By Steve Lubahn, Vice President of Client Marketing Services at Vision Design Group, Winona, MN

It’s that time of year again, to look back on how we’ve spent a year in anticipation for improving our businesses in the year ahead.

Working closely with more than 250 businesses at our marketing firm, Vision Design Group, I looked back at 2012 to find five key marketing trends that can help direct your marketing efforts in the coming year:

• Continued shift of traditional print and advertising budget to digital marketing. Many clients now have digital marketing budgets that exceed 50% of their total marketing budget.
• Website redesigns are becoming more frequent. Where businesses once updated their website every 5-7 years, they’re now finding it necessary to update every 3-5 years to keep up with online trends, updated information and implement new technology to serve their customers. Remember when we used to come out with a new brochure every six months, or an annual catalog? The ability to make on-demand changes to your website comes with the responsibility to deliver a website that keeps pace with changes in your product and service offerings, as well as changes in internet technology.
• Major increase in requests for mobile optimized websites. Most of our clients are now seeing mobile traffic ranging from 10% to over 30% of their total website visits. It’s no longer optional to consider both the tablet and smartphone device user experience on your website. If you are updating your website, strongly consider a responsive design that will adjust the page layout based on the size of the display, from desktop PC to tablet to smartphone. (See the article Do I Need A Mobile App for My Business? for examples of several types of mobile website optimization.)
• Sharp increase in the number of clients using paid search.Clients who implement cost per click (CPC) paid search advertising on Google and other search engines are typically seeing increase of 5% to over 70% in website traffic. In addition, paid search traffic often results in conversion rates higher than website traffic sources.
• Increase in commercial photography. Companies are choosing higher quality photography not just for printed materials, but also to improve their internet presence. Fewer websites use stock photos and now favor real-life images of company-related people and settings.

Based on this ongoing migration from traditional media to internet-delivered media, how can you cost-effectively improve your digital marketing efforts in 2013? Here are a few ideas that you can implement quickly to improve the performance of your website and increase sales leads.

4 Tips for Cost-effective Digital Marketing in 2013

• Claim and optimize your Google+ Local listing. Google and other search engines are placing a heavy emphasis on local search. If you haven’t already, claim your Google+ Local (previously Google Places) listing. It’s a free and simple action you can take immediately. If you have multiple locations or branches, optimize the listing for each location. Once you claim your listing, add keywords related to your business and services to improve your search rankings. You can also customize your listing with your logo, images, business hours and products and services. Also consider claiming and updating your listings on Bing Local, LinkedIn, Manta and other popular business directories.
• Spend more time on email marketing. Though not as glitzy as social media and other newer forms of digital marketing, email marketing to a solid in-house list continues to be one of the most cost-effective means of communicating with and selling to your customer base. Experiment with frequency and the call to action. A good mailing list can maintain open rates of 20%-30%, and many of our e-commerce clients enjoy an increase in orders after every email they send. Be sure to clean out bounced or abandoned emails to improve your email deliverability rates. For more information on email marketing trends, advantages, and tips, see our blog post Email - still your most effective marketing media.
• Improve your website’s organic search results. If you want to improve your organic search engine optimization (SEO), start with making sure your page titles are unique on each page, and align with target keyword phrases on each page. For best results, try to limit page titles to about 70 characters maximum, and page descriptions to about 125 characters. Most search engines place little or no weight on the keyword metatags, so do not spend much time trying to tweak your keyword metatag. Looking for ideas on what keywords to focus on? Review your Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools reports for keywords and phrases that are currently driving traffic to your website, and focus on those that are resulting in orders or other forms of conversion.
• Consider adding live chat to your website. For anyone over 40, it is hard to image the need for live chat on a website. If you have high school or college age children, you know their cell phones are rarely used for voice communication, but they use them constantly for texting and sending messages via social media. Many businesses are finding implementation of live chat increases their ability to interact with potential customers, particularly those in younger generations. Live chat can also improve your customer service with more timely interaction and can often reduce the time per support case for your customer service staff. Live chat is quick and cost-effective to implement; for instance, a platform called SnapEngage can be implemented with up to four customer service agents at less than $50 per month. For more information on Live Chat, see the Vision Design Group blog article Use Live Chat To Increase Leads and Customer Interaction.

Steve Lubahn is Vice President of Client Marketing Services at Vision Design Group in Winona, Minnesota. Please visit their Web site at www.visiondesign.com. Contact Steve by phone at 507-453-0767, or by email at slubahn@visiondesign.com.

By Stephanie Elsen

If you are in business, you know that it is important to understand how your business is performing. In order to do that, you need some way to keep track of and interpret the numbers that go along with your business. This is where accounting and financial management come into play. Accounting tools can be used to measure and interpret the financial progress of your business. They can also help you communicate the status of your business to important third parties, such as banks and the government. Here are some of the benefits of accounting and financial management.

No more guessing. By maintaining an accounting system, you can improve your odds of making the right decision for your business. While the information alone is not the only factor to consider, it does provide one very important piece of the puzzle in your decision making process. Good accounting records show you where you stand financially, so you won’t have to guess at what your financial position is.

