builds your website’s trustworthiness in Google’s eyes, increasing your search results ranking, and making your website visible to more people. It’s a virtuous circle that can have a great impact on your growth.

Make sure that the content is high in quality, though. Going in-depth with your articles and providing useful information about your niche will improve your SEO ranking and convert visitors to customers at the same time.

Leverage Reviews and Social Media

Anyone who’s ever bought anything online knows how important reviews can be. A quick and easy way to convert new customers is to show positive reviews and testimonials from your previous customers right on the pages of your website.

Also, consider using social media as a part of your advertising strategy. You can do this either by creating a profile for your business and regularly posting updates, or by signing up for Facebook and Google ads.

If you decide on the former, don’t be afraid to ask your followers for help. Adding a call to action to your social media updates will encourage your followers to share and promote your content, basically giving you free marketing space. Also, you can use smaller social media platforms such as The Dots or Profit.ly, where your competition is not likely to have a large presence.

Take Advantage of AI

We’ve already mentioned one of the possible uses of AI in hacking the growth of your company: using it to analyse which parts of your website attract the most visitors. However, the applications are limitless, from analysis and administration, to content generation and customer support.

One area where the use of AI can really benefit your business is customer support. Using software like chatbots can let a small business provide 24/7 support to their customers, without spending extra money on hiring support staff. This level of availability is sure to result in more conversions, and thus growth.

Give Away Free Upgrades (And Make Them Count)

It’s one thing to offer free signup bonuses or sales to prospective customers, but approaching free upgrades in a creative way can truly take your growth to the next level. A good example of a free upgrade scheme is Dropbox, where both the person referring and the new person signing up get upgraded storage space.

Make sure your free upgrades are a win-win company and they’ll become simply too good for potential customers to pass up.

Constantly Test and Tweak

All the techniques we described above are likely to have some influence on the growth of your business. However, this effect will vary on a case to case basis. If you only take one thing from this, let it be the fact that you need to constantly try out small-scale experiments like these. Test and tweak your marketing methods until you find the right ones to boost your growth.

Conclusion

Using the methods described above and remembering to focus on the big picture of growth is sure to take your business to the next level. Innovate, test, tweak, and in no time your business will grow faster than you ever thought possible.

Michael Deane is one of the editors of Qeedle, a small business magazine. When not blogging (or working), he can usually be spotted on the track, doing his laps, or with his nose deep in the latest John Grisham.

New Video: Ingham County Health Department – Issues on Housing

In this video for the Ingham County Health Department, we go into the economic and health issues concerning home ownership and rental properties.

For more information: http://hd.ingham.org/

Guest Post: No More Newsletters! Modern Methods to Keep Your Customers Updated On Your Business

With email open rates at 20% – 30%, businesses need to try more innovative ways to reach their customers. By using new advertising strategies and taking advantage of popular tech innovations, businesses are able to keep customers updated. Consider the following four ideas when trying to replace email marketing.

Use PPC Ads

When making the shift from using email newsletters to marketing through other avenues, businesses should use PPC or pay-per-click ads. This type of advertising allows businesses to purchase ads that will be listed within search engine results. When consumers search for relevant keywords, these PPC ads will show up alongside the regular search results. Businesses only pay for the percentage of ads that are clicked on.

Send SMS Updates

When it comes to SMS marketing, businesses can expect to see open rates as high as 98%. This incredibly high open rate means businesses are able to reach their audience much more effectively through text messages. With the help of SMS services for small business, companies are able to guarantee that more of their customers will open, read, and act on the information.

Use Social Media

With 3.49 billion people on social media, businesses that use social media marketing are able to expand their reach in ways they can’t with email marketing. By focusing their efforts on social media campaigns for Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and similar platforms, businesses are able to actively engage with interested users. With regular posts, DM’s, and sponsored ads, businesses are able to target their audience through all forms of social media.

Create a Business App

Most brands today are hopping on the trend of developing an app. While customers have to download and use the app, most brands find that having a mobile app helps to improve brand recognition, build customer loyalty, foster customer engagement, and stand out from the competition. When customers might otherwise not open an email after receiving a notification, many businesses find that customers are more likely to open a brand’s app after receiving a notification.

While still used in some circles, email marketing isn’t quite as effective as it used to be in the past. By turning to more effective marketing techniques, businesses no longer have to worry about how to entice their customers to open their emails. With PPC ads, SMS marketing, social media campaigns, and the use of mobile apps, businesses can improve the way they connect with their customers.

Meghan Belnap is a freelance writer who enjoys spending time with her family. She loves being in the outdoors and exploring new opportunities whenever they arise. Meghan finds happiness in researching new topics that help to expand her horizons. You can often find her buried in a good book or out looking for an adventure. You can connect with her on Facebook right here and Twitter right here.

Guest Post: Avoid these Common Facebook Ads Pitfalls

Facebook is one of the best platforms for growing your audience and driving conversions, but many businesses impact their results by making simple mistakes that are easy to avoid. Improving your approach to Facebook marketing will have a significant effect on your ROI.

If you’re not getting the Facebook marketing results you’re after, it might be time to reevaluate your strategies and change the way you approach the channel. These are some of the most common Facebook Ads errors that stop brands from achieving their goals.

Not Focusing on Conversions

Customer journey mapping is one of the hottest trends in digital marketing, and more and more businesses are beginning to look at conversions as a long-term goal. While it’s important to promote long-term engagement, making a sale should be your objective with every Facebook ad.

With that in mind, each ad should be developed to push readers toward making a purchase. Adding a lead to your contact list is a good secondary goal, but only because subscribers are more likely to buy something. It’s important to keep sales at the front of your mind in each Facebook marketing campaign.

Using the Wrong Statistics

Facebook offers more marketing analytics than any other platform, and these give you unparalleled insight into every piece of content. That said, it’s easy to get distracted by some of the less important numbers and lose sight of the ones that really matter to your business.

Taktical, a performance marketing agency, recommends looking beyond metrics such as reach or likes towards metrics like cost per conversion and cost per click. These tell you exactly what your money is getting with every campaign, and they make it easy to identify which ads need to be revised or replaced.

Sending the Same Ads to Your Entire Audience

Digital marketing used to be as simple as displaying the same ads on different channels, but that approach is now hopelessly outdated. The best marketers take full advantage of Facebook’s audience segmentation features to fine-tune audiences and personalize their content as much as possible.

Facebook allows you to build custom audiences using a wide range of data points including location, age, interests, and previous interactions with your brand. You can also develop lookalike audiences based on your existing leads, helping you identify others who might be interested in your products. Experiment with different custom audiences and see which ones fit your customer personae.

Effective Facebook marketing is crucial for any business, and improving your results is often as simple as making a few quick changes. These are some of the best places to start if you’re looking for ways to update your Facebook marketing practices for 2019.

Rae is a graduate of Tufts University with a combined International Relations and Chinese degree. After spending time living and working abroad in China, she returned to NYC to pursue her career and continue curating quality content. Rae is passionate about travel, food, and writing (of course).