Mediaboss Marketing

Newark, NJ (PRWEB) December 22, 2014

The New Jersey Small Business Development Centers (NJSBDC) networks E-Business Specialty Program announced the winners of the inaugural 2014 New Jersey Small Business Internet Marketing Week Pitch Competition. Eight entrepreneurs of the more than two dozen companies attending the seminar series were selected as finalists. Those small business owners and entrepreneurs attending the three day series gave five-minute elevator pitch presentations to a panel of judges including entrepreneurs, small business lenders, business management consultants and leadership from the New Jersey Small Business Development Centers network.

Internet Marketing Week focused on supporting small businesses including those affected by Hurricane Sandy. According to the events organizer, Sunny Kancherla, NJSBDCs Lead Consultant for the E-Business Specialty Program, this years Entrepreneur Pitch Competition participants were truly outstanding.

We were so impressed with this cohort of entrepreneurs that demonstrated thoughtful, innovative and realistic growth strategies based on what they learned during the conference, said Sunny Kancherla. Choosing the winners was incredibly difficult, but we managed to choose the top three candidates based on the quality of their presentations, their potential for growth and their overall digital strategy.

The expert industry judges who were carefully selected to oversee the winners of the pitch competition included Vincent Vicari (Director of the NJSBDC at Bergen Community College), Kevin Chu (Loan Program Manager at the Greater Newark Enterprises Corporation), Cheryl McCants (Principal at Impact Consulting), and Anthony Alvarez (Principal at Anthony Alvarez Photography).

The 2014 New Jersey Small Business Internet Marketing Week Pitch Competition winners are:

--2014 Most Innovative Pitch Winner -- Earlene Cruz of Seton Halls Stillman School of Business received the highest marks for innovation with her growing social entrepreneurship concept KitchenConnection.org Kitchen Connection is a platform that virtually connects individuals by two common interests: Food and cooking. A portion of the funds contributed to the Cheffies for their time goes toward the alleviation of global hunger through our international partner, Action Against Hunger, whose mission is to save lives by eliminating hunger through the prevention, detection and treatment of malnutrition, especially during and after emergency situations of conflict, war and natural disaster.

Our partners, chefs and culinary schools alike, are all over the world, but Kitchen Connection is not only for the professionals. Its for culinary enthusiasts everywhere. Why not share the meals we share with each other and with the rest of the world? Discover a new recipediscover a new culture. Sign up for free and get cooking today!

--2014 Best Overall Pitch Winner -- Sequoya Jones of Newarks Downtown Halsey Street district for her boutique fashion company Kali Kouture Inc. Jones growing company provides the ultimate trends of fashion at its best. As a passionate entrepreneur, Jones believes that Kali Kouture can satisfy every womans vision for couture fashion for any and every occasion. Kali Kouture promises a merchandise and shopping experience to last a lifetime at both at her cozy Dress Room Boutique and online at Kalikouture.com.

--2014 Best Growth Pitch WinnerLisa Kearney of the newly relocated K & S Tire Service in Hudson County, NJ. K & S is a family-owned business providing professional truck and tire repair services to the transportation industry. K & S Tire Service professionals have over forty years of experience in the trucking industry. The general business is tire repair on tractors, trailers and chassis for small to mid-size transportation companies and owners-operators. Their primary customers come from the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut tri-state area and Canada. In order to better service customers needs, the business offers road services, on-site repair services and fleet maintenance programs.

Continue reading here:
America's SBDC New Jersey Announces Small Business Winners During Its' Internet Marketing Week Pitch Competition

(PRWEB) December 22, 2014

GetUWired, an internet marketing firm that specializes in small businesses, has just released and educational blog titled "4 Affordable Small Business Marketing Tools Your Small Business Can't do Without" that lists the most effective low-cost marketing tools for small businesses. The blog can be seen here.

In the blog, the author states that small businesses rarely have the budget to spend money on ineffective but interesting marketing tools and suggests that they focus only on low-cost, high ROI marketing solutions that actually bring in customers instead of awards.

4 Affordable Small Business Marketing Tools for Small Businesses

1. A Professionally Designed Website

According to the blog, have a great website is imperative to the success of a small businesses. Customers expect a business to have a working website. Not having a website sends potential clients the message that the business isn't as professional as its competitors who do have a website.