Make better decisions. Accounting plays an important role by giving us a means of communicating the financial part of a business to others. The most crucial function of any accounting system is to provide real data, by which managers and owners can base their decisions. Having numerical facts greatly helps in making profitable decisions for your business. And while the accounting information gathered does not guarantee a good decision, it does greatly improve your chances of making the best decision possible.

Solve problems. Accounting systems provide reports that help you analyze the profitability and performance of your business. Not only can an accounting system help you make decisions, but it can also help you find areas of your business that need to be improved. Once you are able to identify trouble areas, you can focus on improving them.

Track complex information. If your business requires any loans, the lending institution will likely require financial reports to understand the net income and net worth of your business. They may also want to evaluate your financial statements periodically to monitor your ability to repay the loan. Providing this kind of information is next to impossible without business accounting software that can provide financial statements.

Good accounting records show where your business stands financially. Use every advantage available to your business to improve and enhance its performance. Implement and maintain your accounting and financial management system, and your business will be on its way to financial success!

By Stephanie Elsen

Are you searching for a payroll solution to handle your company’s growing needs? If so, you are not alone! We talk to businesses every single day who are seeking a better way to manage their payroll processes and tax filing. About 380 people each day search the internet with the term ‘payroll software’. That’s a lot of searches! So how do you know if you’ve come to the right place? Consider these figures about those who benefit from our payroll software.

• About 33% have outgrown their basic payroll software. Perhaps your system has hit its limit on number of employees or years of history? Maybe you got new computers and the old software system you are using won’t work with them, or you are losing support for an older system. We talk to people every day with these issues, and our newer technology and no cap on number of employees, years of history, and other data can help tremendously!
• About 27% need specific features to accommodate their business needs. Whether it’s the management of payroll in multiple states, pay by piece rate, different pay types for an employee during the same pay period, or MANY more features, CenterPoint Payroll Software can fulfill those needs! If you have a specific feature that is missing from your current payroll software, just ask us. There is a good chance CenterPoint can handle it and make your life so much easier!
• 27% are new businesses. Whether your business is small or large or in between, it is special and can have unique payroll needs. Restaurants need a system to help manage employee tips, farms may need to manage piece rate for the picking of produce, and accountants need to manage after the fact payroll. All of these (and many more) are important features yet can typically not be managed with basic payroll software. That’s why so many new businesses start out with CenterPoint Payroll Software.
• 13% or so are cutting costs or bringing their payroll back in-house. Using a payroll service is popular and those who like it should stay with it! But for those wishing to bring their payroll back in house, CenterPoint is an excellent option. Some companies want to save money, and some want to gain control of their payroll. If you would like to check into those options, be sure to keep CenterPoint Payroll Software on your list of options.

Red Wing Software and CenterPoint Payroll Software help thousands of businesses manage their payroll efficiently and for less money. To see if we have a good fit for you, please call 800-732-9464 or e-mail: info@redwingsoftware.com.

By Stephanie Elsen

If you are looking for accounting software and you came across our site, you might be wondering where CenterPoint Accounting Software and Red Wing Software fit into the scheme of accounting software programs.

There are so many accounting software companies out there; it can be hard to tell the difference between them all. To give you a good idea of who we are, consider these statistics about the people who are benefiting from our software.

• 37% have outgrown their basic accounting software. People who started with a basic or “shelf” accounting software find that their business has outgrown the basic software’s capabilities. Perhaps they are entering too many transactions or inventory items, or the system is getting bogged down by too much stored history. This group also includes those who are using old, outdated systems for which they are losing support or the software cannot operate on newer computers they are purchasing. CenterPoint Accounting Software is a mid-market program and works very well as an option for those outgrowing their basic accounting software!
• About 26% need better financial reports or specific software features to handle their company’s needs.People who desire better financial reporting account for a large percentage of new customers! Tracking information by department or profit center, drilling down to source entries, and a tight audit trail are all important considerations for a growing business. CenterPoint Accounting Software performs these functions very well. Many specific software features are also handled in CenterPoint. Managing multiple companies & consolidated reporting, managing multiple units of measure, and the ability to create custom reports are just a few of the features that can be handled within CenterPoint.
• 20% are new businesses.Not everybody wants to start out with a basic shelf accounting software program. Those who understand the importance of good financial management and those with more complex needs at the start of their business turn to CenterPoint Accounting Software.
• 17% are cutting costs or bringing the accounting back in-house. People who find themselves paying for and using a system that is way more functionality than they need often find that CenterPoint can handle what they need, and for significantly less money. People who are also trying to cut costs and gain control by bringing their accounting back in-house also find CenterPoint to be a great option.

Red Wing Software and CenterPoint Accounting Software have helped thousands of accounting software users manage their financial information. Contact us today to see how we can help you by calling 800-732-9464 or e-mailing info@redwingsoftware.com.

By Stephanie Elsen

If you sell anything online, this article will be of interest to you! These new bills can drastically affect the tax you collect.

http://blog.avalara.com/2012/08/15/online-sales-tax-legislation-comparison-of-three-pending-bills/