I read an interesting article on CMSWire today called In the Cloud, the Role of IT Changes.  The opening argument was that now most companies, large and small, outsource things like wiring, copier support, phone support and the other “crawl on the floor to connect wires” type of IT work.  Now that they are also starting to move applications away from their premise and to the cloud, what role is there for IT in a small or medium sized organization.

I agree with the conclusion that IT will not go away.   The activities that IT folks do will change from installing, supporting and monitoring applications in house to choosing and managing vendors and external applications and making sure any integration work.  IT resources will be aligned more tightly with the business and focus on how the business uses the software and how the software might be configured to be most efficient.

In fact, as technology becomes more strategic for companies, the IT roles becomes more strategic and less “cost of doing business”.  How can your business best leverage emerging technologies?  What is your level of risk in various circumstances and how can you mitigate that risk?  Are you signed up for the appropriate level of service for your company?  Have you negotiated the best possible deal?

The points in the article are all good but how does this apply to small business?  I think it leads to a number of questions that each business owner has to address:

• do I have the time and knowledge to make technology decisions?
• do I have the time and knowledge to choose, negotiate with and manage any number of vendors?
• do I have the time and knowledge to integrate the solutions my business needs?

  by  philcampbell 

I haven’t posted about the tools I use for my small business in a while, which is a shame because I use Mailchimp every month.  It is also a shame because Mailchimp is a local Atlanta company and I am all about supporting local businesses.

What is MailChimp?

So what is Mailchimp?  It is a super easy to use email publishing platform.  Most companies use it for email newsletters but you can use it to email anything from regular old letters to invitations and  coupons.

Easy to use

There 3 main activities to creating a newsletter:  creating your email list, creating the campaign and monitoring the results.

1. It is a breeze to import your contacts – directly if you use a CRM (customer relationship management system) that integrates with them, thru a CSV file if you don’t.  I use Batchbook so I just share the Mailchimp API with Batchbook and click a button and my contacts are moved over.   You can manage your contacts in Mailchimp but I highly recommend you do that in a CRM.  Hmm, sounds like a topic for another blog post.
2. Once you have a list created you can create campaigns from their templates or from scratch.  They have a ton of good-looking templates.  If you are familiar with Word or WordPress you’ll find them very simple to use (and pretty hard to break).
3. The provide great reporting about how many people opened the email, what and where they clicked, etc.  You can even access the reporting on your mobile device.  They provide you with a ton of information you can use to improve the quality of your campaigns.

More advanced features

They include a lot of advanced features beyond just sending email.

• They have integrations with Facebook, Youtube , Twitter and more so you can share your email campaign on almost every social network.
• They also integrate with events hubs like Facebook and Evenbrite so you can use those tools with Mailchimps great templates.
• They have a good reputation for avoiding spam.  What this means to you is that a high percentage of their emails get delivered.
• It is easy to integrate their forms into your website if you like.
• Finally, you can do fancy stuff like a/b split testing (two versions of an email to see which performs better)

Cost

If you have fewer than 2000 subscribers and send fewer than 12000 a month you can use Mailchimp for free.  Only catch is they put a small logo on the bottom of your email.  It is small and unobtrusive so I am ok with that. Here is what it looked like at the bottom of my last newsletter.   If you don’t want the logo or have a bigger subscriber base you can get a paid account.   Monthly plans start at $15 and are based on your number of subscribers.  You can also opt to pay as you go.

What is the best part?

I mentioned the CRM integrations earlier but the company has obviously made a conscious effort to be open – they integrate with a multitude of other applications.  They integrate with more than 20 CRM applications, more than 20 CMS (content management system) applications and more than 20 e-commerce applications.  They actually integrate with a lot more partners but I got tired of counting.  What does this mean to you?  It means that when you use Mailchimp for your email marketing you stand a great chance of having that data  (coming in and going out) integrate with something else you are already using or thinking about using.  In today’s world of cloud computing this is no small thing.  I also think it shows the right mindset – do what you do well and play nicely with others who do what they do well.  We could all learn something from that.

Didn’t get enough buzzwords last week?  Not to worry, I am here to fill the big gaping void in your week!  Here are more buzzwords that every small business owner should know.

Lets get started!

1. Business intelligence – CIO.com defines business intelligence or BI as “… an umbrella term that refers to a variety of software applications used to analyze an organization’s raw data”.  So what does that mean?   Generally it means going beyond straight transactional reporting to using data to  improve decision making, cut costs or identify new business opportunities.  It generally entails merging data from various sources and looking at data over time to identify trends, etc.  You use BI to answer questions like “who is my most profitable customer” or “which is my costliest route”.  I talked about BI in this post.
2. Cloud computing – there are lots of definitions but mine is this:  any computing resource that you use that isn’t on your desk or in your office.  For example, this blog is physically stored on a server that I think is in New Mexico.  Heck, I am not entirely sure where it is.  Where it is NOT is in Dunwoody, GA – hence it is in the cloud.  If you use Gmail, Evernote, Dropbox or any other software as a service (SaaS – another good buzzword) program you are “in the cloud”.  You can read more about the cloud here and here.
3. CRM – stands for customer relationship management.   It is a business function, usually supported by technology, designed to improve interactions with customers.   It allows a business to, in one place, keep track of interactions and communications with a customer like inquiries, complaints, phone calls, emails, and transactions.  It can help marketing, sales and customer service stay on the same page when dealing with customers and prospects.   I wrote a few posts about CRM you can read here and here.  If you go beyond traditional CRM that and start to keep track of a customer’s online behaviors thru social media like Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn and the like you are dabbling in Social CRM (see, another free buzzword for the price of one!).  There is a great article that describes social CRM here.
4. ERP – is the acronym for enterprise resource planning and it refers to an integrated system that manages most of the business functions of an organization.  It can include finance and accounting, HR, supply chain management, project management, CRM and more.  ERP solutions for small businesses include NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics and a plethora of smaller niche applications.  There are so many choices it can be confusing – Laurie McCabe has a good article on how to choose the right business applications.

What does all this mean?

All of these buzzwords should be in your technology plan – if you aren’t using them now you will want to use them in the near future.  If you aren’t sure how to get started or don’t even have a technology plan, get help.  These are all tools to help your business grow and be effective.  And who doesn’t want that?

  by  revbean