A well-designed website also acts in the stead of the small business owner after hours of when the business of doing business keeps the business owner too busy to personally interact with every customer.

2. Automated email marketing

Affordable small business marketing tools such as Infusionsoft provide high ROI by allowing a small business to send out unlimited amounts of marketing emails for less than the price of one newspaper ad. Email marketing allows businesses to sniper-focus their marketing based on customer demographics, so each recipient receives messages that are custom-tailored to them,

Because of its repetitive nature, email marketing increases brand recognition and customer loyalty, the blog states.

Read more:
GetUWired Explores 4 Affordable Small Business Marketing Tools that Small Businesses Can't Do Without in New Blog

Integrating Quantitative And Qualitative Methods In Social Marketing Research

By: Top Marketing

Go here to read the rest:
Integrating Quantitative And Qualitative Methods In Social Marketing Research - Video

Summary:Oracle's Group VP of Social Cloud talks about the social enterprise, customers, CRM, and women in STEM.

Social and collaboration software have become deeply ingrained in the fabric of enterprise technology. Both small and large and enterprise vendors have incorporated social and collaboration tools into their products.

Oracle, of course one of the largest enterprise software vendors, has pulled together a suite of offerings collectively known as the Oracle Social Cloud. The suite includes products targeted to social monitoring and engagement, social marketing and campaigns, and internal collaboration.Meg Bear (Image courtesy of CXO-Talk)

To gain insight into collaboration and social software, I invited Oracle's Group Vice President for social software, Meg Bear, to be a guest on CXO-Talk. During the conversation, we spoke about a broad set of topics including the impact of social on organizations, the empowered consumer, and even women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math).

You can watch the entire 45-minute conversation and read an edited summary of her comments below.

We started with all of the component parts. Bringing all of the component parts together, putting them in with other things that we were already doing. Now, we are at the point where we can start imagining different outcomes as a result of those building blocks finally getting mature enough and available enough, and getting all of the right people involved.

I think you need to understand where your company's DNA is. Start with understanding what you are working with and where you want to go. But broadly, what I have seen work well is getting some successes on the board, building advocacy internally, and then growing out from there. The key is really defining some good and smart successes upfront, such that you can build on that momentum. In other words, if you build on successes early on that nobody cares about, the probability of other groups thinking it matters to them is very low.

First and foremost, be true to the culture of your organization. Be true to your identity but think about how transparency and the value of the global voice can be part of what you are. People think, "Well, you know I have to share everything." No, if that is not your corporate culture I don't think that is going to work; people will find that off-putting. If it is your corporate culture, you should be able to use the patterns that have been laid out there.

There is benefit for all companies to getting your employees more engaged, getting your ecosystem more engaged, getting your customers more engaged as part of your business plan. It gives you a competitive edge.

Do it in a way that is going to work for your business, because if you are just going through the motions everyone is going to know and it's not going to work. Think about where, within your personal corporate culture, can collaboration and sharing of information and working together give you the biggest benefit. Then think about what that means for your business plan and driving business results.

Read more here:
Oracle: Enterprise social must fit corporate culture

December 23, 2014

Tiffany, Hot Topic, and Macy's follow close behind for social marketing skills. Needing more polish are 7-Eleven, Guess, AutoZone, and Coach.

Social class in retail is not determined by category, price range, or brand reputation, according to a study of the social media habits of 80 leading retail brands conducted by Engagement Labs. Assessing them for engagement, impact, and responsiveness on a 100-point evalue scale--using a patented algorithm and a database of 50,000 brand accounts to weight retailers on the three KPIs--the social analytics company determined that the two most skillful social marketers in the category were Champ Sports (96) and Game Stop (95). Tying for third with identical scores of 89 were Tiffany, Hot Topic, and Macy's.

A similarly diverse group exhibited the least amount of social savvy, though 7-Eleven distinguished itself as the only store scoring in the teens (19). Along with the convenience-store chain in the ranking's basement were Guess (23), AutoZone (33), and Coach (35).

Other highlights from the annual rankings:

Continued here:
Champ Sports and Game Stop Are Retail's Leading Socialites