Do you have business intelligence?

What does Business Intelligence mean to you?  Smart entrepreneurs?  Accountants digging into your figures?  Expensive market research campaigns? Weighty analysis in the Financial Times?   NO! Business Intelligence is at your fingertips whatever size of enterprise you are running.  In this connected age, every business is online (whether they know it or not), and the…

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Why write a business plan? Mapping the new world.

Mapping the New World

“Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail”.  Advice that seems too slick and irrelevant when you are planning a new business.  The excitement of your idea is overwhelming, you know you’ve hit a winner, so why get bogged down in writing a plan?  Small businesses are reactive and cutting edge, aren’t they – and no-one knows…

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Why SMEs still value paid advertising – whatever eBay says

Paid Search

eBay put the cat among the pigeons last week when they published academic research on the effectiveness of paid advertising for their brand. Their results showed that “brand-keyword ads have no short-term benefits……resulting in average returns that are negative”.  By pulling their Google paid ads and analysing ‘before and after’ traffic, they concluded that organic…

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Is the recovery in the hands of small businesses online?

A report published this week estimates that only one third of small and medium-sized companies in the UK have a digital presence and only 14% sell their products and services online, missing out on the potential for billions of pounds more revenue. Global consultants Booz and Company concluded that by getting businesses online, and ensuring…

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Fireworks over Facebook’s Promoted Posts

Are businesses reaching the end of the ‘free online advertising’ road? Facebook business page owners are finding it harder to reach their audiences organically.  Once Facebook floated its business, this free platform was always going to have to find a way to make some money for its investors – and businesses are the obvious target.…

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